In 1979, the Klan joins together with a whole bunch of other people for the first time in American history. So there's two different things that happened. You look at these as different movements?īELEW: Sort of. RASCOE: So this is separate and apart from, like, the KKK, you know, after reconstruction and things like that. And that means that for these activists, they see those as apocalyptic threats that are somewhat interchangeable in a larger project of protecting and preserving whiteness itself and advocating for a antidemocratic, white ethno-state, which is what they're doing. These groups see gay rights, immigration, interracial contact, and especially the birth of interracial children, feminism as all being a problem because they believe that those things will undermine the white birthrate. And the other one we need to put on that list is seemingly individual acts of violence that result in mass casualties against targeted populations, like the one we just saw in Buffalo, but that we've also seen in El Paso and Charleston and Pittsburgh. KATHLEEN BELEW: That's the key thing to understand if we would like to combat this problem. What do county electoral ballots and pride parades have to do with white supremacy? Kathleen Belew studies the far right She is the author of "Bring The War Home - The White Power Movement And Paramilitary America." And she says there is a direct connection. A week ago, members of another white supremacist group, Patriot Front, were arrested before, authorities allege, violently disrupting a gay pride event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
January 6 featured Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.