Lit Review: Racial Fault Lines

One of the key issues in the white nationalist imagination  is immigration, immigration for white nationalists represents the end of “whiteness” and the removal of purity from the white bloodstream.  These notions of white supremacy over the racial “other” have roots established centuries ago.  When Europeans traveled this unknown world long ago and began to colonize new lands they set in motion white supremacist attitudes that are still prevalent today.  After first settling in America, settlers began to travel west and eventually into  California it is here where they began establish racial hierarchy with the present racial “other”.  In his book Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California Tomas Almaguer describes this phenomena and provides documentation of the vast complexities that go into constructing race as an organizing tool for social standing and societal privilege.
The ideas Almaguer invokes in his book hold true for white supremacists around the world, notions of manifest destiny, and god given privilege are attitudes reflected by white supremacists at all levels.  All of these notions boil down to the basic belief that whiteness is supreme and anything contradictory to whiteness (colored) is deemed inferior and subjected to discrimination and in certain circles removal from white society.  The book specifically discusses how race can be used as a mechanism in society to grant white privilege over the racial “other”.  White Supremacists still use race as a tool to criminalize and dehumanize racial minorities. On a global scale we see racialized structures established in colonial times in South Africa. Similar to America these racialized establishments lead each nation down a long path of civil rights dispute and continuing class warfare.  
This blog has previously noted the results of institutionalized racism, as they represent a time in a nations history in which white supremacist ideals reigned on a national level.  These systematic racial structures legitimize and provide a template for contemporary white nationalist attitudes. The progress made to erase institutionalized racism serves as ammunition for white nationalist rhetoric as it represents the free fall into mongrelization and the end of white racial purity.  Out of this progress we see the continued establishment of racially motivated extremist groups as a means of presenting resistance to racial equality.  In conclusion Almaguer’s book provides observers with a detailed look at how white supremacist attitudes began to develop and how they still permeate society today.