My Journey from White Nationalism to Antiracism: A Memoir
March 15, 2024
A redemption story of rising from the mire of white nationalism. A native of Florida, Black grew up in a household headed by the founder of Stormfront, an online meeting place of Nazis, the KKK, and other exponents of white nationalism. The elder Black was a man of some nuance: He rejected the term white supremacy, in the apparent belief, according to his son, that the desired establishment of a whites-only nation "removes any possibility of White dominance of other races." A close confidant of David Duke, he was also "committed to seeing himself as maintaining the higher ground, not seeing himself as cruel, gratuitous, ignorant, or--as the show was trying to paint us by including us in the larger group--hateful." The numbers in his day may have been small, but the younger Black warns that today "white supremacy is everywhere, and has to some extent touched every household with its insidious implication that White people have somehow earned their spot at the top of the social pecking order. It is the social system that leads to the manifold ways that our society denies rights and resources to people who aren't White." It didn't help that when Trump became president, the supremacists and nationalists came out of the woodwork in droves, pushing the idea that immigrants were part of a concerted move to "replace" white people in a form of "genocide." The author's process of severing their white nationalist ties was slow, aided by their encounters at the New College in Sarasota, a haven of progressivism--now under assault by Florida's governor--where they made friends with Jewish, Black, Latine, and Asian students. Ultimately, they were able to break away from their father's bigotry--and in ways that will surprise some readers. Of interest to students of cults, to say nothing of contemporary politics.
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