“Nice, decent folks”
“The first time I noticed an ethnographer’s shock and confusion over nice white supremacists, I thought it was a fluke. But after I read the performed shock and confusion again and again, I began to wonder what the hell was going on. The juxtaposition between decency and white supremacy was frankly bizarre. It was almost as if these ethnographers imagined that white supremacists would be just like their pop culture counterparts: ignorant, aggressive, mean, and oh-so-easily-identifiable with swastika tattoos and Klan robes peaking out of their closets. Pop culture obscures the heartbreaking ordinariness of member of white supremacist organizations. They look like other white people. They speak like other white people. They act like other white people…
What I realized was how tired I am of hearing how “nice” and “decent” the people are who voted for Trump. I’m so damn tired of this particular excuse because so-called nice and decent white voters put bigotry in office. “Nice” and “decent” don’t necessarily negate racism. Klan members can seem nice and still be racist. And “nice” and “decent” is often only extended by white people to other white people. This is pretty much only a shock to white people.”
