Bigotry, Demonizing Rhetoric and Right-Wing Violence

Since the inauguration of Barack Obama there have been nine murders by men and women who have intersected with ideologies of White Supremacy, xenophobia, and antisemitism. Across America there is a rising crescendo of diverse voices clamoring for a public discussion of the connection between demonizing rhetoric by high profile pundits and politicians and the rash of violent attacks by individuals enmeshed in bigotry and conspiracy theories.

During the election campaign in 2008 it was clear some people on the political Right were becoming agitated about the potential for a Black man backed by liberals to become the next President of the United States.

Shortly before the election, police broke up an alleged plot by racist skinheads in Tennessee to kill Black people and then assassinate candidate Obama.

On election night Ali Kamara, a teenage Muslim and Black immigrant from Liberia who lives on Staten Island, New York , was brutally assaulted by attackers who shouted “Obama.” That same night a church serving a predominantly Black congregation in Springfield, Massachusetts , was burned to the ground in an arson attack later determined to be a racist hate crime. In Maine residents discovered Black figures hanging from nooses tied to trees. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey crosses were burned in the yards of Obama supporters.

The acts of bigotry and violence continued. In December a man in Maine was shot to death by his wife who said he had become increasingly agitated about the election of Obama and had collected bomb-making materials in their home. Police found a filled-out application for joining a neonazi group. Just a day after Obama’s inauguration in January, a young White man is alleged to have killed two people of color in the Cape Verdean community in Brockton, Massachusetts. Reports indicate he had been browsing White Supremacist and neonazi websites and had come to believe that White people were facing genocide at the hands of non-Whites, Hispanics and Jews.

After police detained him, he told them he had also planned to kill as many Jews as he could find that night. The dead included Selma Goncalves, who had tried to stop the alleged rape of her sister by the gunman. The other death was a father of eight, Arlindo Goncalves (not related), shot dead in the street simply because of skin color.

There were other incidents of violence and threats against Obama linked to White Supremacists in North Carolina and Florida. On April 4, 2009 , a Pittsburgh man was charged with killing three police officers, Eric Kelly, Stephen Mayhle, and Paul Sciullo III. According to news reports, the gunman had expressed White Supremacist and antisemitic views, and worried that there was a conspiracy afoot for government agents to seize all guns.

Then, in the space of two weeks, there were three more deadly incidents.

May 30, Arizona. Police allege that a gang of racist vigilante “border patrol” activists staged an armed invasion of the home of a Mexican family, killing the father, Raul Flores, the nine-year-old daughter, Brisenia, and seriously wounding the mother. According to the charges brought against a trio linked to the Minuteman American Defense (MAD), the plan was to kill all the residents of the house, and then steal the narcotics and money the vigilantes expected to find there. The funds were to be used to support increased border vigilante actions. In a “Patriot Hearts Network” web radio interview a few weeks earlier, one of the trio had denounced the illegal crossing of the border by Mexicans and warned, “We’re going to be walking into some times of revolution….”

May 31, Kansas. A man involved in the right-wing Sovereign Citizen movement and the militant wing of the anti-abortion movement walked up to Dr. George Tiller, standing at the entrance to his church, and shot him dead. Tiller, considered a hero by many in the reproductive justice movement, was a symbol of evil to many in the anti-abortion movement. The Sovereign Citizen movement is rooted in a White Supremacist interpretation of U.S. Constitutional law, and frequently overlaps with antisemitic conspiracy theories. Several right-wing pundits on TV and radio had repeatedly condemned Tiller by name.

June 10, Washington, DC. A gunman walked toward the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum firing a rifle, and killing a Black security guard, Stephen Tyrone Johns. The man charged in the armed assault has a long history of virulent writings outlining his White Supremacist and antisemitic views.

The victims are named in this update. The perpetrators are evidence of a larger pattern of racist scapegoating and conspiracist thinking that is toxic to democracy. Their names are not as important as the need for a public discussion of these deadly dynamics.

