This video is brought to you by your contributions on Patreon.
Click here if you want to help keep the lights on down at the history factory.
Hey folks,
Things are getting scary in the USA.
Hate crimes are on the rise, and everyone is really scared for what next year means
for many Americans’ basic civil rights.
As my submission for the project for awesome, I talked about the Southern Poverty Law Center;
a group that actively teaches tolerance and cracks down on hate groups across the United
States.
I decided that to go along with it, I want to talk about these hate groups the SPLC fights
every day.
This is the history of American hate groups.
Anti-Immigrant Let’s start with anti-immigrant groups.
Today, anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise, and in some areas, like the southern
borderlands, armed ‘minutemen’ travel to look for anyone who dares sneak into their
country.
This whole sentiment though, is pretty old, and comes up over and over in US history.
The term commonly used for these types of sentiments is nativism.
It comes from groups in the 1840s and 1850s who wanted to keep America for those descended
from the original 13 colonies.
But the feeling goes back way further.
We even have writings from Ben Franklin about how uncomfortable he was with German immigrants
moving into Pennsylvania.
In 1798, the Federalist government passed the Alien and Sedition acts, specifically
to take citizenship rights away from immigrants coming in at the time from France and Ireland.
Anti-immigrant sentiment picked up even more steam in the 19th century, when large inflows
of Irish catholics agitated anti-catholic sentiment.
Nativists worried that these new foreigners would be more loyal to the pope in Rome, than
the United States.
Anti-catholicism lasted a long time!
People were saying this about JFK!
In the 1850s the American or Know Nothing Party was founded on the principles of being
against immigration.
There was also the Immigration Restriction League of the 1890s that wanted to do basically
the same thing.
In the west, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907
were put in place to stop immigration from China and Japan.
Today, we are in the middle of a growing anxiety about Mexican immigration, despite Mexican
immigration being at a net negative for a couple years now.
Because of growing hate of Muslims, immigrants from Muslim majority countries have also resulted
in some calling for an immediate and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.
You know, until we know what’s going on.
President Barack Obama’s administration was constantly accused of being a secret immigrant,
and, well, whatever President Trump has said this week.
Ku Klux Klan: The next group we’re going to talk about
is the ever so charming Ku Klux Klan.
Here’s a link to a playlist of videos where we’ve talked about them before.
The Klan is a reactionary terrorist group, always calling for a ‘purification’ of
American Society.
The Ku Klux Klan got it’s start in the late 1860s in the southern United States.
For a period of about 10 years, they attempted to overthrow Republican state governments,
and reinstate white supremacist rule during reconstruction after the Civil War.
They had many chapters around the country, and committed many acts of violence against
black political leaders.
They wore colourful costumes, robes, masks, and conical hats in order to be terrifying
and hide their identity.
This klan was suppressed in 1871 by federal law enforcement.
They would return in 1915, in what historians call the second klan.
They flourished in the mid 1920s in urban areas around the west and the midwest.
They were extremely opposed to the influx of catholics and Jews into their communities.
This klan was the one that introduced the standardized white robes, the code words,
the cross burnings, and the massive parades.
They began to decline by the late 20s due to work by groups like the Anti-Defamation
league and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
The 1925 murder trial of Grand Wizard D.C.
Stephenson didn’t help them either.
The Klan went back into decline until its current manifestation began to show its face
in the 1950s.
The third klan grew as a patchwork of small, unconnected groups in opposition to the civil
rights movement.
These guys really ramped up the violence and murder.
Even today, they have between 3 and 6 thousand active members across the United States.
Neo-Confederates: There are a few groups here that use historical
denialism, usually in efforts to ignore their own dark history, and sometimes to reinforce
racist beliefs.
Neo-confederates really do fit this bill.
Their story begins with the beginning of the lost cause myth in the 1890s.
For about forty years, there was an effort to reframe the Civil War in which seceding
was not a form of rebellion.
The big groups that pushed for this are the Sons of Confederate Veterans, and the United
Daughters of the confederacy.
