Published: April 24, 2000
Hate
Groups
By Ferris Shelton
"It's
written clear across the room,
In silent words the blind could understand."
Elton
John, Wicked Dreams
From 'The Big Picture' Album.
Shhhh.White supremacist organizations all over America are counting on our national silence. They prefer a populace that stands by silently while they recruit, manipulate and exploit the citizenry. It has been said that silence is golden. But, in this case - silence is just yellow.
Silence: that state or fact or quality of being silent is the fertilizer spread across the nation that allows white supremacist groups to take root. Silence further manifests itself by the public's glaring failure to disclose, aggressively isolate and restrict these organizations. American silence, in effect, gives the white supremacist movement the cover of secrecy even in this high-tech age of information.
The Internet is the most powerful aspect of the information age. It is also the prospecting tool of choice for the white supremacist. Millions of 'hits' on WWW.KKK.come-join-us go primarily unreported and unnoticed. It is the Internet that has expanded the base of these hate groups with educated and affluent white youth. Once upon a time in America, white racists were locally focused, requiring the silent acquiescence to be community and county based. Today, the Internet allows for national and international networking, instantaneously. This fact requires a correspondingly networked silence to not 'hit' on the evil lurking over the landscape.
Here in America, the disciples of hatred make it a challenge to maintain silence. Whether blowing up buildings, committing drive-by shootings or randomly shooting children in a day care center, our national silence is temporarily broken by these individual acts. However, we seldom connect these events back to the source. That source incites the mentally weak or unstable to act on the source's pronouncements and teachings. We prosecute the individuals while the hate groups themselves are relatively unaffected.
A free pass to these organizations from the public at large is not as damaging as the welcoming hand extended from the political right. Once considered extreme, the white supremacist movement has evolved within the republican right and now insulates itself from the core of conservatism. The hater's influence can be seen in the political right's choice of causes and heroes: Mark Fuhrman, Stacey Coon and many other unsavory characters have found support in various right-wing publications.
The close proximity of right-wing politics and white supremacist ideology can not be denied. There is but one natural political home for the anti-Semite, the racist, the homophobe and other indoctrinated haters - and that is the GOP. What is puzzling, however, is the silence of the good people in the republican ranks. Are they closet racists? Or, does the principles of pro-life and pro-guns, low taxes and less Government offset the fact that hate-mongers occupy a sizable portion of their party faithful?
Either way, to masquerade the party of Lincoln and Reagan as color-blind and racially benevolent is a sham.
A profile of the violent white racist is clear. They are usually angry, white and male. He is likely to think every successful black is an affirmative action beneficiary; every Hispanic is an illegal alien; and every Jewish person conspired to kill Christ. But, as Matthew Hale, David Duke and others have demonstrated, the mentors of these angry white men are sophisticated and shrewd, but no less dangerous. Although a racist profile is well known, it does not stick, even convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McViegh has not been "Willie Horton-ed".
This white supremacist menace is growing during a time of national prosperity. It can only get worse when the economy takes a downturn. The silent and tacit approval of these groups today will mean a much larger, more entrenched problem in the future.
As the Germans learned earlier in this century: Evil will thrive when good is silent. The white supremacist are putting their index fingers to their puckered lips and saying, "Shhhh."
It is time for American goodness to break the silence and be heard.
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