Teaching the History of White Nationalism in the United States
By Paul Horton.
During the last year the Southern Poverty Law Center has reported an increase in hate crimes and hate groups. As political discourse in the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has become increasingly focused on identity politics, ethnic, cultural, and racial nationalisms have struggled to acquire opportunity and recognition within broader American publics. Reacting to this historical push from marginalized identity groups, an aggressive white nationalism has recently pushed back and reclaimed political power.
Although white nationalism has always been a dominant, if not the dominant ideology in American history, white nationalists in the twenty-first century often embrace policies of voter restrictions, immigration restriction, segregation, flight from public schools, and the defunding of any public programs at any level that are perceived to transfer public funds to minority groups.
Moreover, the current resurgence of white nationalism seems to be fueled by the prospect of a minority majority in the near future. Demographers have established that people of color will outnumber white Americans in about thirty years.
Another key element of the current white nationalism is a resurgence of the 1968 “Southern Strategy” of the “war on crime.” Minority and dissident behavior that actively and publically stand in opposition to white nationalism is increasingly viewed as criminal. More alarmingly, news reporting that directly challenges the hegemony of white nationalism is challenged as “fake news” and racism. Increasingly, attacks on vulnerable minority populations are not denounced, as a climate of fear and intimidation is encouraged by the inaction of many national leaders. The current chief political advisor to the President of the United States is strongly Teaching the History of White Nationalism in the United States - Living in Dialogue:
