CHRISTIAN WHITE EXTREMIST GROUPS “SUB-CULTURE OF HATE AND FEAR”

White hate groups are all around us, in the United States we have them in all fifty states and they can be found all around the world. In America they have a long history of harassing, torturing, and killing, those who they feel are non-human. They spread their hatred through propaganda in their writings, music, Internet sites, and the national media. Using television and radio to spread their hatred, the Ku Klux Klan and other white hate groups have been seen on shows in the past like Geraldo and The Jerry Springer Show, trying to get more people involved in their movement, preying on the young who they feel are more easily swayed to their viewpoints and people’s weaknesses. Back in 2001 the Ku Klux Klan from Idaho were even invited to the farmers’ parade rally that was held in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Small town America is not safe from their grip. Racial hatred has always been a part of America; we were founded in genocide, torturing and killing the Native American Tribes for their land, and with building a country on the backs of African slaves. It’s not a history to be pride of but one we need to learn from, so future generations can change.

White Christian Separatist groups are some of the oldest and strongest hate groups here in America. The Ku Klux Klan, The American Nazi Party, Christian Identity and others follow a strict separatist Christian belief, of racial purity, that has its roots from the time the white European Puritans stepped on the shores of what would be the United States of America. Their targets are Jews, Non-Whites, other Religious groups (including other Christians that do not follow their ways), feminists, lesbians and gays, and anyone that does not agree with their agenda.

The old Ku Klux Klan was created in 1865 by former Confederate soldiers in Pulaski, Tennessee. It started as just a club for white Southern Christian men, but soon turned into a nightmare, hunting down freed African slaves, (men, women and children), torturing, raping, and killing them in the thousands in the name of white Christian society. Growing in numbers, the Ku Klux Klan became a powerful force in the Southern States. Today’s Ku Klux Klan has a larger agenda of hate, including other non-whites, (as well as African Americans), Jews, feminists, lesbians and gays, and other religious groups. They can be found in all fifty states, having offices or meeting areas. They have parades to make a show of their numbers, and in some Southern States the local law enforcement uses them for back up, like a volunteer police force or militia.

George Lincoln Rockwell founded the American Nazi Party in 1958. The American Nazi Party believes that the fictionalized Aryan race is the chosen people of their Christian god. The party’s greatest goal is to exterminate the Jewish race and send all African Americans back to Africa. They want to stop all mixing of races and to stop lesbians and gays from gaining equal rights. They believe that they are the ones who will create a pure Caucasian race here on American soil; they want to do what Hitler started and failed at in Germany.

Christian Identity is a white separatist group, with radio shows, other media outlets, churches and bible camps all through the United States. It is based on the belief that Anglo-Saxon Christians are the true Israelis (the biblically chosen people.) This movement started back in the 1700s, coming to America in the 1940’s. Their beliefs are very racist and anti-Semitic. Jews they believe are the children of Eve and Satan, and must be destroyed. Like all other Christian hate groups, they believe in the myth that the Jewish race is in control of everything, and trying to destroy the Christian faith. They also believe that the Holocaust was a Jewish conspiracy and that Hitler was a hero to the Caucasian race. Non-whites they believe are soulless creatures that are non-human and are inferior to the Anglo-Saxon race; though not as threatening as the Jewish race, non-whites or what they call the “Mud People” are still a threat to their blood purity. Christian Identity believes that race mixing is against the plan of their god, to mate with a Jew or a non-white is like a form of bestiality. Their members would like to see mixed racial dating and marriages outlawed in America. They are also against gay rights, believing that it is a Jewish movement to destroy the Christian American family. They home school their children so they cannot interact with children of different races and so they cannot learn about other ways of life. The real world these children never get to interact with, growing up to believe everything the group teaches them; making generation after generation of members that  know no other way to live, but to hate those who they are indoctrinated too.

