Aug 11, 2018
A Year After Charlottesville, White Identity Extremism Still Reigns Supreme
This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the violent surge of white nationalists into the city of Charlottesville for the now infamous “Unite the Right” rally. Well beyond the ideological tensions furthered by the rally itself, dozens were injured and a woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when 20-year old white supremacist James Alex Fields drove his car into a crowd of anti-racism activists. Still, a year later questions regarding what, if anything, has changed with regard to the nation’s racial climate remain.
Two months after Charlottesville, a leaked FBI report dated August 2017 disclosed the Bureau’s invention of the “Black Identity Extremist” (BIE) designation. According to the Bureau, the designation broadly describes individuals motivated separatist ideologies and the desire for independent Black communities, social institutions, and governance structures separate from the U.S. government. Additionally, the BIE designation includes those reportedly targeting law enforcement in response to perceived racism in American society and in retaliation for perceived incidents of police brutality. A related designation first emerged in a 2016 intelligence bulletin in which “Black Separatist Extremists” were identified. However, both come largely as a derivative of the Bureau’s earlier concept of sovereign citizen extremists, or those who “openly reject their US citizenship status, believe that most forms of established government, authority, and institutions are illegitimate, and seek, wholly or in part, through unlawful acts of force or violence, to further their claim to be immune from government authority.”
But, according to the same FBI report in which so-called B.I.E. activities were largely derived from law enforcement investigations and open-source reporting (i.e., media interviews, social media posts, and news articles), only six incidents had transpired between 2014 and 2016. Most notably cited were the insurrection in Ferguson, Missouri following the killing of Michael Brown and the 2016 shooting of police officers in Dallas. This, despite the overwhelming evidence and innumerable reports of extremist violence undertaken by white nationalist groups annually. For example, data collected and analyzed by the the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which it published in a report released this past January, indicate more than 50-percent of all extremist-related U.S. deaths in 2017 were the result of white supremacists, doubling the number from the year prior. Even further, the Bureau’s own data has shown a steady decline in intentional police killings in recent years, thus undermining its entire position and the “war on police” misnomer.
However, these statistical realities did not prevent armed FBI agents from breaking down the door of a 34-year old activist and father, Rakem Balogun, last December. Having been unknowingly surveilled by agents investigating “domestic terrorism” for nearly two years, Balogun was reportedly arrested on the basis of a video of him at a protest in Austin, Texas, made public by the infamous right-wing news site Infowars and his social media posts criticizing police. This provided federal prosecutors the frame necessary to consider Balogun as a “credible threat” to law enforcement, which then led to him becoming the first to be targeted and brought to trial under the BIE terrorist banner. Thankfully, the prosecution ultimately failed to convict Balogun despite already having spent five months in jail.
All of this points to an ongoing lack of judicial integrity and intention by the federal government and law enforcement agencies to honor its obligation to Black public safety. What is more, it indicates the ongoing, unswerving and intractable commitment of public servants to excuse and dismiss the real culprit of violence in America: White Identity Extremism. And, to be precise, White Identity Extremism as anti-Black violence is among the greatest and longstanding of American fetishes. This nation has long-derived perverse pleasure at the expense of Black suffering, without apology or reparation.
That said, such extremism has all but slowed in 2018. As recent as a few weeks ago, Nia Wilson, a Black woman just trying to make it home with her sister, was brutally killed at a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station in Oakland by a man known to have white nationalist ties. And, in Clearwater, Florida, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department recently announced its decision to forego the arrest of Michael Drejka, who is white, in the shooting death of Markeis McGlockton in a gas station parking lot. According to eye-witness reports, Drejka was harassing Brittany Jacobs, McGlockton’s girlfriend, regarding a handicap parking spot in which they had parked momentarily while Markeis went inside the gas station. Coming to her defense, McGlockton pushed Drejka who in-turn drew his weapon and shot the Black father of three in the chest, dying shortly after on the scene. The Sherrif’s Office cited Florida’s extremely controversial “Stand Your Ground” law as justification for not pursuing Drejka, who claimed he felt his life was imminent life in danger despite being the aggressor. While the State Attorney’s Office will have the final decision on whether to charge Drejka, Florida’s history with Stand Your Ground cases has remained disproportionally detrimental to the service of legal justice when the shooter is white and the victim is Black. To round things off, it was recently revealed that the Chicago Police Department had been using a “bait truck” full of shoes in the Englewood neighborhood to lure and entrap Black youth the commission of theft.
These are but a few examples of how White Identity Extremism as interrelated forms of violence continue to be perpetuated by both anti-Black individuals and institutions of structural and social power. And, although many would like to think such extremism serves only the interests of a small anomaly of the white American public, recently published research from UVa’s Institute for Family Studies suggests there is much broader philosophical and political alignment with the white supremacy. With regard to Charlottesville a year ago, we need not look further than this weekend’s planned reunion for another “Unite the Right” rally in Washington D.C. But of course, where better to take up and further the cause of white extremism than its political pinnacle? As Black and Brown families continue to be separated — their bodies destroyed, detained, and incarcerated — the coalition of the current White House administration and the morally bankrupt cadre of legislators has made clear whose lives matter. To be sure, it is not (and has never been) ours.
