Category Archives: racism

Fuelling a Racial Rage

Hate, racism, Right-wing Extremism

 

When you look at the right-wing hysteria it is very difficult to avoid reaching the conclusion that race plays a vital role in the anger stoked up by right-wing media.

Rush Limbaugh, a dedicated purveyor of hate and vitriol on American talk radio, had a very different reaction to flooding in Iowa and other largely white Mid-west states a couple of years after Katrina, than the right wing did about mainly blacks in New Orleans. There were no verbal assaults on the lazy whites. This is what he said,

“I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois. I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and it dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property and save their reputations. I don’t see a bunch of people running around waiving guns at helicopters. I don’t see a bunch of people shooting cops. I don’t see a bunch of people raping people on the street.”

 

As Justin Ling reported on the CBC radio podcasts said about the right wing reaction to blacks in harm’s way during Hurricane Katrina:

“As aid workers tried to help, right-wing radio told stories of snipers on rooftops. As the media tried to bring the reality of the situation home to other Americans they were called liars. And as the poorest people in the world had suffered, right-wing radio painted them as lazy and dishonest at best, and murderers and rapists at worst. They have given listeners plenty to be angry about.”

 

The rage machine was fuelled and ready to go. Owners of right-wing radio and their employees were ready to reap the profits of rage. And they knew who to blame—lazy good for nothing blacks and their liberal facilitators.

 

The Dark History of Immigration in America and Canada

2024 Trip to South West United States, Immigration and Refugees, racism

 

As Fareed Zakaria, an immigrant himself,  said,

“The Ugliest crusade against immigrants [in America] happened in the 1920s. A huge wave of immigrants was landing in America, the largest wave this country has ever seen. 100,000 people a month arriving on Ellis Island. Italians, Hungarians, Italians, Russians.”

Randall Kennedy noted that this included,

” the so-called ‘good Europeans’” Great Britain, France, Scandinavian—those were ‘the real whites’, the good whites, but then you have these Jews from eastern European and Italians from southern Italy, they were actually viewed as different races…”

 

The racial categories were actually elastic so that they could be stretched as circumstances warranted. So, for example, for a while Italians were viewed as non-whites.  Remember, racism is nothing if it is not irrational. There is no scientific basis for concepts of race. We are all homo sapiens.  The racial categories are non-existent and have no basis in science. Racism is about emotions, not facts.

 

As Randall Kennedy pointed out, at times Hungarians are considered a race. At other times Czechoslovakians are considered a race. Jews were a race, Irish were a race. As Kennedy said, “they are viewed as lesser.”

That is really what the concept of race is all about. Labelling some people as less worthy based on bias and only bias.

Many of them ate strange foods, worshipped odd gods, had weird customs, ate distinct foods, dressed differently, spoke unusual languages, and were existentially “the others.” This was all new to America and many were not pleased. As Zakaria said, “All of it horrified America’s wealthy elite. The blue bloods of Park Avenue and Fifth Avenue.”

As Jia Lynn Yang, the author of One Mighty and Irresistible Tide said, “They begin to freak out and say we can’t allow these hordes of immigrants who are so different from us and are going to change our country. These immigrants threaten everything we hold dear about America.” Of course this is exactly what many in America are saying right now. There is nothing quite as scary as the foreign other. Irrational distinctions of race or caste are used as the basis of hierarchies.

A bunch of people who considered themselves as the best and brightest of America got together to come up with a plan about how the country should deal with this invasion of others. Many of them referred to the “scientific study” of so-called “inferior races.”  This dubious science was called eugenics. It was racism under a cloak of pseudo-science. Hitler took these ideas from Americans whom he admired. Whether you were a dependable candidate for immigration or not depended on your racial origin.

As Randal Kennedy said, “We want to basically freeze the racial/ethnic composition of the United States.” Eugenics was referred to as “the self-direction of human evolution.” As Zakaria said, “the eugenicists believed the new immigrants were physically and mentally defective.”

Just like the modern anti-immigrants, they believed the immigrants were largely more susceptible to diseases, more likely to commit crimes, they stank, could not be trusted, were lazy, looking for handouts rather than jobs, and many other ills.