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What you can do...

1) Spread the word about today's Fresh Air program and the Media Matters for America press conference also scheduled for today. Read Media Matters' Report on Right-wing media and the fringe: A growing history of violence (and denial).

2) Download and Read Toxic to Democracy: Conspiracy Theories, Demonization, & Scapegoating.

3) Browse the list of resources from a number of civil rights and human right groups concerned about this toxic environment of bigotry. Then pick a group to work with and support them. Get involved.

4) Resist further erosion of our civil liberties. The recent government report on so-called "Right-Wing Extremism" had valuable information, but was flawed by dubious claims and a failure to differentiate between right-wing ideas and criminal activity.

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Get educated and get active

See also:

• Behind the murder at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.


• For articles that shed light on the complex relationships between thought and action behind the assassination of Dr. Tiller.


• PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet and Public Eye magazine contributor Fred Clarkson speak about the murder on this Democracy Now video.


• Explaining the social science dynamics: Right-Wing Populism, the Patriot Movement, and Organized White Supremacy

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(photo copyright 2009, Chip Berlet)

Follow Chip Berlet on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cberlet

Comments

[keeblerelves]

My hatred is righteous and just

I hate drunk drivers, sexist white men, and child molesters. Drunks can sometimes change with 12-step religion/therapy, but their pee should constantly be tested. Sexist white men can sometimes be changed with anti-patriarchy therapy but they shouldn’t be trusted around women (and women, if they hit you once they will definitely hit you again) Child molesters “can’t ever be rehabilitated” so they should be locked away for life.

[blaqntelligence]

What about sexist Black men?
Or Asian?
Latino?
Native American?

[blaqntelligence]

As an infection seem to gain strength just before the antibiotics finish it off, so goes the infection of racism in this country.
The election of our first Black president fooled many into believing that the worst was behind us and only better days were ahead.
Not so.
When we read of cross burnings, murder-bec­ause-of-sk­in-color, bombings and arson we can become disgusted, angry and afraid.
Disgusted, angry and afraid that all our hard work was for nothing. That those who died fighting for civil rights died in vain.
Also not so.
We are witnessing racism's last gasp. It's not going down without a fight.....but it's going down. President Obama's election has proven that.
And?
America wants to live.

[Chip Berlet - Huffpost Blogger]

I agree it is important to be an optimist for the long run, but as you point out, we need to be a realist for the job we face confronting racism in America.

[blaqntelligence]

Agreed, Mr. Berlet.
I just worry about those getting a crash-course in "Race in America". Those that truly believed our messy, scary past was behind us. These throw-backs attempting to breathe life into the rotting pre-Civil Rights corpse are loosing all kinds of demons many thought had been exorcised.
My fear is many will be frightened enough to react as our tortured enemy combatants did. Say/do/believe anything to make it stop. Including putting the inciters back in power.
That is my personal nightmare.

[CitizenSovereign]

I agree that we must destroy every last destructible vestige of racism in our culture, starting with the easiest change; our laws. What we must try to remember in the process is that laws alone do not determine culture, nor should they. What this means is that racism as an idea, and very probably as a real belief to an insignificant population, will always exist. Any attempt to violate these two areas of human life legislatively would be irresponsible, not to mention just as impossible as the creation of Marx's "communist man," who was said to be "incapable of asking the question, 'Who was the first man?'" Not so irresponsible as outright vigilantism, of course, but just as damaging in the long term.
Also, the temptation to demonize the legitimate views of those on the opposing political side who are against extremists leads only to the antagonism of a potentially useful ally. To lay these atrocities at their feet, implying that there are not always idiots in the room who agree with you for half-baked reasons no matter what philosophical position you espouse, is simple sophistry. It is as much grounded in irrational fear and representative of hate-speech as saying that philosophical liberals, desiring a more powerful state so they could expect more from it, were responsible for the mass starvation in Ukraine.

-Chris Henderson
politguard.com