I’ve blogged on that atavistic balance between curiosity and self-preservation. Why elements that are obviously different introduced into an environment – the “unknown” if you will – are not openly and immediately embraced by the animal-incumbents in that environment. Animals in the wild are born with self-preserving skepticism, but as you move up the evolutionary scale – assuming you believe in evolution – you can see how that “fear of the unknown” morphs into intellectual curiosity and more. Societies with strong notions of morality likewise embrace openness versus exclusion, and notwithstanding a misplaced reliance on “White Protestant Christianity” by too many white supremacists, one of the major themes of the New Testament is combination of inclusion, compassion and brotherly love… not surprising for a religion that was literally born in a region filled with “people of color.”
Racism is born of insecurity, often passed down from generation to generation, but never comes from a healthy place. But it continues to exist today in numbers that should concern us all. Even “liberal” and seemingly “enlightened” historical figures we generally admire have suffered from its ugly embrace. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, a Princeton scholar and architect of the League of Nations, led our nation during World War I… but was historically a horrific racist. He actively pushed black Americans out of their hard-won Civil Service positions and quietly envisioned a White Christian world – particularly a united Europe and the United States – uniting against the growing “yellow menace” rising in Asia. Racism was not only an accepted part of our cultural reality, reinforced by Jim Crow laws designed to contain blacks. As the disruptive violence from Ferguson, Missouri to the debacle in Charlottesville, Virginia prove, racism is alive and well across the land. The Civil Rights movement began in the 1960s… but we are not over that “beginning” yet.
Racism may exist in communities of traditional white Americans watching their livelihoods wither away and globalization and change challenge their long-standing way of life. They see “foreigners” taking their jobs away and violent protests from minority communities, their cultural icons labeled un-American (and by reference, their way of life), and they are severely threatened, longing for scapegoats to blame. But others, very much like Woodrow Wilson, are intellectual racists, believing to their core that their way of life is vastly superior, that they should rule to the exclusion of others.
Our prison system has become a racism accelerant. With stunning uniformity, men’s prisons and jails are highly segregated along the lines of gang affiliation and race. For too many white inmates without a hint of racial bias, they are forced to seek “protection” against well-organized Hispanic and black gangs by affiliating with white extremist gangs, the most powerful of which has to be the Aryan Brotherhood in its many incarnations and approved lesser organizations.
“The Aryan Brotherhood, also known as the Brand, or the AB, is a white supremacist prison gang and organized crime syndicate in the United States with about 10,000 members in and out of prison. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the gang makes up less than 0.1% of the prison population, but it is responsible for between 18-25% of murders in the federal prison system. The AB has focused on the economic activities typical of organized crime entities, particularly drug trafficking, extortion, inmate prostitution, and murder-for-hire.
“Organization of whites only at lower levels varies from prison to prison. For example, in the Arizona prison system, members are known as ‘kindred’ and organize into ‘families’. A ‘council’ controls the families. Kindred may recruit other members, known as ‘progeny’, and serve as a mentor for the new recruits. The group has an alliance with La Eme (the Mexican Mafia) as the two are mutual enemies of Black Guerrilla Family.
“Like most prison gangs, Aryan Brotherhood members mark themselves with distinctive tattoos. Designs commonly include the words ‘Aryan Brotherhood’, ‘AB’, ‘666’, Nazi symbolism such as SS, sig runes, and swastikas, as well as shamrocks and Celtic iconography…
“Until the 1960s, most prisons in the United States were racially segregated. As prisons began to desegregate, many inmates organized along racial lines. The Aryan Brotherhood is believed to have been formed at San Quentin State Prison, but it may have been derived from or inspired by the Bluebird Gang. They decided to strike against the blacks who were forming their own militant group called the Black Guerrilla Family.” Wikipedia. Simply, the more you incarcerate, the more you extend and countenance racism.
