‘Unite against the parasites’: how do white supremacists exploit antisemitism to mobilize non-white groups?

As the millennium approaches, apocalyptic fervor is sweeping the nation. Militias, white supremacists, survivalists, and cults have seized upon the Book of Revelation to trumpet their own fractured version of the end of the world. Millennium Rage is the only book that connects the strands of these fringe groups to a tradition that has underpinnings in American culture and mainstream religion. It moreover shows that many of these groups have stolen and twisted apocalyptic religious symbols to fit their own end: gearing up for Armageddon in this world, not the next. The Oklahoma bombers, the Sons of Gestapo, the Branch Davidians, and the Unabomber are, as Philip Lamy astutely demonstrates, extreme examples of burgeoning strains within society. Ruby Ridge and Waco have become rallying cries of a growing number of average Americans who feel disenfranchised and forgotten. Members of militia movements and white supremacists, whom Lamy interviewed for this book, have tapped into their reservoir of discontent and are channeling it for their own aims. As Lamy points out, rugged individualists and utopian groups have always dotted the American landscape. What is alarming, however, is the misuse of the apocalypse to promote a religion that fans the flames of hate, preaching the destruction of minorities - including Jews, blacks, and immigrants - in a whirlwind showdown. Lamy asserts that this new religion, Christian Identity, serves as a unifying factor among an array of extremist groups who call for a battle here on earth against Satan's supposed forces - minorities allegedly bent on a worldwide conspiracy to rule the world. Distorting the Bible and other literature through a prism of hate and fear, they have made some inroads into the consciousness of America, according to Lamy.

Right-wing extremist violence represents “the oldest and most persistent form of terrorism in the United States and surprisingly the deadliest form of extremism in the US since 9/11. In fact, since 9/11 right-wing extremists have killed more Americans on US soil than jihadi extremists by almost two-to-one.” A joint bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reported that the number of homicides committed by white supremacists from 2000 to 2016 was “more than any other domestic extremist movement.” The latest FBI report shows that, for the third year in a row, hate crimes are increasing, with a 17% increase from 2016-2017. Violence committed by white supremacists is also growing, making 2017 the fifth deadliest year for extremists violence since 1970. How is the growth within white supremacist groups able to occur when they are such a significant threat to our public’s safety? A few of the major causes are: the government’s refusal to label white supremacists as terrorists, the protection the courts have placed on first amendment rights at the cost of others safety, the spread of recruitment and visibility of these extremist groups on social media, and the lack of awareness of the public due to the inaccurate stereotyping and description of the threats and violence propagated by the media by labelling it as mental illness and not as terrorism. These factors insulate white supremacists from real consequences, stigmatizes minority groups, provides a false narrative to the public about the threat to their safety, allows white supremacists to recruit more individuals online with ease, protects their hate speech and propaganda, and stops government departments from utilizing resources that would prevent future attacks. The government and media must stop blaming acts of domestic terrorism by white supremacists as being committed due to mental illness, and instead call it domestic terrorism and place regulations on social media companies that are negligently allowing white supremacist groups to recruit online and incite violence. In the past months, we have seen The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, and Time magazine run issues on the threat of white supremacy in the US and how the media and government have allowed this growth to occur. It is a recognized problem, however, there is little legal research that analyzes the real threats and consequences on the U.S. This paper addresses the issue as a whole. It analyzes the personality of those recruited by white supremacist groups, including the first psychological profile of the alt-right, the influence media has had on the growth and visibility of white supremacists, how the media and government blame the attacks on mental illness, how the courts and government protect white supremacists, the lack of an independent federal crime for domestic terrorism, and the necessary steps the government must take to raise awareness of this threat to the public by calling these attacks terrorism and the need to regulate social media platforms that allow these extremist groups to recruit, grow in visibility, and plan attacks on their platforms. This paper calls for accountability and presents evidence that refutes any dismissal of white supremacists not being a significant threat to the U.S.

