I teach a class on film & politics. One week focuses on the rise of the contemporary White Power movement and related political violence. I want to share the main reading and two documentaries we studied, as I think they help illuminate some of the dynamics of this moment. 🧵 1/
Our main text was Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America, by @kathleen_belew (which I highly recommend). 2/
amazon.com/Bring-War-Home…
@kathleen_belew A key insight from the book is that a subset of veterans felt betrayed both by the government’s handling of the Vietnam War and by the federal government’s commitment to civil rights for Blacks and Asian Americans. 3/
@kathleen_belew In this worldview, the government either supported White people and their interests or, in a direct threat to White people, was aligned with non-Whites. The ideology is often described as anti-government but it’s actually against a state that doesn’t privilege White concerns. 4/
@kathleen_belew For a more visceral sense of how White Power ideologies can turn into violence, we watched the documentary Oklahoma City. The film traces Timothy McVeigh’s path from US soldier to leader of the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history. 5/ pbs.org/wgbh/americane…
@kathleen_belew Finally, we also watched Frontline: Documenting Hate - Charlottesville, directed by Richard Rowley. @ACInvestigates does a remarkable job reporting on the White supremacists & neo-Nazis involved in the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. 6/ pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
@kathleen_belew @ACInvestigates When far-right activists engage in vigilante violence or domestic terror, the media often describes them as “lone wolves.” @kathleen_belew makes clear that’s a mistake. White Power is a social movement. When violence erupts, we need to ask “Where were they radicalized?” /fin
For anyone interested, a few additional texts. This superb history in @tabletmag provides context for the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue. For the contemporary part, skip to ”The modern story of the terrorist far right must focus on one individual…” tabletmag.com/sections/news/…
Arlie Russell Hochschild’s research is not about the White Power movement but does help shed light on some of Trump’s broader appeal to many Whites who feel like the government is no longer on their side. See what Hochschild calls the “deep story.” motherjones.com/politics/2016/…
This striking article by @Danielduane helps remind us White supremacy was a national project: ”Between 1850 and 1861, California government spent an ~$1.5 million reimbursing bounty hunters and militias for deliberate mass murder of Native Californians.” nytimes.com/2019/09/28/opi…
My research is not about White Power but does speak to the role of state-aligned White vigilante violence in opposition to the civil rights movement.
There have been some great suggestions in response to this thread so I’m going to extend it with additional crowdsourced readings, films and podcasts. @Saintsman3 recommends the incomparable W.E.B. Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk.
My friend Alex recommended Rising Out of Hatred by Eli Saslow. It documents the spread of white-supremacist ideas ”through the intensely personal saga of one man who eventually disavowed everything he was taught to believe, at tremendous personal cost.” bookshop.org/books/rising-o…
A couple people recommended @Deeyah_Khan’s “White Right: A Muslim Filmmaker Confronts Members of the New ‘White Right‘”.
.@Whataboutista suggested “American Patriot: Inside the Armed Uprising Against the Federal Government” pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
.@sivavaid recommends two podcasts:
— Democracy in Danger in which he & @WillHitchUVA interview @kathleen_belew (up second week of Sept)
— ”the entire podcast series by @pastpunditry…the gold standard for documentary podcasts”
.@JessicaScott09 recommends James William Gibson’s Warrior Dreams as well as Leonard Zeskind’s Blood and Politics.
amazon.com/Warrior-Dreams…
.@e_Rigby71 helpfully offers a few recommendations: “The Birth of a Movement: How Birth of a Nation Ignited the Battle for Civil Rights, captures the backdrop to this prescient clash between human rights, freedom of speech, and a changing media landscape.” pbs.org/independentlen…
Also via @e_Rigby71, “The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, Jane Elliott, a teacher in a small, all-white Iowa town, divided her third-grade class into blue-eyed and brown-eyed groups and gave them a daring lesson in discrimination.” pbs.org/wgbh/frontline…
Last batch of generous suggestions from @e_Rigby71:
— Race: The Power of an Illusion, specifically Episode 3
racepowerofanillusion.org/episodes/three
— Welcome to Leith, pbs.org/independentlen…
— Reveal podcast series on hate, revealnews.org/topic/hate/
.@GeraldineMoriba is the host & producer of a new podcast Sounds Like Hate, “an audio documentary series about the dangers and peril of everyday people who engage in extremism, and ways to disengage them from a life of hatred.” soundslikehate.org
A fav of mine: ”In 1965, Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma. Three men were tried & acquitted, but no one was ever held to account. Fifty yrs later, two journalists return to city where it happened & expose lies that kept the murder from being solved…” npr.org/podcasts/51034…
In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism. A Night at the Garden, a 7-min short film directed by @marshallcurry, shows remarkable archival footage and the lone protester who fought back. anightatthegarden.com
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