Women’s rights and feminism are seen in these religious hate groups as going against the nature of white womanhood and the natural role of women. Women in these hate movements are held in mostly a subordinate role, they are there to support the men and to give birth to the next generations of the so-called Aryan race or God’s chosen race, and are encouraged to have large families. Women in most of these groups are taught that their place is in the home to take care of the children and to home educate them in the ways of the group’s beliefs and faith, most do not have jobs outside of the home or hate organization. The group Christian Identity takes it one step farther, and doesn’t believe that women need to go to college, believing that educating women equally to men, is a Jewish conspiracy to destroy the white Christian American family and to destroy Aryan women’s femininity, and makes them too masculine or turns them into lesbians so they are not fit to marry or breed with. Women are also believed to be spiritually weaker than men, not to be fully trusted, because of being the daughters of Eve, who they believe is the mother of the Jewish race. This was a sin against Eve’s pure white race, for this, all white women must be put in their place, forever being subservient. Lesbians and gays are seen to be a threat to the perfect white Christian family. White lesbians are seen as breaking the rules of white womanhood, not being the good wives, mothers, and helpmates to pure white husbands saving the pure white race. White gay men are seen as not being leaders, husbands, and fathers, fathering the next generation of the white race.

In America these groups have free reign to spread their terrorist hatred (hiding behind freedom of religion and freedom of speech), when other countries try to slow their progression down. It is America’s turn to stand up for all her citizens, to protect them from these groups and their dangerous beliefs. We should start saying no to hate speech, to teach our children in our schools, places of worship and our homes, that we are all equal. Anthropologists and scientists have said it all along; we are one species, one race, the human race. We come in many skin shades, eye colors, and hair colors (straight to curly), all do to the climate and the area of the world our ancestors lived in. We can be short or tall, skinny or on the heavy side. We are female, male and even at times born intersex, gay, straight, bisexual, trans…and we all deserve respect and safety. We have different ethnicities, cultures, thoughts, religions, and political views. But when it comes down to it, we are all the same human animal, having the same human DNA, body physiology, made of tissue, bone and blood. We are a specie that is always in change, always dreaming, always thinking, and always creating. So next time you feel like saying a word of hate against your neighbor, think about the fact that you are saying it against your own kind, a fellow member of the human race. 

Dedicated to my Anthropology Professor Thomas Larson (this was a speech and paper for his Cultural Anthropology class at Klamath Community College.) He will be forever missed.Biography from one of his books: Professor Thomas J. Larson of Klamath Falls, Oregon, was born on a farm in Minnesota in 1917. He has four degrees in cultural anthropology, and has made eight expeditions from 1950 to 1994 to study the Hambukushu of Botswana. He is a member of the Explorer's Club, Oxford Society, and World War II organizations.  Dibebe of the Okavango by Thomas Larson (2001) http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Okavango-Thomas-Larson/dp/0595239455.

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RACISM BEHIND BARS

Introduction

Hate groups can be found all over the United States, in every state of the union, with names like: Aryan Nation, The American Nazi Party, Church of the Creator, United White Peoples’ Party, and one of the oldest American hate terrorist groups, the Ku Klux Klan, which has many factions around the country. But you rarely think of these groups having much power or say in the jail and prison systems of the United States, where prisoners are watched twenty-four hours a day. But this is the very setting that makes it easy for them to recruit people to follow their messages of hate, people who already want to blame someone for their lives of bad addictions and choices, and extreme violence. “Prison officials estimate that up to 10 percent of the nation’s prison population is affiliated with such gangs” (Bigotry Behind Bars: Racist Groups in U.S. Prisons). These groups (or gangs as they are called ), recruit prisoners who are already prejudice against some minority or those who feel that they got a “bad break” somewhere along the way, and want to put a face on this perceived oppressor.

Sources of Hate

Some of these white supremacist prisoners come from families who raised them in a prejudice household, where another race, ethnic or religious group is viewed as inferior, less than human. Others follow peers who introduce them to the racist lifestyle, either before or after being incarcerated, in both the jail (where they may be first introduced to the philosophy) and prison systems. Some prisoners come to the prison system because of violent hate crimes they have committed, some are members of racist groups already, others are not, but follow that lifestyle. But most are just violent criminals, looking for someone to blame for their own actions, and looking for a way to go on with their violent criminal career and behavior. Whichever way these criminals started as a racists, it ends up meaning more violence in the prison system, putting guards and fellow prisoners at risk, especially minority prisoners. After these prisoners are released their racist violence follows them into the outside world, putting ordinary citizens at risk. The sadistic murder of James Byrd Jr. in Texas in 1998, by three white men (John William King, Shawn Berry, and Lawrence Brewer Jr.) is proof that these white power gangs take their hate and violence with them when they are released. James Byrd Jr. was beaten savagely, and then chained and dragged behind a pickup truck until he was beheaded. “Both King and Brewer had links to white supremacist groups while serving terms in state prison” (The murder of James Byrd, Jr. - Racial violence and the social forces in America that fuel it, By Martin McLaughlin, 13 June 1998 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/06/byrd-j13.html.) 

