Ever since I began looking more closely at news reports and some of my neighbors, I’ve been thinking a lot about white extremism. This election and demonstrations rooted in outrage at continued killings of black people have caused a tsunami of news articles about violence across the country. Reading more closely, much of the violence has been caused by people taking advantage of peaceful protests and white supremacists.
For information about white supremacist groups go HERE and HERE.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, white supremacist extremists will remain the deadliest domestic terror threat to the United States. “Since 2018, White supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the US than any other domestic extremist movement, demonstrating a “longstanding intent” to target racial and religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, politicians, and those they believe promote multi-culturalism and globalization” according to the report. The report also touches on the exploitation of nationwide protests by what it calls anti-government and anarchist groups. As the department developed the threat assessment, officials began to see a “new, alarming trend of exploitation of lawful protests causing violence, death, and destruction.” Read CNN article HERE.
What makes this even scarier is that there are people serving in our armed forces as well as on police departments and other law enforcement agencies who belong to groups like this. Who will protect me if someone attacks me because of my Black Lives Matter license plates? Who can I call and rely on here in South Carolina?
I read an article in Buzzfeed (The White Extremist Group Patriot Front is Preparing for a World After Donald Trump) which began with these quotes from emails sent by members of Patriot Front, a 3-year-old white supremacist organization that came out of the failure of Vanguard America, the group of khaki-wearing, tiki-torch carrying men that led the march at Charlottesville.
“What are your beliefs that led you to join the org?” —Vincent KY
“At the core of my position are these principles: The categorical rejection of the notion of equality. The categorical rejection of universal democracy. Explicit In-Group preference.” —Logan TN
“In short: I cannot stand by idly while my people fall into despair, degeneracy, and ethnic replacement.” —Anthony IL
“I feel like jews immigrants and mustims are a malicious threat to the united States and it’s economy that’s why the people are in current state of civil unrest these n!##3π’$ are causing them selves to be shot by the police and Making the split even bigger I feel as if there’s going to be a huge race war and us whites will come out on top. How do you feel about this statement?” —Vincent KY
Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told BuzzFeed that Patriot Front is among the most prolific spreaders of “white power” propaganda in the United States, having put up flyers in over 1,000 places around the country in 2020 alone.
This worries me because young people (and these are mostly people born at the end of the 1990s and after) have such poor judgment for so many years, rarely see the entire spectrum in life but instead see absolutes, have little tolerance for differing opinions because they know it all, and have a lack of impulse control. They are easily led and have little life experience to help them deal with their less noble impulses. And, they grow up to be adults with the same thought patterns and behavior if they are not re-directed early on.
They are as anti-American as can be. Thomas Rousseau, the organization’s leader, says, “Casting a ballot is a submissive gesture to legitimize tyranny. It is fundamentally amoral. It is done as an insult to the nation’s cause and the organization.”
I don’t know why they are so afraid. I say afraid because I believe that there are 2 basic emotions, love and fear and that all of our behavior comes from either or both of those. They are afraid of being replaced! They are afraid of Jews and Muslims. They are afraid of the government. They are afraid of anyone who might be different. What makes them so afraid and what can be done about it?