Thread by @AmericanStudier

Let’s be clear: the exclusionary, white supremacist vision of the US has consistently produced some of our most horrific acts of violence & domestic terrorism. Native American massacres & genocides, as early as the Mystic Village massacre of 1636.
americanstudier.blogspot.com/2018/09/septem…

Lynching epidemics, targeting African Americans for more than a century but also targeting Chinese and Mexican Americans throughout the West and Southwest (among other communities).
saturdayeveningpost.com/2019/03/consid…

Massacres of entire American communities of color, from Wilmington, NC’s African American community in 1898…
wilmingtononfire.com

…to Los Angeles’s Chinatown in 1871…
books.google.com/books/about/Th…

…to Exeter and Watsonville, CA’s Filipino American communities in 1929-30, among many many many others.
positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/in-th…

It’s also not new for these acts of white supremacist violence & domestic terrorism to be paralleled by exclusionary policies & laws, from Jim Crow to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Indian Removal to the Filipino Repatriation Act, and on and on and on.

However, I believe there are two significantly new aspects to our current moment of exclusionary, white supremacist violence & domestic terrorism, & together they have made this 21C threat perhaps the most dangerous we’ve ever faced.

For one thing, we have a president, administration, allies, indeed an entire national political movement & party dedicated to fanning the flames of white supremacist exclusion. Indeed, it seems to be his & their defining strategy & goal.

& for another thing, individual Americans inspired by that hate have unprecedented, direct access to weapons of war. No longer are white supremacist mobs necessary to perpetrate massacres or domestic terrorism—now 21-year old bigots can do it all by themselves.

I believe all three of these factors require consistent challenge & activism. We have to better remember the foundational American histories of exclusionary, white supremacist violence in order to understand that ongoing legacy in 2019.

We have to oppose & counter the white supremacist, exclusionary rhetoric and narratives and policies and laws of this president and all who abet and support him.

And, yes, we have to enact sweeping #GunControl legislation and regulations to stop the proliferation and availability of these weapons of war.

I went to bed mourning El Paso, thinking about how I could have added it to the section of my book’s intro where I talk about the Tree of Life synagogue mass shooting and exclusionary domestic terrorism.
rowman.com/ISBN/978153812…

I woke up to the news of Dayton. It’s so hard not to break, not to despair, at moments like this. But we can & must do these three things. Remember our foundational & ongoing exclusions. Oppose & counter our white supremacist president. & get rid of these horrific weapons.

I came here not just to share those thoughts, but bc this community is one that consistently inspires me in all those efforts. I know the internet/social media contributes to the radicalization of domestic terrorists. But it also, crucially, offers alternatives, models our best.