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White supremacy feeds on mainstream encouragement. That has to stop
White supremacy, and the violence that it spawns, can no longer be lampooned as a postgraduate talking point. It is unpicking the now very fragile fabric that’s keeping us all together.
The number of rightwing extremists arrested in Europe nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017; there was a 74% increase in antisemitic offences in France last year; and the number of hate groups in the US is the highest ever. According to a 2017 Washington Post/ABC poll roughly one in 10 Americans believes that holding Nazi views is acceptable – assuming very few of those were black or Latino, that’s a lot of white people in a very dark place.
Were we to borrow the language directed against Muslims at this point, we would be talking about a “death cult” deep in the Caucasian psyche and calling on moderate, law-abiding members of the white community to step up and speak out. There would be lofty lectures on the Enlightenment and liberal democracy and integration. We would be talking travel bans, rendition and muscular liberalism. The Home Office would revoke Boris Johnson’s citizenship on the basis that he was born in the US and his presence here is not conducive to the public good.
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It should be clear by now, if it was not before, that any concession that is made to bigots does not satisfy but emboldens them. That is, in no small part, how we got here. They need to call it out both in the chamber and on the doorstep. If it came from any other group they would have done it already. In the current climate they can no longer avoid it. Their lives may depend on it.
They know that racism is the problem. They have yet to understand that anti-racism is the solution.
The number of rightwing extremists arrested in Europe nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017; there was a 74% increase in antisemitic offences in France last year; and the number of hate groups in the US is the highest ever. According to a 2017 Washington Post/ABC poll roughly one in 10 Americans believes that holding Nazi views is acceptable – assuming very few of those were black or Latino, that’s a lot of white people in a very dark place.
Were we to borrow the language directed against Muslims at this point, we would be talking about a “death cult” deep in the Caucasian psyche and calling on moderate, law-abiding members of the white community to step up and speak out. There would be lofty lectures on the Enlightenment and liberal democracy and integration. We would be talking travel bans, rendition and muscular liberalism. The Home Office would revoke Boris Johnson’s citizenship on the basis that he was born in the US and his presence here is not conducive to the public good.
--------------------
It should be clear by now, if it was not before, that any concession that is made to bigots does not satisfy but emboldens them. That is, in no small part, how we got here. They need to call it out both in the chamber and on the doorstep. If it came from any other group they would have done it already. In the current climate they can no longer avoid it. Their lives may depend on it.
They know that racism is the problem. They have yet to understand that anti-racism is the solution.
[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/05/white-supremacy|
We are in perilous times.
