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.

Stormfront: Fear at Wholesale Prices

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wd22CJt9rIc&feature=related


The above attached video and picture are both media from stormfront.org a white nationalist discussion forum. I found the video as well as the image from a thread on the forum entitled “ White Genocide in South Africa”, the notion of genocide in relation to whiteness is very popular in white nationalist rhetoric.  South Africa provides an interesting perspective on this notion of genocide due to the demographics within their borders. South Africa is a nation of 50 million people,  in 2010 the government mid-year estimates showed that South Africa is 79% black African while only 9% white.  These statistics make South Africa a symbolic front for the war against white genocide in the white nationalist imagination.  The video above shows extremely graphic images of white murder and assault victims, supposedly perpetrated by the hands of black Africans.  The video offers no conclusive evidence as to who is actually guilty of these crimes, but constant rhetorical warnings throughout the video appear on screen to further implicate black Africans as those responsible.
The most interesting thing about this video is not the video itself but rather the surrounding content from the forum members, and furthermore how the ideologies being discussed relate to the white nationalist psyche in America.  Most all of the comments are centered around this notion of “white genocide” and the immenent extinction of the white race in South Africa.  Those commenting use this white genocide in South Africa as a warning to fellow white nations around the world, stating that multiculturalism and integration will inevitably lead to the conceivable end of “whiteness”.  One forum user posted a quote by Keven Alfred Strom that reflects this mindset:  

“If you tolerate multiracialism, then your children will suffer and die. That is not hyperbole. It is a rational and well-substantiated extrapolation, based on the known facts and current trends. It is a prediction that is already coming true.”

This idea of the racial “other” destroying white culture and eliminating a future for white children is a perspective that is very popular in white nationalist discourse.  Forum users continue to comment on this “genocide” and even provide cause as to why the rest of the industrialized world is not acknowledging it as such.  Users echo notions of political correctness and how political correctness does not allow national leaders to intervene on the behalf of white South Africans. And of course the Jewish community is behind the political correctness movement, thus preventing white genocide from becoming a noticed issue. Outside of political correctness  many of the users cite immigration as the key issue in white genocide, this is especially true for South Africa as they have some of the higher immigration statistics in the modernized world. User “MattwhiteAmerica” displays this perspective:

Words of warning---The same thing that has occurred throughout Hati and Africa will be occurring within the UK, France, Norway, sweden, within the next 100 years if whites don't wake up. I promise you if our governments keep importing them into our lands, much like south Africa, the future is the same.

This post embodies one of most prominent rhetorical devices for a white nationalist: fear.  Throughout this forum and specifically this thread users are selling fear at wholesale prices, attempting to scare fellow white people that their livelihood will soon be threatened by the ever expanding racial “other”.

Jim Crow & Apartheid

This post will examine the history of white supremacy in South Africa and its comparative relationship with the history of white supremacy in the United States.  South Africa provides for an interesting research point seeing as the racial tension and racial discrimination within their borders has a very long and tumultuous history similar to the U.S. While the true origins of white supremacy trace back hundreds of hundreds of years  when the notion of "whiteness" was invented, this post will focus specifically on the times in each nations history in which both countries employed segregation legislation. I chose to look at segregation because the notions of racial separation and one race being less than another is an ideology deeply rooted in white supremacist rhetoric. Segregation in society also marks a specific time in a nations history in which white supremacist values and opinions have become legalized practices. Knowing the history of such practices will leave observers with a better lens in looking at contemporary issues.

Racial segregation legislation in the United States began with “Black Codes” which were laws put into place after slavery was ended with the intention on limiting the basic civil liberties and human rights of newly freed slaves. The implementation of Black Codes in the late 1800’s marked what would be an uphill battle with racial segregation in the United States. After Black Codes many Southern states began adopting Jim Crow laws, Jim Crow laws were enacted under the pretense of “separate but equal” as a means of preventing racial mixing. Despite the claims that these laws created an environment of separate equality it is clear that non white citizens were treated as inferior inhabitants. Though many of the Jim Crow laws in the South allowed African Americans to vote, states introduced literary and lineage tests as a means of condensing the black vote.  African American voters who were able to become eligible quickly became the target of racially motivated violence by citizens and groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.  Jim Crow laws and racial segregation came to a halt via the civil rights movement in the 1960’s, with legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The separation of races in South Africa began in colonial times, however the first legalized form of segregation came during a time referred to as apartheid. Apartheid refers to a series of legislation which enforced the separation of races in South Africa. Apartheid began in 1948 after the general election which was swept by the National party. National party members claimed that South Africa was not one state but rather a coalition of independent communities separated by race. Shortly after the election the Group Areas Act of 1950 was passed which enforced the forcible removal of non white residents from white communities, up until this point mixed races were living side by side. The Group Areas Act marked the beginning of several racially motivated legislation prohibiting such things as: interracial marriage, interracial sex, and the mixing of races in certain public areas(see picture above). In the early 90’s amongst violence, protest, and trade embargo's South Africa hosted a multi-racial election which was won by the African National Congress lead by Nelson Mandela, this victory ended apartheid and reintroduced the co-mingling of races in South Africa.

When looking at racial separation in the U.S. and South Africa there are some interesting differences; initially one can see that the end of racial segregation in South Africa is much more recent than in the U.S., also South Africa actually used forcible removal to create homogeneous communities. In the U.S. race tension has always differed regionally, primarily between the north and south, while South Africa created broad racial separation on a national level.  The level of recentness as well as the magnitude of separation in South Africa provides for an intriguing research topic as this blog continues to dive into the past and present issues of white supremacy on a global level.

First Posting: A roadmap for research

Welcome to my blog Hatred Knows No Borders: Globalized White Power. This blog will focus on white power movements and activity in the United States as well as its foreign counterparts throughout the world. Specific emphasis will be placed on Europe, and South Africa.   I chose this topic to examine the cultural influences, and cultural history of foreign white power movements and how they relate or differ with movements domestically.  Studying white supremacy on a global scale will allow observers to understand white supremacy on a more comprehensive level, rather than just being familiar with white supremacy in the United States.