Overt, Covert, and Clandestine. What’s the Difference?

And how does this relate to White Supremacy?

Proud Boys use their white supremacy hand gesture, which is something often used with a very weak plausible deniability argument. The action of signaling white supremacy, in this case, is overt, but those committing the act think this is clandestine. Common parlance calls this “dog-whistling.” Washington, D.C. 12 Dec 2020 / Photo Credit: Johnny Silvercloud

Covert, Overt, and Clandestine Operations

It seems many people do not know the difference between these three. In this column, I’m going to attempt to make these three concepts easy to understand. I’m going to explain what they are, then give an example of a mission or program that fits, and then I’m going to explain why this is important to know concerning civil rights struggle, racism, and white supremacy.

The easiest way to determine the difference is to think of what the effects are and who is responsible for that mission or program that caused those effects.

Overt

The first one is easy; Overt means open and done in plain sight. Anything that’s perfectly obvious done brazenly in plain view without any hiding or pretense is an overt operation. Overt seems to come from the French word ouvert, meaning “open.” Overt is open and observable, explicit, not secret or hidden. Overtly is the adverb version of the word.

An example of this would be an Army blazing across a desert to seize Saddam Hussein and the government of Iraq after a president decided to send troops to war. Another example would be to send Mechanized Infantry…