James Byrd Jr

This was not the only incident in Texas, a state with particularly high percentage of a white supremacist, especially the Aryan Brotherhood (an extremely powerful white gang) and their crimes. White supremacist groups outside of the prison system also encourage the racist messages and violent actions. They promote “white power” while spreading hatred towards minorities groups, blaming African -Americans, Jews, Latinos, and others for the problems in the world, including pushing the idea that that is why the prisoner is unfairly imprisoned.

Racism, Money and Loyalty

These gangs are run much like the mafia, where loyalty is rewarded and disloyalty can mean death. When joining one of these white supremacist gangs, prisoners find someone that will protect them from other prisoners, finding a haven behind bars, where violence happens on a daily bases. Some join only because of the protection the gang offers them, finding themselves either agreeing with them or finding themselves trapped within the gang. Most will be forced to commit a murder of a minority prisoner, to prove their loyalty to the gang, and then they have no more options. These racist gangs also find ways to make their groups criminal empires, dealing in drugs (especially methamphetamine, heroin, and prescription painkillers), guns, prostitution, extortion, money laundering, and other lucrative crimes. Many join for the power and money involved, not just the racist messages, feeling they can control and manipulate the prison system with fear, terrorizing those that cannot get away, making them give up their food and other resources, to enforce this power. Many of these groups will assassinate other prisoners and even guards that they think have crossed them in some way or those they cannot control. These white supremacists gangs have outside connection, using prison guards that they can pay off, and wives, girlfriends, and family that will help smuggle in goods. Gangs bring into the correctional facilities drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, and are responsible for kidnappings, assaults, and murders, in and out of the prison systems.

The Aryan Brotherhood and Others

Aryan Brotherhood is one of the most powerful white supremacist gangs; they have been around for four decades, starting their long and violent career in California’s San Quentin prison, back in the sixties. Splitting into two separate groups in 1980, one for federal prisoners and one for state prisoner, the Aryan Brotherhood is one of the strongest criminal organizations in the United States behind bars. This gang has spread throughout the United States’ prison systems, using them to spread hate, violence, and making a crime empire. They follow a strict racist and anti-Semitic message, wanting a constant race war within the prison culture, which not only intimidates and endangers minority prisoners and prison guards, but makes the Aryan Brotherhood and their outside contacts very wealthy.). The Aryan Brotherhood has also made strong connections with other hate groups, behind bars and beyond. There are many other hate groups behind bars, including Latino, Black Muslims and other white supremacists, following the same racial code of separatism and violent action against other races that the Aryan Brotherhood follows. They also make money and create power over other prisoners, through these violent actions, using intimidation and murder to enforce their will.

Stopping Hate Gangs

Stopping hate groups in and out of the prison system is not an easy job; these groups are protected by the First Amendment, which allows them to spread their messages of hate. Groups like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Muslims, and others are also protected by the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause, which guarantees freedom of religion. The Aryan Brotherhood has long been affiliated with the Aryan Nation, a nationwide hate group, that also call themselves The Church of Jesus Christ Christian, to get protection as a religious organization. “This “church” is a purveyor of the “Christian Identity” religion preached by late Aryan Nations founder and head pastor Richard Butler, whose “prison ministry” for decades promoted the doctrine that non-whites are “mud people” and Jews are the literal descendants of Satan”( Hate Crimes in Prison, By David Holthous). Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of The Nation of Islam, also has a strong outreach in the nation’s jail and prison systems, recruiting violent African-American gangs, with his strong anti-white and anti-Semitic propaganda.

Controlling these hate gangs are very difficult for prison authorities, not much works to stop them. Solitary confinement of the leaders does not work; they will find ways of communicating to their followers. Most gang members are already serving single or multiple life sentences, many are even on death role. These prisoners have all the time in the world, even those on death row (because of many appeals), to create a powerful violent following.

Conclusion

White supremacist and other racist organizations pose a threat to those in the outside world and those behind bars; it is just a fact of life in our country. What can be done with these groups and gangs is a very difficult question. They hide under the guise of religious and political organizations, with their rights protected under free speech and religious freedom. If America changes the laws to control them, we may lose some basic religious freedoms and free speech rights. If we do nothing the violence will most likely continue, in and out of the prison system, and increase as the group’s members grow.