In the 1910s, they called for essays about the ‘glory’ of the KKK and tributes to
loyal slaves.They try to downplay the role of slavery in the war, and espouse the virtues
of Confederate generals.
They try to frame the Confederacy in the language of chivalry, and condemn the actions of reconstructions.
Most historians point out this is a rationalization at best, and an intentional coverup at worst.
Modern day Neo-confederates try to honour the confederacy and its veterans, but also
seem to have a lot of other aspects to their ideology.
A Fundamentalist belief in free market economics for example.
They hold their own history that is critical of Abraham Lincoln, emphasizes the atrocities
against southern civilians, and conspicuously remove discussions of slavery.
Many were against the civil rights movement, advocate for a ‘christian’ culture, reinforce
traditional gender roles, oppose homosexuality, and sometimes just flat out prefer segregation
and secession.
Holocaust Denial: Holocaust denial.
I imagine this needs little introduction.
Groups like the Institute for Historical review have tried to deny the Genocide of Jews and
other groups in the Holocaust.
They claim that the final solution was about deportation, that there were no extermination
camps, or that the 5-6 million dead count is just exaggerated.
They are called Holocaust deniers, because revisionist history is something different.
Revisionists try to upturn established histories using credible methodology.
A Holocaust denier, much like a climate change or evolution denier, has a predetermined conclusion,
and ignores overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Most denialists claim some sort of vast Jewish conspiracy designed to advance Jews at the
expense of everyone else.
I think I speak for many by saying that this entire movement is based on antisemitic conspiracy
theories.
Neo-Nazi: The next group on our depressing parade are
Neo-Nazis.
Kinda self explanatory, but Neo-Nazi is a term for anyone attempting to revive the far
right tenets of nazism after World War Two.
It’s an ideology of ultra-nationalism, racism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, antiziganism
(aka hatred of Romani people), Antisemitism, and Holocaust denial.
Often they enjoy using nazi symbolism, and have an admiration for Adolf Hitler.
According to the SPLC, there are about 400 Neo-Nazis in America.
They began to show up in about 1958 in the National States Rights Party.
They were strongly against racial integration.
In 1959, the American Nazi party was founded.
Since then, Neo-Nazis have been found harassing and tormenting Jews, Black Americans, Slavic
Americans, Latinx people, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Romani Americans,
Homosexuals, and whatever their definition of a ‘race traitor’ is.
They typically stay underground, preferring to recruit and raise funds in secret.
And speaking of raising funds…
Racist Music: Oh yeah, there’s an entire industry of racist
record labels.
They began in the United Kingdom in the early 80s, but in the early 90s it exploded into
a multimillion dollar worldwide industry.
It began as hard rock, nicknamed hatecore, but has since branched out to many musical
forms.
These bands are a conduit for recruits and money into these sorts of racist hate groups.
Skinheads: You’ve likely heard the term Skinhead before.
They are a strange group, and extremely internally divided.
They began in the 1950s as a group of disaffected working class youth in the UK.
Not necessarily political in any way.
In the early 70s though, the UK saw a rise in racist skinhead violence.
The association quickly built between them and the far right.
By the late 70s, the two identities were inseparable, and it hopped the Atlantic.
I should point out though that there are also skinheads opposed to the racism and who try
to fight it whenever they can.
They go by the label Skinheads against Racial Prejudice, or SHARP.
They actually try to emphasize the biracial origins on the subculture, and dress in this
fashion to get rid of hierarchy and imbalances of power.
Christian Identity: So this group of reprobates have developed
a white supremacist form of christianity.
They believe that Anglo-Saxon, German, and Nordic people are kindred, and descendants
of the ancient Israelites.
Usually they claim them as the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
They think of Europeans as the chosen people, and Jews as the cursed offspring of Cain and
Abel.
They think that in order to build the heavenly kingdom, all non whites need to be exterminated
or enslaved, and that they could never get salvation.
Real charmers.
Radical Traditional Catholicism: These radical Catholics may be the single
largest group of serious anti-semites in the US.
They reject the edicts of the second Vatican council that explicitly states that Jews are
not to be collectively blamed for the death of Christ.
MEL GIBSON.
