I wonder if doxxing white supremacists, exposing their identity on the internet, is effective. I do not wish to be misinterpreted: I have spent a lifetime fighting against racial prejudice, as well as other biases, and I am not sympathetic to those who would act on their hatred. I’m only speculating about the potential consequences of attacking bigots in this manner, whether it will defeat them or win over others. It may well give them what they want: the “clash of civilizations” in which they understand themselves to be not the aggressors but the aggrieved.
Shunning them might give them a basis for the victimhood they claim to have. We all have stories we tell ourselves to explain our situation and especially success. Theirs appears to be based on the belief that they are put upon, threatened in a way of life that was deemed normal until recently. They are not alone either: studies show that significant numbers of white Americans believe they are the ones facing serious discrimination.
I try to imagine the world they inhabit. Demographic patterns within the United States, as blending ensures a future without a white majority, are accompanied by global trends, as the ascent of Asia means the ascent of Asians. From their perspective, they look out and see that everyone else is welcomed. Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Jews, immigrants, gays, women, the disabled et al., each has an affinity group at the workplace, with its own celebrations and network. Other traditions are respected, or at least people are told they must be. By their reckoning, they want for their community only what has been given to others — by their interpretation, taken from them. Thus they bear a grudge, and informing them that they remain dominant, on average and in the aggregate, based on scientific studies, only riles them up all the more.
They do not believe that they are privileged, because they don’t feel it. The effort to show them data looks like intellectual condescension. It comes from people whom the alt-right folks despise, the ones who read the New York Times and repeat the research that the newspaper has cited, who do what cannot be done in a democracy. Explicitly or implicitly, they — ironically, those who favor diversity — seem to be saying, “I am better than you” — you who are not enthusiastic about diversity.
So if neo-Nazis or skinheads are fired from their jobs or refused service at a restaurant, they are doubly resentful. There is the affront of being treated as if they bear a stigma. Then in addition there is the apparent hypocrisy of it all. (I am not challenging the Charlottesville restaurant owner who heroically put himself at risk kicking out a group saluting Hitler. He had the right, and he was right.)
That is why I cringe when my friends proclaim that they welcome everybody. In their eagerness to show how they include people of all backgrounds, are fair in treatment of strangers, and promote all that could be called social justice, they cannot avoid contradicting themselves. They intend to exclude racists, sexists, and homophobes. The progressive do so even as they insist there is a distinction between conduct (to hate) and status (to be an individual who hates). They are giving up on engagement and education. They have lost the confidence it is possible to persuade people and change them.
Perhaps I am wrong. I hope so. Yet I offer a warning. To increase rather than decrease the anger of white supremacists, ratcheting up tensions, is a dangerous tactic.