Dylann Root
By Manny Otiko
A few months ago, I made a Facebook post calling white supremacists, like the KKK, a bad joke. I said they reminded me of the World War II Japanese soldiers who kept fighting even after their country had surrendered. Don’t they realize they lost the civil rights battle? Segregation ended, black people could live and go to school wherever they wanted and it eventually lead to the election of the first black president. A Facebook friend, who is a black militant and conspiracy theorist, said I was wrong. Hate groups were still a threat. The church shooting by domestic terrorist Dylann Roof, proved he was right. The fight for civil rights was a war. It’s presented as a non-violent struggle, where civil rights activists used peaceful means, protests, marches, sit ins, etc., to achieve their goals. But while civil rights activists were non-violent, the pro-segregation side was anything but peaceful. They used classic terrorist tactics to try to preserve white supremacy. Their tactics included assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, torture and intimidation. And while Martin Luther King was seen as a Ghandi-like peace activist, he was often surrounded by armed bodyguards. Also, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, a group of armed black men, was created to protect civil rights groups in the Deep South. There were numerous casualties on the side of the civil rights activists. One of the most prominent incidents was the murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Miss. And the case only got national attention because two of the victims were white. Blood was shed to get many of the rights young people take for granted today. Maybe that’s the reason why older black people get so angry with younger black people who refuse to vote, after they have sacrificed so much to get that right. The civil rights activists won in the end. The Civil Rights Act was passed, companies changed their hiring processes (at least on paper) and the government started implementing affirmative action programs to broaden diversity. The war was over. Well, not exactly. Contrary to what certain people believe, racism never ended, it just went underground. In medical terms, it went into remission. But these people didn’t go away. Society changed and it became politically incorrect to make racist jokes and comments, at least in public. What people do behind closed doors is another thing. The great thing about the Internet is it allows anonymity. People can reveal what they truly think. Take a look at the comments section of websites like FOX News Nation and Mediaite and the posts will make your hair stand on end. The day after Whitney Houston died, there were so many racist posts on FOX News Nation, they had to shut down the comments section. People still hold very bigoted views, the Internet just allows people to say what they really feel. Just because overt racism became passe, it doesn’t mean people who held those views saw the light and renounced their ways. They have adapted to new technology and a changing society. White supremacists are now active on the Internet through sites like Stormfront. Some of them have also changed their tactics. They realized cross burnings, wearing white robes, shaving their heads and donning Doc Martens, are ineffective in the 21st century, where even white people frown on that kind of behavior. So they went into stealth mode. They grew their hair out, covered their tattoos and started wearing button-down shirts and khakis. They infiltrated mainstream organizations, like the police, the Corrections Department, the Republican party and the military, believing they could better push their agenda from inside the system. White nationalist Scott Terry stood up during a diversity seminar at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference and called for a return to segregation. (The same views expressed by Roof.) When I saw the video, I first thought he must be a comedian trolling the conference, but he was genuine in his beliefs. Terry was upset the GOP was trying to reach out to minority groups, at the expense of Southern white men, who he felt were being ignored. More recently Anniston, Ala. discovered white supremacists in its police department. According to Raw Story, Lt. John Doggrell was recently fired after the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed he was a member of the League of the South, a Neo-Confederate organization that plans to break away from the United States, and create a nation run by “Anglo Celts.” Doggrell’s off-duty activities had been known to his supervisor for several years. White supremacists have also changed their message. They cut back on the explicit race baiting language of the 1950s, although dig hard enough and you’ll find it. Now they couch their message in more mainstream terms. Instead of being segregationists, they call themselves “conservatives” and say they are “pro-European culture,” which they see as superior to other cultures. And these groups are not dormant. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported the election of Barack Obama caused a rise in membership in hate groups. One leader said Obama was their best recruiting tool. Obama’s election was a historic moment for the country, but things didn’t go so smoothly. During the euphoria over his election, the media largely ignored reports about racial attacks, church burnings and assaults from white people angry a black man was now occupying the White House. Memberships in hate groups has also been spurred by demographic changes as white people begin to realize they will soon no longer be the majority ethnic group. The Department of Homeland Security tried to sound a warning about the threat of domestic terrorism in a 2009 report. Unfortunately, the issue became politicized, Republicans got offended the report highlighted right -wing groups, and it was largely discredited. However, according to Muslim American comedian and political commentator Dean Obeidallah, since the 9-11 attacks, white domestic terrorists have killed more Americans than Islamic terrorists. We’ve been worrying about Al-Qaeda, when we should have been focusing on the angry white man next door. Maybe we’ve all had our collective heads in the sands. I have been writing off and on about racial issues for about 20 years and I have learned they often make people uncomfortable. I’ve been told by some black and white people to stop covering these topics, to which I respond, as soon as they go away, I’ll stop writing about them. Roof’s massacre of black churchgoers in South Carolina is shocking, but it really shouldn’t surprise us. The public, law enforcement and the media have all been asleep at the wheel on this issue. My friend was right, the war isn’t over, the enemy is still out there.