White extremism in the U.S. has not received much attention in the literature, despite scholars arguing that it represents the most sustained form of terrorism in the U.S. While much of the research on extremist movements has focused on the groups’ violent acts, there has been significantly less attention on the nonviolent activities, such as music. Following a social movement theoretical framework, we set out to understand the role that music plays in constructing the worldview and narrative of white extremists. Using lyrics from 337 white power songs from seven white power bands, we analyzed the linear and interconnected narrative that emerges in the music. What we found is a narrative interwoven throughout the music that presents a clear picture of white societies under threat from immigration, the Jewish-controlled media, and liberalism, with clear directives for extreme violence and vigilante justice. Based on this picture, we discuss the potential counterextremism implications and provide several avenues for future research.

Consumption, Wellness, and the Far Right

Prejudice against Jews was part of the political, cultural, economic and social landscape in the Union of South Africa long before Nazism made inroads into the country during the 1930s, at which stage Jews constituted approximately 4.5% of the country’s white or European population. Racial discrimination in a country with diversified racial elements and intense political complexities was synonymous with life in the Union long before Apartheid, with its strictly enforced legal, political and economic segregation, became the country’s official policy with the accession to power of the National Party under Prime Minister Dr Daniel François Malan in May 1948. Although the Jews, while maintaining their own sub-cultural identity, were classified within the country’s racial hierarchy as part of the privileged white minority, the emergence of recurrent anti-Jewish stereotypes and themes became manifest in a country permeated by the ideology of race and white superiority. This was exacerbated by the growth of a powerful Afrikaner nationalist movement, underpinned by conservative Calvinist theology. Fear of Communism in the aftermath of the 1917 Russian Revolution and the First World War; disquiet over the arrival of what was seen as disproportionately large numbers of Jewish immigrants during the 1920s; and the effects of the severe world-wide economic depression after the Wall Street stock market crash in October 1929, set the scene for an unprecedented period of antisemitic activity. This was reflected, in part, in legislation aimed at curbing Jewish immigration and the emergence of several antisemitic movements. This dissertation, which covers the period between the First and Second World Wars, explores the perception that South African antisemitism was a foreign import. Based on an examination of archival sources and contemporary publications, the study concludes that prejudice against the Jews was evident in the weltanschauung of right-wing and extremist Afrikaner nationalists long before the influence of Nazism became apparent and was not dependent on the influence of Nazi propagandists in the country. Aggressive Afrikaner nationalism along with economic antisemitism characterised the years between the end of the Great Depression and the outbreak of the Second World War. Antisemitism became a significant issue in elections and towards the end of the 1930s opposition to Jewish immigration was included as an official plank in the political platform of the opposition Purified National Party. Jews were also banned from party membership in the Transvaal, where most Jews resided. Attempts by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and its affiliates together with several non-Jewish organisations to counter the increasing influence of antisemitism, principally among the Right and Radical Right in the ranks of the Afrikaner nationalists, also marked the inter bellum period on which this study focuses.

In this article, we explore emotions as a relational mechanism that affects the stability of political movement groups by activating or weakening identities, social ties, and movement boundaries. Our goal is to specify the dynamics by which personal emotional experiences are linked to wider group processes. In this way, emotion serves as an analytic bridge, connecting the micro levels to larger social structures. We draw on data from former violent white supremacists to understand the personal/interpersonal (micro) and group (meso) level emotional dynamics in this extremist movement, especially how emotional experiences affect social movement dynamics. We draw on our evidence to build models of how emotional dynamics create trajectories of development and decline in white supremacist group membership. To demonstrate the analytic leverage provided by a focus on emotional dynamics, we then examine three findings from our study that are difficult to explain through more common frameworks of individual cognitive processes or group structure.

