White supremacy and the Internet

Last Friday, September 24, I attended a lecture by Neal Caren, Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill, at the Center for Urban and Regional Studies. The PowerPoint lecture and discussion were advertised as “Online Activist Communities: the case of white supremacists.” I imagined it would be about the techniques used by white supremacists that have proven successful. I was even hoping to pick up some pointers that could be applied to work in the favor of the progressive movement. I was more than happy to have my preconceived notions crushed.

My first surprise was that, although the use of the internet by white supremacists groups has increased at a fairly steady rate for the past ten years, Professor Caren attributes a large part of this growth to the expanding role that the internet plays in our daily lives. As more and more people access the internet from their homes, phones, and public sources, the online forums that make up much of the online presence of white supremacists grow in membership.

As a Southerner, born and bred, I was not looking forward to the map showing the regional levels of activity on these forums. Once again, I was happy to be wrong: when controlled for white non-Hispanic populations, the highest concentrations of activity are in states that span from Oregon to Texas, as well as Montana and Florida. The rest of the South, including all of the traditional Dixie states, have lower concentrations.

There was a point on which I was validated: I do not like white supremacists, or racists of any nature. These forums made me a bit queasy as I read them. They are carefully constructed and maintained to showcase the distorted world view of white supremacists, namely, that the United States government has long been under the control of the Jewish elite.

The topics on the forums are extremely varied, ranging from current events to parenting advice–suggestions to shun Dora the Explorer are rampant–to online dating services, all enclosed within the firm confines of racist ideology. Familiar online jokes and captioned pictures of cats soon devolve into white supremacist dogma.

The politically correct side of me wants to point out that the term “white nationalist” is preferred to “white supremacist,” as members claim that “white supremacist” is a term coined by the liberal (read: Jewish) elite to link white nationalists with slavery. They choose “white nationalist” as a more descriptive label, as their ultimate aim is an all-white America. I don’t really care what they want, but nationalist is easier to type.

Caren explains another prominent feature of the forums–the dislike of Tea Party leadership–as an opportunity that white nationalists view as wasted. Tea Party leaders, including Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, have succeeded in rallying hoards of unhappy white people, but they support Israel and are therefore distrusted by white nationalists.

Tea Party supporters, the unhappy white people in this equation, are prime targets for white nationalist conversion, and the forums are filled with suggestions for approaching individuals at Tea Party rallies. However, Caren notes that white nationalists have failed to convert large numbers of Tea Party members.

White nationalists have also failed to capitalize on President Obama’s election and inauguration, the economic crisis, and many other external factors. This can either be explained by white nationalists’ lack of organization or by the general goodness of people. Please don’t rain on my parade.

For Caren, his research will continue as he studies the changes in a user’s discourse as they are exposed to the site for others’ unyielding world views. In addition, he plans to study the content of forum posts to see how members make sense of world events, especially those that do not fit neatly into their world view. He is much more objective than I am.

For more information on Neal Caren and his research, you may visit his website. This is my first post on BlueNC; thank you for providing a great resource for progressive thinkers in the great Tar Heel state. Go Heels!