As Zakaria pointed out, “If it looks and sounds like Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler embraced American eugenics.” He praised Americans and said we can learn from the Americans.

These anti-immigrant Americans showed up in Washington to influence the political leaders. They came with their pseudo-sciences, and their experts ready to testify. As Jia Lynn Yang said, “They came to Congress and said it’s not you being racist or prejudiced, we have science to back this up.”

The politicians bought this and enacted the most restrictive legislation in the history of the country. Congress passed a new Immigration Act in 1924,  [one year after my parents immigrated to Canada where they were also met with some racism]. Racism was everywhere. The result of the new law was to cut immigration sharply from countries around the world. It “put rigid quotas on so-called ‘undesirables’ ”. Or as Randall Kennedy said, “they shut the door. They cut immigration to the United States by 97%.”

It seems that many groups, after they have “made it” to Canada or America want to close the moat behind them.

 

Unite the Right with Hate

2024 Trip to South West United States, 2024 Trip to Southwest USA, Domestic Terrorism, Extremism, Hate, Political Violence, racism, Right-wing Extremism, Trump

 

A transformational event for the far-right occurred on August 11 and August 12 2017 in the US.  This was during the presidency of Donald J. Trump and  It happened in a  college town called Charlottesville Virginia. As Professor Jacob Ware described this event to his listeners at Arizona State University, this was “where a group of outspoken, explicit, proud, white supremacists, and Neo-Nazis, and anti-government extremists gathered in what they called a ‘Unite the Right Rally.’

Before the event, one of the main organizers, Jason Kessler, had been publicizing the event for months by his protests against the proposed removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee. This helped to fire up white supremacists and other right-wing extremists around the country. Even right-wing Canadians wanted to attend this event.

The trigger for the event was a threat to dismantle a Confederate statute in that community. A young woman, Heather Heyer, was killed during a domestic terrorist attack led by white supremacists. The attack was led by James Alex Fields Jr. who deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people who were peacefully protesting the right-wing rally that was being held in Charlottesville. Only one person, Heather Heyer, was killed but 35 others were injured. As Wikipedia reported,

“Fields 20, had previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs, and drove from Ohio to attend the rally. Fields’ attack was called an act of domestic terrorism by the mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia’s public safety secretary, the U.S. attorney general, and the director of the FBI.”

 

Some witnesses reported that Fields’ vehicle sent protesters “flying through the air.” After the initial impact, Fields changed the car into reverse to target more people. He backed up at high speeds for several blocks with protesters chasing him.

Fields was subsequently convicted in a state court of the first-degree murder of Heyer, as well as 8 counts of malicious wounding and hit and run. He also pled guilty to 29  hate crime charges  presumably in order to avoid the death penalty. In typical America hyperbolic legal “justice,” Fields was sentenced to life in prison as well as 419 years for the state charges, with an additional life sentence for the federal charges.

As egregious an event as it was, it soon became an international sensation when President Trump entered the aftermath with his infamous tweets and statements. At first president Trump wavered about whether or not he should condemn the terrorists. Trump just could not bring himself to condemn outright the terrorism since the right-wing attackers did not look like terrorists to him. They looked like supporters, which many of them, of course were. How could be publicly criticize his base? That is not like him.

The marchers had been chanting repeatedly, “You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.” as they carried their patio torches. This of course is a direct allusion to the common white supremacist trope that members of the American left are trying to replace whites with more compliant people from other races.  It was also clearly antisemitic. The closest he could come to criticism of his adoring fans was to say “I think there’s blame on both sides. You also had people, on both sides, who were very fine people.”  What was so fine about whites who mowed down protesters while chanting those racist memes? Recall, he did exactly the same thing on January 6, 2021when his staff insisted he tell the rioters to leave he did ask them to leave but first told them he loved them.

Trump has demonstrated a pattern of praising violent people who support his causes. He is always willing to do his best to unite the right with hate.

The reason this was such a pivotal event in the history of the rise of right-wing violent extremism is that those extremists realized they had a powerful friend and ally in very high places. In fact, they had an ally in the highest place in the land and this filled them with exuberance and confidence.

