Some people’s strategy is to convince white people that they’re “one of the good ones”. We’ll see how that works out. They might get lucky and it works for them, but their children won’t be as lucky I suspect.
iiandyiiii it seems to me that we need to call out white supremacist men in particular. White supremacist females exist, and they provide support for the movement in overt and covert ways, but the dangerous elements seem to be men. Thoughts?
Ahhh, we have achieved consensus, for this is my feeling regarding “radical islam”.
Fine with me!
Men are generally “the dangerous elements” in just about everything, not just white supremacy. We’re the overwhelming source of (and recipients of) most of the world’s violence.
Do you think “they’ve only managed to recruit a handful of people willing to take violent action for their cause” is an accurate description of radical islam?
If it were legalized tomorrow, no, but if it were legalized after a period of time in which such ideas no longer seem so radical, I could absolutely see it. People as a whole can be racist and not interested in establish a white nation, but those who have such aspirations would absolutely kill to realize their achievement. People would absolutely kill in order to establish a white society, whether that’s through bringing back Jim Crow Light, or through the creation of a white separatist society.
NM…too mad to reply, and even my second version will probably get me a warning.
Ok, third time is the charm. Like plants crave Brondo, XT’s crave tequila. It does a body good!
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant. I believe that nationalism is a MUCH bigger threat to not only American lives but to the world. The 3 most numberous countries on the planet are all very nationalistic…and 2 of them aren’t white. In addition, American nationalism is a bit different than you seem to be aware. From an earlier post I seem to recall you aren’t an American, so perhaps you don’t know this stuff so let me walk you through it. Maybe then you’ll see that it’s not about being white, and that non-whites can actually be as fervently, even fanatically nationalistic as white folks.
So, I started to notice this about 10 years back or so. I’m not a huge sports fan. I never had much use for any sports except martial arts, and I was never that interested in watching them. However, a lot of my friends are into sports at all levels…highschool, college and professional. Anyway, after 9/11 I noticed a lot more fervency in the crowd during things like the national anthem. Also, that a lot more nationalistic symbols of the US were on display. Finally, that the near reverence for the military had gotten to disturbing, or at least uncomfortable levels (for me at least). And, looking around at the crowd, it was clear that no one really noticed.
Now, a respect for the military and the country are important, even vital for the citizens. But this was at a whole other level. It was a bit creepy, and I’m a former military. When I was actually in the military, it was nothing like it is today at even highschool or college games. And that’s not the only place where nationalism is apparent, to me at least. Maybe I’m like the OP…maybe I am seeing it blown out of proportion, but ISTM that US nationalism is making us more belligerant. And this isn’t JUST whites. In my own family I’ve seen a change in attitudes. Like most extended hispanic families, there are a lot of us…and most of the family is Democrat. In fact, until 9/11 nearly all of them were Democrats to the core. But that’s changed. Now, unreal as it might seem, several of my uncles and cousins are Republicans, and several of them, including my Dad until he passed away, were actually Trump supporters. Now try and wrap your head around that for just a second…my dad, mom, uncles and aunts, my grandma, all of that generation came here from Mexico. My dad was a bit easier to understand…he joined the military during the Vietnam war so that my mom and my siblings could become Americans, and be Americans. But the rest? It’s hard to fathom. But the reason is, IMHO…nationalism. All of my family are fervent patriots, regardless of whether they are Democrats and hate Trump or Republicans and love him. But Democrat or Republican, they want the US to be confrontational in the world. China pissing us off? Trade war is A-Ok. North Korea a constant thorn? We should Do Something™ about that! EU being unfair in their trade? Hammer them into submission! Mexico(!!) getting advantages over us on trade and by sending their people here to steal our healthcare and jobs and send the money back to the home land? Well, we will fix THEIR wagons!
I think US nationalism has gotten out of hand, and has made us a nation ready to confront instead of lead, to reach for a bigger hammer instead of work with our allies. And the thing is, Chinese nationalism is even worse. Then you have Indian nationalism. And of course, the Japanese are going through a nationalistic phase. And then, horror of horrors, the Europeans are actually seemingly moving back towards nationalism…and that IS your white nationalism in a nut shell. Pun intended. Several countries in Africa are also in nationalistic grips.
All of these things, IMHO, are bigger ‘ideological threat to American lives’ than white supremacists in the US, who are a relatively small number in the greater scheme of things and who, again IMHO have little traction outside of their slimy caves and under dank rocks.
So, yes…I meant nationalism. And I meant it when I said that non-whites can and are fervent nationalists, just like white folks. Immigrants in the US are VERY fervent nationalists, IMHO and my experience, and this isn’t just with my own family. And, yeah, the national anthem thing is disturbing…more for what it indicates and the vibe I get than anything I can spell out, especially with this much tequila. I’ll leave it there since I probably wrote a stream of consious book at this point. Hopefully it’s not as angry or warning filled as the last 2 attempts.
In proportion to the overall number of moslems? Yes. You don’t need a lot, you just need enough.
Actually, main reason Germany wasn’t a target is because they were all but defeated by the time the bombs were ready. Berlin had been one possibility.
That’s not to say racism didn’t play a small part, but it was much more likely timing. If the US had been capable of doing so sooner, or if Germany was still going strong, we wouldn’t have hesitated to nuke them.