The trappings of traditional white supremacy are heavily reliant on the trappings of history. Despite the claims of preserving history veracity, the Confederate flag and associated monuments are high on that list… as are KKK robes and Nazi symbols. And the misuse of the Christian cross. The use of these symbols are intended to legitimize, intimidate, empower and foment racial hatred, and, ultimately, to terrorize. They frequently identify with militias and often carry torches, guns, batons and shields in their protest movement. Their adherents jump on any bandwagon that supports any element of their “cause,” or fails to single them out, as evidence of what they misperceive as their growing legitimacy.
They are overjoyed at Donald Trump’s immigration policy and the rise of evangelical power over the scientific Washington bureaucratic gurus. They love Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ rather clear statement pulling back federal investigations of local police forces with seriously bad race relations and a reinforcement of “law and order” (now alt-right buzzwords) priorities – viewed by these extremists as the antithesis of “supporting civil rights” that marked prior political regimes. They cheer as the Trump administration embraces a further opening-up of guns in society, which they see as supporting an ultimate race war that will return control of the United States to the white traditionalists who began their tenure running this nation as slave owners. That the Justice Department is “opening” a “domestic terrorism” investigation has been met with a white nationalist shrug… and the President certainly avoided applying that label to the Charlottesville assault.
If you read their websites, listen to their statements, and look at their use of social media, you can see how overjoyed white nationalists are at how Donald Trump – notwithstanding subsequent “clarifications from administration officials” – equally blamed the white supremacist protestors and the counter-protestors for the Charlottesville violence. “… on many sides, on many sides.” That after an opening statement about the economy on August 14th, Donald Trump finally chastised as “repugnant” the white supremacist movements by name, days later, is clearly viewed by those extremists as his bowing, reluctantly, to pressure from many, including his own party. But – wink, wink – the extremists already knew where he really stood, and that’s what mattered. They are immutably part of Trump’s ultimately-loyal base, supporters who will remain with him through thick and thin. And The Donald knows that reality, rewarding their fierce loyalty with a “wink, wink” acceptance of their movement.
But we also know that racism can be unlearned. Charlottesville, once a hotbed of racism, is a very good case in point. While most of the white supremacists came from elsewhere, the majority of the counter-protestors were local. It was the local community that was removing the statue of Confederal General Robert E. Lee. Obviously, we can also legitimize racism with “wink, wink” messaging, avoiding direct condemnation until “forced to do so,” and pulling the rug out from under programs and prosecutions aimed at enhancing “equality under the law.” The President has already set the moral low ground for his rather unsubtle “you know what I said” approach to this volatile situation. Republicans and Democrats alike criticized Donald Trump’s tepid response to the horror.
Did Donald Trump need that extra time to criticize racism? When Merck & Co Inc Chief Executive Kenneth Frazier, himself anAfrican-American, resigned from U.S. President Donald Trump's American Manufacturing Council on the morning August 14th, it took Donald Trump about an hour to tweet a classic Trump put-down in response: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” It seems clear to me that Donald Trump was not happy that he had to add moral clarity to his earlier statements, an additional specific condemnation against the white nationalist in Charlottesville. Clearly, there is a powerful lack of moral leadership in the White House. I suspect that the President’s followers will think he has said enough. But look carefully at the litany of criticisms and the timing of the statements as they evolved. Not credible. s
But there’s an even bigger point for the rest of us. While in a moral nation, there are not two sides to racial hatred and concomitant violence, the question arises as to whether we are giving white supremacists, including well-armed white militias, Klan members and neo-Nazis, a platform for their cause, presenting strong visuals about “traditional Christian whites taking action” – creating the same kind of luring propaganda that attracted ordinary people to fight for ISIS – making these white extremists a part of the conversation about racial problems in our country. Do they belong in this conversation or should our discussion refocus on the more day-to-day vestiges of racial disharmony that are spread much more widely than these edgy extremes? Shouldn’t we continue to contain their toxicity but marginalize their inclusion in the real racial conversation that must take place across America?
I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder exactly how much we should focus on these bastions of domestic terrorism as opposed to discussing how racism otherwise permeates so many other aspects of contemporary American life.
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