 

Racism provided the infrastructure for growth of the far right.

2024 Trip to South West United States, Domestic Terrorism, Extremism, Immigration and Refugees, racism, Right-wing Extremism

 

In their book and their talk to us at Arizona State University, Ware and Hoffman point out how much members of these domestic terrorist movements learned from each other. The Internet of course has made such self-education much easier than it had ever been before. And as they said, racism provided the infrastructure for the amplification of their ideas.

During the Obama presidency another major battlefield arose that would have profound effects on the United States, Canada, and in fact, the world. This was the establishment of social media that provided the fuel, the bombast, and the energy for profound political and social change. We still don’t know how this will end. We have no idea.

As Professor Ware said in his talk, “the Obama administration faced the rapid almost blitzkrieg emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”  This was very important for the development and normalization of the far right. It was supercharged by social media. ISIS showed how powerful social media can be. A small extremist group in a very short time grew into an organization that scared the entire western world. That could never have happened without social media. Social media was the powerful engine of modern far right terrorism.

The rise of ISIS led to an enormous increase of immigration into Europe which then was used by far-right extremists in Europe and around the world to amplify their movement. They latched onto the great replacement theory to enlist support virtually everywhere. They blamed the far left for trying to replace the white citizens with immigrants from countries around the world, but often with brown or black skinned people from places the whites had often not even heard of. No place in the world it seemed was immune to the invitations to hate the immigrants.

Immigration to many right-wing extremists, around the world was the key issue to justify their cause. Immigration was the issue that bonded Donald Trump and Steve Bannon into a dramatic force and is being used again in the start of the 2024 presidential election campaign. Immigration allows the right to pick scapegoats for every aspect as of the far-right agenda. It is impossible to imagine the far-right without immigration as a grievance.

Immigration at borders invariably is used to fire up domestic support for populist causes. It is usually the easiest cause to latch onto by populist leaders. Dissatisfaction with immigration is often the glue that holds together diverse unhappy actors into a powerful force for violent change.

Nowhere does it do that more than Arizona where we are currently living. Mention immigration and you are bound to obtain heated discussion.

 

The Return of the Right and racism rekindled

2024 Trip to South West United States, 2024 Trip to Southwest USA, Domestic Terrorism, Hate, Political Violence, racism, White Supremacy

 

After the Oklahoma bombing the FBI started to realize the significance of the militia movement and clamped down on the more extreme of them. For a while it seemed to the terrorist analysts that the domestic problem was not so serious. In my view, this is partly because to so much of law enforcement the right-wing looks like home to them. And terrorists never look like your friends and neighbours, until they do. As Professor Hoffman said during his Arizona State University talk that Chris and I listened to,

 

“the last thing I ever imagined in my career was returning to this particular threat. Then in 2020 with the rise of the pandemic, I was amazed at how quickly, literally within days of the lockdown in March, anti-Sematic, anti-immigrant, anti-Asian and anti-Asian-American and also racist tropes began to surface attempting to target these groups to blame for Covid.”

 

The election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States unleashed an ugly and powerful streak of backlash. The FBI suppression of the far-right movement after the Oklahoma bombing led to the movement lying dormant in the US for 8 or 10 years. It was dormant, but it was not dead. It was revived by the election of Barack Obama. Racial fear by whites of being replaced by blacks is part of the bedrock of the modern right-wing and white supremacist movement.

As Professor Jacob Ware said at that same ASU talk, the election of a black president “also led to a huge surge in hate crimes.” White supremacy and anti-government extremism also exploded after that election.

During his first election the volume of threats against Obama led to the greatest secret service protection so early in an election in the history of the country. There was a tidal wave of hate against him and his family. As Ware said. “this was a harbinger of things to come.”