Also potentially relevant: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/08/07/us-state-department-official-involved-white-nationalist-movement-hatewatch-determines
A senior official at the state department was one of the neo-nazis at Charlottesville.
If this was say Great Britian or Denmark and this was about 20 years ago when they had hordes of people coming in from eastern Europe, yes they would be.
But we dont. We have Mexico and Central America with millions of people there desperate for a better life and governments who basically are dumping them on our doorstep (as long as they then send money home) and if you are obviously hispanic or haitian or African, cant speak a word of english, yes your probably going to be stopped.
But what if they are not? What if it is a made up threat from a media or a special interest group DESPERATE for a villain (hey guys in white robes burning crosses sells) to focus attention on because they have an agenda?
I mean look at all the press the Fred Phelps crowd gets. The press acted like he was going to take over the world. In reality its about 20-30 people from a tiny church in Topeka KS who got WAY more publicity than they deserved.
First off, a very interesting and well-thought post - I appreciate that, XT.
I agree with many of your observations about nationalism generally, but I think white nationalism is an off-shoot of nationalism itself and in some sense runs parallel to the broader nationalism.
Race and racism is a part of America’s identity as a nation, and there’s no way to escape from that. I acknowledge your personal examples and your overall point about your Hispanic family members becoming Republican and nationalistic. But my other hypothesis is that there is a degree of “whitening” that visible minorities go through. There was, for instance, a time in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries when immigrants from Southern Europe were treated almost as badly as Blacks born here. This consequently led to a “whitening” among Italian and earlier Hispanic immigrant populations. “Whitening” involves taking steps to join the mainstream, which means everything from learning to speak English with near native proficiency to joining the military. For others, it means simply succeeding at the American dream and becoming a 1 percenter. We see this with engineering students who come here from South and East Asia today, becoming engineers and Silicon Valley millionaires, in turn raising children who are fully integrated into the American mainstream.
The flip side to this, however, is that there are white Americans who will refuse to acknowledge these efforts at joining the mainstream because they are so clearly non-white that they’re just easy targets, and there are too many whites in this country who need scapegoats for why they’re 35 and broke and can’t get laid, and there are too many oligarchs who benefit from telling these types that even though they’re losers by many yardsticks, they can still be better than brown people.
White Supremacists are part of a significantly large Fascist element in this nation. They radicalize young people and produce “mass shooters” just like groups like ISIS produce “suicide bombers”. I consider them far more dangerous than ISIS because they are the enemy within. They represent by far the greatest terrorist threat that we face. They are a threat to our democracy and the ideals upon which the Constitution is based.
Interesting comparison.
Here’s a small sampling of white nationalist youtube channels:
Lauren Southern
714,709 subscribers
59,199,255 views
Stefan Molyneux
920,471 subscribers
278,324,866 views
Gavin McInnes
354,577 subscribers
41,084,259 views
That’s just three moderately large channels of people who are very obviously white supremacists.
I don’t think we can make any kind of reasonable comparison to the westboro baptist church.
They’re more dangerous than ISIS because unlike ISIS, they can legitimately hold real political power. Since the 1960s, changes in cultural attitudes have hitherto made it messy for people in power to be nakedly racist. But all that has changed in the last several years.
That’s why Donald Trump is such a toxic president: we can argue all day about how much of a racist Trump is or isn’t, but what’s much less debatable is the fact that he is mainstreaming white supremacist power. If people want to argue that he’s not really a racist and he’s just using it as a political gambit, they can argue that if they wish but that doesn’t fundamentally change the reality. He is making racism socially acceptable again, and don’t let the public take-downs of bigots on YouTube delude you into believing that we’re better than that. Those take-downs represent an attempt by the rest of us to fight racism, to fight for an inclusive and egalitarian society, and to preserve and uphold decency. But those values are under direct attack right now and they’re being battered in ways that we thought were once unfathomable in our lifetime, which brings me to another point:
Establishing, or in this case re-establishing, an entire society founded upon race-based hierarchy takes some time. There’s a period of normalization that has to take place before the real white nationalism begins overtaking our social and political culture. That’s what’s happening now. White nationalists are telling white America that they don’t have to accept the inevitability of diversity, and that they don’t have to accept sharing their society and its resources with non-whites. They’re selling the America that existed at the time of the American colonies: a country of, by, and for white men, and to a lesser extent, white women. They’re selling us on white patriarchy. I’d like to believe that the rest of white America is good enough and wise enough to reject this proposed alternative, but I also understand that humans are very easily scared and very easily conned into believing that doing something inherently evil somehow satisfies their perceived needs and protects their self interests. History is just too full of examples that demonstrate this.
What a bizarre non sequitur.
The difficulty is that it is also not a great insight to point out that illegal immigrants are undesirable because they are illegal immigrants, not because of their ethnicity, but it is an insight that seems to be beyond the grasp of many.
Regards,
Shodan
By all means let’s do avoid speaking about the elephant in the room. The problem isn’t white supremacists and racists among us. The problem is the illegal immigrants. Get rid of the immigrants and the racist assholes will stop being racists assholes. Problem solved. Wonderful insight as usual, Shodan.