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New from @reuters: White Nationalists are on a mission to scrub their image & enter the mainstream. But violence like the #ElPaso shooting casts an interminable shadow. Here’s my latest, a dive into the movement’s psychology: graphics.reuters.com/USA-WHITE%20NA… Here's what we found (thread): 
@Reuters I was fortunate to join our photojournalist @jimurquhartpixs - the real star of the show - to report from inside white nationalist circles. Jim has spent 2 yrs doing this, delivering some incredible - if jarring - photos.
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs It was an assignment that tested my composure in just a short time. It’s nothing compared to what Jim’s been living.
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs What we found was evidence of what WNs call “Phase 2:” moving away from rallies and confrontation, and trying to enter the mainstream and eventually infiltrate institutions.
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs As KKK leader Thomas Robb told us: The klan wants to portray itself as “responsible people who aren’t using the ‘N word’” and who “speak like Corporate America”
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs Robb keeps a nursery in his KKK “church” to promote & support white breeding, & to fight the so-called Great Replacement theory of whites’ declining demographic majority
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs Family oriented activities like WN BBQs, boat rides & book clubs were ubiquitous. Proponents borrowed language from Civil Rights, claiming they don’t hate any one race, just the system that subordinates theirs.
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs But as they preached nonviolence in one breath, they condoned or committed it in another. Two months after @Reuters attended neo-Nazi ShieldWall network’s weekend BBQ, 3 of its organizers were arrested for beating up a gay man.
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs KKK leader Chris Barker told us he’d “like to see an all-out race war.” So much for Pastor Robb’s “speak like corporate America” gambit
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs Pat Lanzo, who runs the Georgia Peach Oyster Bar in Temple, GA, insists his restaurant isn’t racist. He said, with folksy charisma, “we hate everyone equally.” Yet...
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs Lanzo’s menus feature a drawing of a klansman relaxing on a hammock made of two black corpses tied at the feet. And he’s rented his property to KKK for cross burnings.
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs In sum, every WN we spoke to disavowed #ElPaso shootings - but did so while lending credence to its motives & undertaking a mission to make WN views palatable to the mainstream. So is that truly a disavowal? Or does it grant license to those who might fancy themselves vigilantes?
@Reuters @jimurquhartpixs It’s a question our story tries to pose. In many ways we only scratch the surface. Perhaps the clearest takeaway is this movement, despite a lack of recent rallies & noise, hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s regrouping, rebranding, and reinforcing its ranks. graphics.reuters.com/USA-WHITE%20NA… /end