During his terms in office Obama faced two major terrorist attacks. The first was in Norway in 2011in Oslo and Utoeva island by a massacre by Anders Breivik. 77 people were killed the large majority of whom were children. It was a summer camp of the youth wing of the Norwegian labor party. He published a long Manifesto in which he called his victims cultural Marxists, a term since adopted widely in the American right. He said that by attacking the next generation of the left he would be cutting off the head of the snake of multi-culturalism. He saw what he thought was a movement to replace ethnic Norwegians, resembling of course, similar fears of replacement of white nationalists in other parts of the world such as New Zealand, America, and many other places.

In 2015 the Obama administration faced another attack by the right, this time in Charleston North Carolina. There a young white supremacist, Dylan Roof, who killed 9 people during a Bible Study in a black church.

According to Ware these were both highly significant events because “they both provided tactical and ideological inspiration.”

Hate Speech from both sides Now

2024 Trip to South West United States, Free Speech, Hate, racism

 

Unfortunately, in the United States where we are now staying for 3 months, like Canada where we live permanently , hate speech is on the rise. The War between Israel and Hamas has helped to spike the numbers. Hamas leaders and even North American supporters have been heard echoing the phrase “From the river to the Sea Palestine will be free.” It sound innocuous. but is this hate speech? Many in Canada and the US have used this to generate hate against Jews. Many Jews consider it anti-Semitism. It is often interpreted as a wish by members of Hamas, or their supporters  to wipe Israel off the face of the map. That surely would certainly be anti-Semitism.

The original 1977 party platform of Likud one of Israel’s major political parties, stated that “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” The party has always emphasized the right of Jews to settle in this area, no matter what the declaration of the State of Israel said.  This has been a major influence on Zionist exclusionist policies.  Is this hate speech? How is it different from what Hamas or anti-Semite say? Palestinians see it the same way.

Here are my views: what is meant by such statements is a matter of context. To that extent, I agree with the statements made by the university presidents who were criticized for their feckless response to questioning by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Whether or not a statement is racist or antisemitic or not depends on what the person making the statement is really saying and really insinuating. It depends on who is saying it and what does he or she actually mean by saying it? Context is important.  On the other hand, sometimes such statements merely enunciate a political position which all of us are entitled to do. But such statements can be racist. Such statements can be hate.

With apologies to Joni Mitchell, I’ve looked at hate speech from both sides now and it’s just illusions I recall. All I know, is that hate speech is complicated and filled with illusions.

Good People Can Get It wrong

Hate, Indigenous People After Contact, Moral Humility, racism

 

A lot of people—good people—are excited about Manitoba electing an indigenous person ad premier.  I admit it. I am excited about that too. I think Wab Kinew is bright, likeable, and filled with empathy. Those are good qualities  for a leader to have that will serve him well.

I just want to pour some cold water on the expectations.  Many seem to suggest that the fact that an indigenous man has been elected proves that Manitoba is not racist. I wish that were true.  But I don’t think it is that simple.

I am reminded about the election of Barack Obama to the American presidency. That also raised many hopes, not all of which were fulfilled. Many thought too that this proved America is not a racist society.  Many events since that memorable election have proved that to be wildly over optimistic.

Racism in the US, as in Canada, runs deep. Very deep.  The same goes for hate. That does not mean that racism is forever embedded in our societies. I don’t think it is in our DNA as some have suggested.  It does mean we must be modest in our expectations and humble in our assumptions. Eradicating racism will be a big job, over a long haul.

In the US after Obama was elected that supercharged the extreme racist fringes of American society. Many of them could not bear the image of a black man and his black family living in the White House. The racists found this intolerable. This was part of the reason for the amplification of the Tea Party in the US. Racism erupted. It was not pretty. I remember seeing disturbing posters and bumper stickers in the US. It was ugly.

The same thing could happen in Manitoba. Images of Wab Kinew and his family could trigger a new political faction here as well. How about the Beer Party?

We must remember the obvious: Good people can get it wrong.

Nights on the Boys Side

Indigenous--Indian Residential Schools, racism

 

It was not just girls that were targeted for abuse at Kuper Island Residential School.

