If you do some browsing on the Internet of “White Power” websites, you’d think that there were millions of members of these groups out there. There are so many of these websites, a lot of them with links to a thousand other websites, and featuring stuff like apparel, racist rock music and other hate paraphernalia.
What I’ve heard from other people, though, is that the advent of the Internet has allowed a lot of disenfranchised youth to set up websites with the appearance of being something tangible and powerful (and therefore there aren’t nearly as many white power groups or thugs out there as you’d think.) In short, the idea is that the majority of the White Power internet sites are just that: web pages without real manpower or force backing them up.
I have been to dozens of cities around the country. I have never seen open chapters of White Power groups. I have never seen skinhead thugs (and yes I know that not all skins are racist or connected to hate) or tattoed goons in swastika T-shirts walking around on the street. When I read about White Power groups in trouble in the news I see frail-looking bespectacled guys on trial.
My IMPRESSION is that the whole White Power movement is magnified x1000 by the internet, making it look more popular and powerful than it is.
This site claims there are only 25,000 Americans “hardcore ideological activists for the white supremacist movement,” organized into approximately 300 different groups. I have no idea from where the Florida DOC draws its numbers.
That’s because it’s not Politically Correct to openly espouse racism if you’re a white person. The vast majority of white racism is behind closed doors, so to speak, where the it can’t be howled about by the PC Police. On the other hand, how often do you see black (men in particular) “gangstas” that threaten and intimidate whites on the street, especially in one of their “riot modes”? Or wearing clothing that blares messages of intolerance and separatism at the very least…“it’s a black thing, you wouldn’t understand” is one of the ones that absolutely disgust and infuriate me. Supposedly the “FUBU” clothing line stands for “For Us By Us” as it was described on a television interview…not something that indicates a group longing for the welcoming arms of integration into a homogenized society at large.
Racism seems to be tacitly accepted, if not always condoned, because it’s seen as being “for” the group in question, by default “against” the outsiders group. It’s part of our biosociological hardwiring, whether we like it or not: animals we are, and animals we remain, with our in-group/outside-of-group mentality. Crossing all boundaries of race, culture, and ethnicity, we are socially programmed to prefer what we identify as “our own kind” and it takes positive re-inforcement and a determination to defy our own instincts.
The current atmosphere of complete intolerance of any overt manifestation of in-group preference by whites, implies that hostile action towards those artificially “protected” groups is condoned, if not encouraged. The witch-hunt begins with the perjorative and dreaded cries, not of “Witch!” but rather, “Racist!” The current unholy horrific no longer has anything to do with one’s religious beliefs, or sexual mores, or ancestry, recent or not, but rather, the scarlet letter that taints the individuals(s) that are subject to their innate drive to remain part of the “in-group” to the exclusion of the “outgroup.”
By and large, it has been my observation that the loudest mouthed racists are not exactly prime specimens of “their people.” Perhaps it’s their marginalization that induces them to overcompensate by demonstrating just how much they “belong” to their ingroup, by vehemently rejecting the “outsider” group. If there were more of Rosa Parks and MLK Jr, and less of Jesse Helms, Al Sharpton, and Louis Farrakhan, perhaps eventually the 'twain shall meet.
The GQ is the number of people involved in white power organizations. Perhaps the post might have been better suited for GD or IMHO but there is a factual question. Possibly next time, rather than shitting on the thread out of your terrible disappointment, you could either report the post if you feel it inappropriate or, better yet, back out of the thread entirely.
If you go looking for overtly white-supremacist information and discussion on the internet, it’ll seem like there’s a lot of it out there. But the same goes for searching on landing spaceships on ley-lines, or on souping up Honda Civics. In the big scheme of things, nothing is dominant on the internet. (Apart from porn. So I am told )
There are, of course, millions of racists, overt and covert and just plain ignorant, who don’t qualify as ‘white power’ freaks.
I think you need to do a little more reading on these boards before posting an OP (Original Post) like that one. Because you are brand name new, maybe some leniency will be given. But that only happens if you stay away from Troll-ish questions. If you do not know, a troll is someone who joins a board and askes ignorant, or assinine questions to entice other posters to engage them.
As you seem to be an alright person now…I’d say do a little more reading on the boards, and in the archives before posting something that may attract the eyes of a Moderator.
Your batting 2 for 2 now, especially with that Native American Restaurant thread, and this one.
Maybe some age and traveling may help. I hope I did not offend anyone. There will be plenty of people around soon to dance around that fine line
Simple. The OP pointed out that it seems that the so called “white power” groups aren’t particularly publicly visible, for all their efforts to seem mainstream, or at least more prevalent than they are. My response to that, is that they have been compelled to be more inconspicuous by an increasingly PC society. For better or for worse.
General alert: please refrain from all speculations about trollish intentions. It’s focusing on the poster instead of the discussion.
I’m leaving this open for the moment because it has a germ of valid discussion. If it keeps going south it’ll get locked.
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