The global far right is extremely broad in nature and far from monolithic. While the “far right” is often used as an umbrella term, using the term runs the risk of over-simplifying the differences and linkages between white supremacist, anti-immigration, nativist, and other motivating ideologies. These beliefs and political platforms fall within the far-right rubric, and too often the phrase presents a more unified image of the phenomena than is really the case. In truth, the “far right” and the individual movements that comprise it are fragmented, consisting of a number of groups that lack established leadership and cohesion. Indeed, these movements include chauvinist religious organizations, neo-fascist street gangs, and paramilitary organs of established political parties. Although such movements largely lack the mass appeal of the interwar European radical right-wing extreme, they nevertheless can inspire both premeditated and spontaneous acts of violence against perceived enemies. This report is intended to provide policymakers, practitioners, and the academic community with a roadmap of ongoing shifts in the organizational structures and ideological currents of radical right-wing extremist movements, detailing the difference between distinct, yet often connected and interlaced echelons of the far right. In particular, the report identifies and analyzes various aspects of the broader far right and the assorted grievances it leverages to recruit, which is critical to gaining a more nuanced understanding of the potential future trajectory of these movements.

ABSTRACTSince the January 2021 attack on the US Capitol, the influence of White Christian nationalism (WCN) has become even more pronounced and concerning. Adult educators and the public need a better understanding of whether and how WCN can be unlearned, and the roles ordinary citizens and adult educators can play in this process. After describing WCN and its reach in the United States, the article draws on three bodies of literature to consider how both the most committed proponents and sideline supporters might turn from WCN toward new beliefs and identities. These literatures are: (1) deradicalization from extremist groups and movements (e.g., terrorism, cults, gangs); (2) unlearning; and (3) personal accounts of leaving and discarding beliefs rooted in White supremacy, Christian nationalism, or White evangelicalism. Together, these sources offer useful insights into the conditions that help people change beliefs associated with extremist movements such as WCN.

Social media provides the means by which extremist social movements, such as white supremacy and anti-LGBTQ, thrive online. Yet, we know little about the roles played by the participants of such movements. In this paper, we investigate these participants to characterize their roles, their role dynamics, and their influence in spreading online extremism. Our participants-online extremist accounts-are 4,876 public Facebook pages or groups that have shared information from the websites of 289 Southern Poverty LawCenter (SPLC) designated extremist groups. Guided by theories of participatory activism, we map the information sharing features of these extremists accounts. By clustering the quantitative features followed by qualitative expert validation, we identify five roles surrounding extremist activism-educators, solicitors, flamers, motivators, sympathizers. For example, solicitors use links from extremist websites to attract donations and participation in extremist issues, whereas flamers share inflammatory extremist content inciting anger. We further investigate role dynamics such as, how stable these roles are over time and how likely will extremist accounts transition from one role into another. We find that roles core to the movement-educators and solicitors-are more stable, while flamers and motivators can transition to sympathizers with high probability. Finally, using a Hawkes process model, we test which roles are more influential in spreading various types of information. We find that educators and solicitors exert the most influence in triggering extremist link posts, whereas flamers are influential in triggering the spread of information from fake news sources. Our results help in situating various roles on the trajectory of deeper engagement into the extremist movements and understanding the potential effect of various counter-extremism interventions. Our findings have implications for understanding how online extremist movements flourish through participatory activism and how they gain a spectrum of allies for mobilizing extremism online.

he nonviolent activities of extremists have the capacity to shed important light on how such groups think and frame the world around them. This paper provides a comparative insight into the framing activities of Islamic State and white power (WP) groups through an analysis of the song lyrics that have emerged from these scenes. In doing so, we seek to understand the role that culture, particularly music, plays in constructing the worldview of both white supremacists and jihadists. Through analyzing song lyrics we explain how those writing and performing the music can shape the contexts in which participants operate. What emerges is that despite differences in the stated belief systems of Islamic State and white supremacists, the ways in which the underlying worldview is constructed is similar. Both focus on highlighting grievances and see their own in-group as facing real and prominent threats, often due to liberal values. Both see Jewish people as a corrupting force in the world, and both have a clear direction on overcoming such threats with direct calls to action. Both groups tap into global narratives against multiculturalism, globalization, and the global international order, which they view as inherently damaging to their own group interests.

