It’s Time To Get Serious About White Nationalism As White People
Dear White Friends and Allies,
White nationalists, neo-confederates, neo-Nazis, the KKK, the “alt-right” and other bigoted groups are well organized and serious about their push to destabilize the democratic process through intimidation and false claims of “voter fraud,” incite violence against marginalized people, and enact legislation to destroy the bare bones civil rights protections that have attempted to protect marginalized groups for the last 50 years.
We must take this threat seriously and educate ourselves and others about the history of white nationalism, white terrorism, and white supremacy in the United States. People of color, trans people, poor people, queer people, and disabled people have been calling for our help for decades, and if you’re new to this work, there’s a lot to learn, but we cannot choose to be silent or ignorant of these systems anymore.
Starting in the early 2000s, white nationalists and other white-focused groups with racist ideology have been on an intentional mission to shift the Overton Window (more info) of what is considered acceptable political opinion and worthy of social debate in the United States. For years, their opinions were considered laughable, ridiculous, and unworthy of political consideration. That perception began to change after the financial collapse in 2007 and onward.
Angry people were scrambling for anyone and anything they could blame, other than holding powerful billionaires accountable for their recklessness and greed. Many of them found the xenophobic, violent, and conveniently re-branded hatred of “white identity politics”, “alt-right” or White Nationalism.
This process ramped up even more when the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, and dozens of other high-profile police and civilian murders of black people created and galvanized the #blacklivesmatter movement.
White people began to counter online and in person with “white lives matter” and “all lives matter.” White people in white communities with white families and white schools were unable to comprehend why black people were protesting a world that, to them, seemed safe and comfortable.
White people were unable to understand that the stakes for people of color were truly life and death in a country where whites assumed that marginalized groups had been “protected” by law for 50 years, but without understanding that law doesn’t necessarily mean being protected in practice, especially without systems of accountability.
White people across the country seemed baffled that people of color would be upset at indiscriminate murder from police and vigilantes for petty crimes, or no crime at all, and unmoved by the lack of accountability for a so-called “justice system” where individual police officers served as judge, jury, and executioner for black and brown people.
In response to calls for solidarity and allyship from #blacklivesmatter, many white people scrambled instead for any criminal record, any wrongdoing, any ambiguity, and any alternative explanation they could cling to in order to justify the murder of innocent people and avoid the much more difficult work of dismantling white supremacy and holding police accountable for violence.
White people who did understand the pain of marginalized groups, or at least claimed to understand as a part of their political image, still refused to speak out in support of racial justice and chose not to denounce police violence, racism, and bigotry in their own families, their own workplaces, their own schools, their own friend groups, and anywhere else they would be socially punished for speaking out against white supremacy and being transparent about the toxicity of white culture.
Then we, as a country, elected a man who was taking these fringe, white nationalist talking points and saying them in public, repackaged in his own brand of self-centered victim-mentality and bullshit manipulative language.
These white extremist groups saw the election of Donald Trump, and the continued inability of marginalized groups to convince centrists of both parties and government representatives of their suffering and injustice, as an opportunity to seize the social and political power they have been building behind the scenes for decades.
In that context, I need you to understand that the recent video of a White Nationalist crying (here is an article about it) after being informed there’s potentially a warrant for his arrest regarding his actions in Charlottesville is an effort to play you.
White nationalists and “alt-right” media organizers are trying to manipulate people, especially uncomfortable white people, into believing their narrative of white victimhood and “free speech” absolutism without the relevant context for why marginalized people and their allies resisted the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.
They know what they are doing. They knew it would run on national news. They knew it would be all over your Facebook and Twitter feed. They knew you’d see it on every blog and news media website (left or right leaning) today. They knew you’d either laugh it off and forget about it or maybe even feel a little bad for him and move a little closer toward inaction against fascism and white nationalism.
Don’t take the bait.
Your choices matter. What you choose to share or not share matters. What you say or don’t say in moments like this is very important.
Don’t spread the video for a cheap laugh, spread the calls from Charlottesville organizers on the ground instead (https://medium.com/@solidaritycville/charlottesville-organizers-ask-you-to-take-these-8-actions-b50ec8c3cfbb)
Don’t share the video so you can show your friends how hilarious and non-threatening white nationalism is, share this instead to show how angry, organized, and entrenched in hatred they are (https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror)
Don’t share the video just because it’s the only thing that feels “safe” enough to post in a hostile time for political conversations about race, racism, and domestic terrorism, share this instead: https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/14/13576192/alt-right-sexism-recruitment
or this https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/magazine/white-debt.html
Don’t share the video as a way to feel like you’ve accomplished speaking out on white nationalist violence and terrorism of people of color, especially if you still haven’t said anything else since the events in Charlottesville about white people, whiteness, or the other systems that protect violent white extremist and terrorist groups from being held accountable for the violence they incite, share this instead: https://onbeing.org/blog/transforming-white-fragility-into-courageous-imperfection/7701/
or this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amelia-shroyer/white-fragility-is-racial_b_8151054.html
or this https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/white-fragility-and-the-rules-of-engagement-twlm/
or this https://medium.com/thsppl/i-racist-538512462265
or this http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/race-and-the-free-speech-diversion
or this https://www.buzzfeed.com/amandachicagolewis/americas-white-only-weed-boom
or LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE discussing the history and impact of racism, racist violence, white terrorism, white nationalism, and white supremacy instead of sharing a video of a White Supremacist crying, especially if you are shaming him for showing emotion, being “a pussy” and being “weak” instead of shaming him for his vile views on race, Jewish people, and white power.
YOU may be sharing the video because you think it’s funny, but in doing so, you may also bring it to people who never knew his name, never knew his website, never knew his mission, and never knew his ideology, and who now has a little more sympathy for a violent, aggressive, hateful person’s “free speech” to call for a white-only ethno state and his plan to terrorize people of color in order to make it happen.
These groups are well organized. These groups are well-funded. These groups are intentionally hiding their violent desires in your arguments of free speech and protection of free assembly for hate speech. These groups are manipulating you to be their megaphone.
These groups are serious about seizing power and if we do not take them seriously, learn about their history seriously, debunk their talking points seriously, and organize against them seriously, they will succeed.
Inaction is a choice. Silence is a choice. There is no such thing as “staying out of politics” or being neutral when basic human rights and marginalized lives are on the line.
Signed,
A Fellow White Person
Sara is the host of the Queer Sex Ed Podcast. You can learn more about her work and listen to the show at www.queersexed.org or on any podcast app. You can also follow QSE on Facebook at www.facebook.com/QueerS3xEd and on Twitter @QSEpodcast. If this article has enriched your life, and you would like to support the continuing work of QSE to educate and create queer, intersectional spaces for conversations about sex and sexuality, please consider joining our Patreon community at www.patreon.com/QueerSexEd.
