Our country’s entire social, political, and economic system is built off of the promise that poor and working class whites would always get more than everyone else — that they deserved more than everyone else. When the profits of white supremacy prove to be meager, because capitalism will always send the spoils to the top few, the anger of being cheated out of their just rewards is easily funneled into racist hate.
Further, today’s white supremacy has, as it always has, deep roots in this country’s hatred of non-white people — especially black Americans. It is important to remember that it was the fear of the rise of black Americans after the election of Obama that started the rise of violent white supremacy we are seeing today. Much of the recruitment points into this latest incarnation of white supremacy are the same as they…
…s after the election of Obama that started the rise of violent white supremacy we are seeing today. Much of the recruitment points into this latest incarnation of white supremacy are the same as they have always been: the fear of the black brute coming for white women, “black-on-black crime,” the fear of white erasure and the devaluation of the white male through miscegenation, the fear of the loss of status, power, and resources to “inferior” blacks.