The leaders of this group are often rejected by the Vatican and by mainstream Catholics.
They are also not to be mistaken for traditionalist Catholics that really just like the Latin
mass.
Anti-LGBT: Hating on homosexuals has for a while now
been a central theme of the christian right.
And I am not just referring to the social justice training wheels the Westboro Baptist
Church.
These groups, which are far from marginalised, believe that there is some sort of decline
in American society and culture, and that homosexuals are the reason why.
These types of believers are all over the country, some are even Vice Presidents of
the United States!
The main tactic that anti-LGBT activists employ is defamation.
It is a common practice to call LGBT people perverts, or claim they have filthy habits.
They spread falsities that gay people are going around trying to ‘convert’ hapless
people into gay sex.
A lot of the language is actually quite similar to the scientific racism days, when white
intellectuals wrote about ‘bestial’ black men.
Black Separatists: Black separatists are a subset of black nationalists.
They oppose racial integration, and reject intermarriage.
They call for separate institutions or a separate state for Black people in America.
Often, a healthy dose of anti-semitism is thrown in for good measure.
Some religious versions of the groups go with the chosen people of god route as well, also
of course at the expense of Jews.
One example of these sorts of groups is the Nation of Islam.
The leader, Louis Farrakhan calls Judaism and Catholicism ‘gutter religions’, and
is against interracial relationships.
If the colours had been swapped, few would have issues with calling a group like the
Nation racist and anti-semitic.
These groups are by a titanic margin a microscopic minority of black people, even black nationalists
in America.
This has no association with Black Lives Matter, and we have to be more than a little aware
that this hatred comes from the endurance of centuries of racism, and a rather understandable
concept that white people are out to keep them oppressed.
White Nationalism: White nationalists are a group that conflates
national identity with race.
They desire a separate white state that only extends citizenship to white people.
It comes from events such as the Naturalization Act of 1790, which was the first act to define
American citizenship.
Lo and behold, citizens were only free white people.
Other historical figures such as slavery defender John C Calhoun have also defined citizenship
on racial grounds.
Islamophobic Groups: Since 2001, Muslims in America have been under
attack.
Politicians, and media figures have spread a false assertion that Muslims are conspiring
to take over the US, or that they all secretly want to impose Shariah law on everyone.
There has been a huge uptick in hate crimes since 9/11, and even more since the beginning
of a certain presidential candidate’s campaign.
Some bigots have even called for a total and complete shutdown, of Muslims entering the
United States.
Anti-Muslim groups have been popping up around the country, espousing these beliefs, and
often protesting Mosques, usually while armed.
The Alt-Right: Our last stop on this tour that was honestly
soul crushing to research is the Alt-Right.
It’s a blanket term that covers many far right ideologies that reject mainstream conservatism.
White NAtionalism is fundamental, but they also typically oppose immigration, multiculturalism,
and political correctness.
Typically, they are associated with white supremacism, Islamophobia, Anti Feminism,
Homophobia, Antisemitism, Ethno Nationalism, Right Wing Populism, Nativism, Traditionalism,
and ‘neoreactionaries’.
They grew in online communities.
Places like 4chan, and 8chan incubated many members, and they often communicate with internet
memes.
Their news source of choice is Breitbart, and they are all over the Twitters.
Most notably, they have thrown their undying support behind president-elect Donald F---ing
Trump.
So far, he’s even picked members of his cabinet, such as Jeff Sessions and Steve Bannon,
that would seem to show that the Alt-Right has an ally in the white house.
Closing: I think the main takeaway from our tour of
these groups, is that the United States is a place where racism, bigotry, and prejudice
is still around.
It is not a post-racial society, and thinking so is to put denial on real threats to democracy.
If you want to combat these groups, consider donating to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Their work is going to be sorely needed in the years to come.
I really only did the briefest of descriptions of these groups.
If you want me to delve deeper into any one of them, let me know down in the comments.
If you’d like to help the channel, consider making a small recurring donation to Step
Back on Patreon.
If you still want to help, but can’t or don’t want to do so financially, share it
with someone, like the video, and be sure to subscribe to get the next Step Back.