To that end, White Nationalists need to sustain a sense of community and identity. One way of accomplishing that goal is to participate in group field trips and art projects.
One White Nationalist website has been doing this by featuring a series of posts where its readers send in photos of them defiling the landmarks of the Black Freedom Struggle and the Civil Rights Movement.
If these photos of White Nationalists--one of them outside of the church Dr. King pastored in Montgomery, Alabama, and the other at the bus stop where Sister Rosa Parks refused to be Jane Crowed--displaying Confederate flags are any indication, the "massive resistance" against the Civil Rights Movement has been replaced by the guys who work in IT or at Kinkos and Costco.
I am unsure if frat boy pranks as substitutes for massive resistance are a sign of "progress" for the White Right. But, given that the White Right and their allies are succeeding in dismantling the Voting and Civil Rights Acts, spreading laws such as Stand Your Ground which allow for extrajudicial killings of people of color, as well as gutting the social safety net, they can afford to coddle fools.
I do wonder what would happen if White Nationalists decided to wave their Confederate flags at Dr. King's church while there were black folks present. Likewise, what would folks do if they saw these characters defiling Rosa Parks' commemorative marker?
Black Americans have so lost the fire in their belly I doubt that there would be any repercussions or consequences. Maybe our White Nationalist friends are planning a trip to Senegal where they can show their White Pride at Goree Island? Who knows what will happen there.
At least one person is trying to deliver a counter to one of our most famous neo-Confederates who's hooked into high publicity stunt-pulling. http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/07/18/news/new_haven/doc51e80f024a60b233213053.txt
ReplyDeleteSlight clarification: That church is the one in Montgomery, Alabama, which Dr. King pastored for six years. It is not the more famous Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, which he pastored afterwards, and which is now a National Historic Site. I was thrown for a moment by the staircase.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, neo-Confederates are atavistic. I'm glad that there are seemingly so few, & they are reduced to skulking in the dark for acts like this.
I will fix that. Good catch.
ReplyDeleteMy hometown. Small world. Lots of good shows at Toad's. I hope they protest and force a boycott of his shows there and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteNow here's an encouraging sign, though:
ReplyDeleteActivist Son of Key Racist Leader Renounces White Nationalism
Did anyone catch this.. racist curs trying way to hard.. http://gawker.com/racist-trolls-try-to-stir-shit-up-at-peaceful-racial-pr-830545176
ReplyDeletethanks, how timely.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen this version of the confederate flag. I do agree Black people should not legitimize the projected fears of these groups. I am white though, seems we're a violent people by nature, and this flag makes me furious.
ReplyDeleteBe careful though. I would suggest that people are violent and those with more institutional power have the capacity to be even more so because the consequences are fewer.
ReplyDeleteThey call themselves "nationalists"?
ReplyDeleteOh please.
It's the same way these people bandy around words like "freedom" and "liberty" while working to suppress voting rights and expand corporate power. They talk of "patriotism" while they try to shut down the government and crash the economy because they don't like the election results.
Patriotism and nationalism means loyalty to our Constitution and the ideals it represents. One of these, among many others they have open disdain for, is the "equal protection under the law" concept enshrined in the 14th amendment.
It goes back to a rule of thumb I learned early in life:
The more people say, the less they are.