Regarding the argument that a peaceful demonstration restricts campus access: a couple of weeks ago, an anti-gay, anti-feminist, antiabortion and ultraconservative group picketed Northwestern's campus. They had a very bad bagpipe player and a bunch of banners. (1) Gay students, trans students, women students all had to walk past these dudes and their bagpipe to get to class. They were not removed, even though they were first, disrupting class and more with the stupid bagpipe and (2)

Good morning! The original post is still up, so I gather that person is interested in rage clicks rather than engaging on anything. But I do want to take a moment to reply to a few real things that came up in this discussion: (1) I don't agree that the only topic invited speakers can discuss right now is the ongoing catastrophe in Israel and Palestine, particularly because the white power movement is going strong in the meantime. (2)

Hi there! Just wanted to clear this up: this was not a speaking gig, but part of a panel on the intersections between public-facing historical scholarship and historically informed journalism. (1)

https://twitter.com/samhaselby/status/1728116528560644119

Certainly no one was "paying her to tell them how to do history." Northwestern already does history. Maddow's new book, Prequel, is of interest because it engages archival work and historiography for a public audience. (2)

I'm getting a lot of these in my feed today, so just to clear it up: yes, the Klan was started by Democrats in the 1860s. No, that does not mean that the Klan today is related to the Democratic Party. The Klan today is part of the white power movement and has links to the GOP. Yes, the Nazis in Germany were called "National Socialist." No, that does not mean that they were "socialist" in the way we use that word today. They were fascist.

Breaking: along with the scrawls on the weapon (reference to the Christchurch shooting), the Jacksonville shooter wore a Rhodesian flag patch. This is another, definitive tie to the white power movement (1)
nbcnews.com/news/us-news/r… Dylann Roof also wore a Rhodesian flag patch in photos taken before his shooting at the AME Church in Charleston in 2015. This is one example of old, old symbols of the organized white power movement being used by young people today (2)

There are multiple kinds of mass shootings. Some are white power/militant right/ideological. Others (and usually true in school shootings) are not part of an organized movement & instead have to do with other factors. (1) I can't believe I need to say this, but no, a nonwhite mass shooter does not mean there is no white power movement. Of course not. There are MULTIPLE PROBLEMS here, all of them impacting real people and real communities, (2)

Hi! Incomplete thought noted, thanks everybody. Here's the rest: in the 1980s, RICO was one of three main mechanism used to confront white power organizations attempting to use cell-style terrorism to overthrow the US and also to harm targeted Jewish, LGBT, and POC communities (1

https://twitter.com/kathleen_belew/status/1691538101724704771

RICO is how they prosecuted members of The Order in the 1980s, for instance. The second main mechanism was civil lawsuits (like SPLC vs the Klan). The third was a seditious conspiracy case, which depended on the evidence and plea bargains of RICO prosecutions (2)

This is a stunning, glaring backslide, @nytimes, which deserves a considered retraction. I know the op-ed page knows better, and I'd expect better from your reporters, fact-checkers, and editorial staff. That link to "some have insisted" is from 2015, and much has changed since h/t @JeffSharlet

My twitter people, the category of "whiteness" we use right now in the US is not the only one. We've only had this one for about a century (1) Before that, in the US, a variety of ethnic groups (Irish, Polish, Southern European for instance) counted as nonwhite, partially white, less white (2)

Allen, Texas mall shooting fact roundup: reports say gunman was an Army gunman who now worked as a security guard; had a Right-Wing Death Squad patch; posted neo-Nazi materials online. The fact that his name is Mauricio Garcia shouldn't confuse us. This was a white power shooting Long story short, whiteness is a big category with a lot of definitions, and has a totally different set of requirements in the Latino community (2)

The Airman Teixiera story is not confusing, friends. It is about online radicalization and infiltration of the Armed Forces, and a shocking lack of either monitoring of this problem (which the DOD has known about at least since the early 1980s) or stopgaps to stop such breaches. For instance: we know (and the DOD knows) that active-duty personnel have been targeted for recruitment by extremist groups, successfully in too many cases, at least since the mid-1970s (2)

I was really delighted to talk to @HerbertHistory today for a podcast about Con Air, my favorite good-bad movie. Lulu was not so happy about it menace muppet

This except these "lone wolves" are part of an organized movement. Related: in this volume, I have an essay called "There Are No Lone Wolves: The White Power Movement at War" amazon.com/Field-Guide-Wh… (1)

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1643219199081295875

"Lone wolves" in the white power movement have been working in concert with public-facing white power activists (like the Jan 6 groups) to overthrow the US government since 1983 (2)

People who are writing there are no signs of extremist reactions to the indictment should not look for attacks on NYC tomorrow, they should look for lone wolf-style attacks in two weeks. Mass casualty attacks (not Jan 6) follow the Waco reference. nytimes.com/2023/04/03/us/… We are approaching the Oklahoma City bombing anniversary (April 19) and we should watch targets like federal buildings, courthouses, people seen as enemies of the white power and militant right movements, and infrastructure and symbolic targets.

We aren't talking enough about the Trump rally in Waco this weekend. This site is important to the white power movement and other extremist groups because it signifies not only a moment of federal overreach, but a response by extremists: the Oklahoma City bombing. (1) Waco is significant because it is used as the alibi for domestic terrorism: because the federal government killed Branch Davidians at Waco, the story goes, violence against the federal government (and collateral damage against civilians) can be justified. (2)

Relatedly, if anybody is looking for a good place to put a small endowment, someone should help get the Patricia Schroeder Papers properly organized at the University of Colorado library. They are a trove of material for historians. I would bet on it that you will not find the papers of a man of similar historical significance in such a state, regardless of the holding institution.

Maybe my syllabus policy will just be: if you write your paper with chatgpt, then I write your letter of recommendation with chatgpt I just had #ChatGPT write a letter of recommendation for an undergrad applying to grad programs in history & it is exactly like an undergrad paper written with chatgpt: it technically meets the requirements of the genre, but it is a soulless facsimile of the real thing

If you could pay a dollar to solve one petty problem forever, what would it be? (No big altruistic gestures allowed, just the little stupid stuff that bugs every time) I think I would choose never having to do power point ever again

No, no, of course not. See the many many peer-reviewed studies of all of this. Disinformation experts study the manufacture and dissemination of false info (which is determined by factchecking). Anti-extremist experts study extremism (which is determined in my case by violence). Online safety experts help figure out ways to keep children away from inappropriate content. Wait, isn't that something the right is interested in doing?

As promised, here is a thread about the history of the "and girlfriend" trope. If you're new to this conversation, we're talking about the arrest this week of Atomwaffen leader Brandon Russell "and girlfriend" Sarah Clendaniel. WaPo has since updated to call her his partner (1)

https://twitter.com/kathleen_belew/status/1623001941935529984

To review, Clendaniel was pictured wearing Atomwaffen-style paramilitary uniform, gear, and mask; expressed her own white power ideology; and expressed her readiness to sacrifice her own life "for my people" (white people) (2)

Also: "and girlfriend"--this is the girlfriend

https://twitter.com/kathleen_belew/status/1622660076409430017

she told "informant she expected to die of kidney disease within months and just wanted “to accomplish something worthwhile” first. She left a statement, according to the complaint, that references Hitler, the Unabomber, and a Norwegian mass killer" Breveik