This article examines the concept of ‘White racism’ in relation to the experiences of Gypsy and Traveller groups in England. It is based on ethnographic research conducted in two secondary schools during the years 2006–2009. Interviews were carried out with pupils attending the secondary schools, their mothers and members of the Traveller Education Service. The research reveals that racism experienced by White Gypsy and Traveller groups is understood differently to that experienced by non-White minority ethnic groups. This is further related to how Gypsy and Traveller groups are perceived inside and outside schools, as ‘others’ and ‘outsiders’. The article considers discourses around racism and discrimination and how they might work to disadvantage Gypsy and Traveller groups in schools.

The study of race and ethnicity in the Gospels has yielded a significant number of publications. Methodological, in-depth critical biblical study by scholars focuses attention on the contemporary social and political context where racism, classism, and all sorts of phobias are widespread. Race and ethnicity are often discussed alongside gender, class, politics, and ethics. While some interpreters have a clear focus on race/ethnicity in the Gospels, others broadly deal with various topics covering race, gender, religion, and ethics. There are a few directions in this study. First, Jesus’ Jewish ethnicity is the focus of study and the Gospels are explored with an understanding of his ethnicity in context. The questions addressed include: (1) How did Jesus think of his ethnic identity in the context of political turmoil under the Roman Empire? (2) How did he think of his ethnic identity in relation to Jerusalem and elites? (3) How did he think about other races or ethnicities? Second, there are studies concerning the tensions that existed between Jewish ethnic identity and Christian ethnic identity in the Gospels. In particular, Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel belong to this category of the study since there are distinctive stories that reflect the relations between Jews and gentiles. Among others, Matthew 15:21–28 (Jesus’ encountering a Canaanite woman) and Luke 4:16–30 (Jesus’ radical sermon about God’s preference for gentiles) reflect the tension or confrontations that existed between Jews and gentiles in early Christian communities. Mark’s Gospel and John’s Gospel also include episodes about race/ethnicity: Mark 7:24–30 (the Syrophoenician woman) and John 4:1–42 (Jesus and the Samaritanwoman). Third, scholarly attention is also given to matters of biblical interpretation concerning race and ethnicity in the Gospels. Interpreters tackle prejudices about race, supersessionism, white racism, and oppressive ideologies. Fourth, the Four Gospels as a whole are re-examined from the perspective of racial, ethical concerns. While Jesus’ ethnic identity, the relations between Jews and gentiles, and biblical interpretation about race/ethnicity are included, scholarship also extends to the myriad intersection of topics such as migration, liberation, refuge, postcolonial issues, and identity politics.

This article provides a multimodal semiotic analysis of the word cuck as used in online white supremacist spaces. A fundamental belief of the white supremacist ‘alt-right’ movement is an anti-Semitic narrative that positions Jewish people as a ‘global elite’ that seeks to oppress and eliminate white populations. Central to this belief is that Jewish people actively manipulate populations of colour, Black people in particular, to overtake white populations in a process known as ‘white genocide’ or ‘the great replacement’. Based on a digital ethnography of alt-right communities on Voat, Twitter and Reddit, this article demonstrates how the memeified word ‘cuck’, a pejorative term for ‘weak’ men on the US political right wing, draws from and reproduces this white nationalist conspiracy theory through allusions to interracial cuckold pornography. While disguised as innocuous, expressions like ‘cuck’ provide insight into how the alt-right weaponises misogynist and racist humour in its radicalisation efforts.

ERIC L. GOLDSTEIN. The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2006. p. xii + 307.Racism is repugnant. But is race? Sophisticates dismiss it as no more than a social construction, a figment that lacks a decisive biological basis; and Jews have been among the many groups denying that race should be applied to them. Racism should have been thoroughly discredited long before it was buried in the rubble of the Third Reich; at least in the United States, such bigotry had by then ceased to be entirely respectable. But as Eric L. Goldstein demonstrates in this judicious foray into American intellectual history as well as American Jewish history, race itself was an idea that proved to be not only elusive but nearly inescapable, not only enigmatic but vexingly resilient. For all the terrible mischief that it has caused, Jews themselves could not quite disenthrall themselves from its power, because so many of them ascribed their loyalty to one another to their blood and not merely to a shared religion. Disraeli, who worshipped as an Anglican, was wrong in proclaiming that race trumps every other historical principle. But nothing better illustrates the sort of complications that The Price of Whiteness illumines than the frequency with which he was taken for a Jew - by other Christians as well as by (his fellow?) Jews.Goldstein s account opens in the last third of the nineteenth century, when the division of humanity into races was a pervasive and influential ideology (hardly limited to Disraeli), when white supremacists were extending their legal as well as cultural hegemony in American society, and when masses of Eastern European immigrants were pouring through the gates to transform the Jewish community. For the first time in Western history, a significant Diaspora community had located itself in society where another minority was more stigmatized-indeed, far more despised, and dehumanized. In 1885 Mark Twain published a novel in which a steamboat accident is reported. Anybody hurt? Aunt Sally asks. in, Huck Finn replies. Killed a nigger. Well, it's lucky, she retorts, because sometimes people do get hurt.If Jews in such a society had the formidable advantage of being white, they also wrestled with the paradox of being not only white. In Victorian America race and color were not yet synonymous (as they would be a century later), so that in an 1887 sermon, for example, the Reform Rabbi Solomon Schindler of Boston s Temple Israel could assert his membership in the Jewish race. Compared to non-Jews, he announced, our temperament, our tastes, our humor . . . our views and . . . our mode of thinking in many cases [distinguish us] as much as we differ in our features (quoted on p. 11). No wonder then that nativists could pick out disagreeable inherited traits with which to stereotype Jews (from avarice to effeteness, from physical ugliness to spiritual sterility) and could express doubt whether such a race could be absorbed into America. Rabbis like Schindler, plus other communal spokesmen (editorialists, educators, social scientists), joined the conversation and claimed that the Jews were a race that harbored memories, ideals, interests, and allegiances of their own. If Jews were denied a destiny that was singular and were required merely to be attached to the dominant race, such communal figures wondered whether whiteness did not exact too high a price. Hierarchy in America was so evidently color-coded that Jews could readily see the value to whiteness. Its price, however, was also apparent; and Goldstein s book is most intriguing in showing how equivocal and varied was the Jews' effort-from the late nineteenth century down to the present - to define themselves.Too rigorous a categorization in terms of race-and Jews implied that they could not be smoothly integrated into America, that they were inassimilable. Too loose a definition-and the sense of separateness might be forfeited, and the viability of a continuous communal life might be imperiled. …

In Moses and Monotheism, Freud developed an influential and highly controversial theory for understanding anti-Semitism as blowback against monotheism, specifically against the Jewish people's form of Geistigkeit (intellectuality/spirituality) and the notion of exclusive chosenness. Against the backdrop of the recent global rise of anti-Semitism, white supremacy, and violence in the name of religion, this essay reviews a collection of nine fresh perspectives on Freud's text in Freud and Monotheism by authors from a cross section of the humanities. They critically engage Freud's seminal thoughts on the nature of religion and violence, tradition and history, trauma and repression, hermeneutics and the transgenerational transmission of identity. Connecting with Freud's ideas on Geistigkeit, the chosen people, the superego, and sublimation, and Drewermann's insights into the historical connection between monotheism and the development of the human sense of personhood, the essay concludes with a proposal for countering anti-Semitism and religious violence through a reinterpretation of the meaning of monotheism.