In June of 1966 Tony Charley, a 15-year-old boy at Kuper Island Residential School was told that a young boy had hung himself in the gym.  Duncan McCue a CBC journalist returned many years later to investigate what happened at that school. Why had so many children died there?  After all, it is highly unusual for children to die while in school. At least it is highly unusual for children that are non-indigenous. For indigenous children it was much more common. They actually had a grave yard at the school for children. That too is highly unusual for non-non-indigenous children, but for indigenous children it is not rare at all. Why is that? Duncan McCue wanted to know. So do I.

 

The boy who died was named Richard Thomas. According to Tony Charley, Richard was   “nice and gentle.”  Such boys should not die. No boys should die for that matter. But nice and gentle boys are not usually targets of others. Much about this case though was not usual.

 

The brothers who ran the school belong to the order of Oblates.  These brothers told the students at the school that  Richard  had hung himself because his parents wanted to separate and he did not want that. He wanted his parents to stay together. That was not true.

He had basically been separated from them for most of the time since he had been in the residential school. That was part of the plan in residential schools—separate the children from their families. That is considered a crime against humanity. It should be. What can be more horrid than that? The authorities did not want the children to learn bad habits from their parents who were basically assumed to be unfit parents. Savages in other words.

The nuns and brothers took young kids to see the body of Richard. Again, that seemed strange. Is it possible that nuns and priests took young children to see a dead body hanging in the gym. Why would they do that?

Another strange thing about this was that Richard was days away from graduating from school and was excited to be graduating. Why would such a boy kill. Himself? Friends told McCue Thomas had been looking forward to graduation, as were most children in residential schools. Yet supposedly he killed himself. So McCue investigated further and reported on his findings in this podcast.

 

Am I racist?

Indigenous--Reconciliation, racism

 

Recently, I posted that I agreed with the government of Manitoba when they decided not to financially support the request of families of indigenous women who had been murdered to find the remains of their bodies believed to be in a local landfill.  It would cost at least $84 million and perhaps as much as $184 million and might not result in a successful search. I also wonder what those remains will be like after months in the landfill. Frankly, I was very uneasy about my position. I won’t be buying a billboard to brag about how I am standing firm.  I am uneasy about my position.

 

I am usually on the side of indigenous people as readers of this blog will know by now. That does not mean I always agree with them by rote. I want to consider each issue on the merits. I know many people that I know and respect who disagree with me strongly on this issue.

I also want to respect indigenous families who believe that the human remains of deceased people are very important, even though I do not agree with this view.

Governments every day get requests for money and often big ones. As a result our political leaders must make careful decisions to spend public money wisely. Money is never unlimited even for governments who have much more than we do. We expect government to weigh competing claims carefully, dispassionately, based on logical reasoning and taking into consideration all relevant facts. This is not always easy.

I said that I would reach the same conclusion if the family claimants were white people from Wellington Crescent. I also believe that if members of my family ever made such claims, they should be treated the same way, even if I in the circumstances changed my views because they are so important to me. We naturally tend to advocate for our own families.

Governments however must treat like cases with like results. Race is irrelevant. If some groups place more importance on burying all remains that should be taken into consideration and in some cases might result in like cases being treated slightly differently. I think that might be justified.

As a result, I do not think I was racist in my views.

I take comfort from the fact that the recent survey showed 60% of indigenous people believed the government should pay to have a search made for the remains even though it was very expensive and might be risky for the people undertaking the search.  I take comfort from this because that means 40% of indigenous people polled did not believe the government should take such actions. Are the indigenous people who believe that, being racist? I think not.  I think people can reach the conclusion to the question on the basis of racism. But I think I was not racist in this case.

Does anyone disagree with me?

Can 40 million listeners be wrong?

American Fascism, Conspiracy Theories, Death of Truth, Hate, Populism, racism, Right-wing Extremism

 

In 1929 America and the rest of the world experienced a crash. The 1920s, called the Roaring Twenties, when wealthy people leaped enthusiastically in to popular endeavors such as Speak Easys and led the country into financial disaster and common people were desperately unhappy about it.

Father Coughlin stepped out of the fiery preacher role on radio and became the “conduit for a real and very understandable anger.” He rode a populist wave of anger. He became the voice of outrage and had spectacular success on the perfect medium for anger—the radio.  Anger has been the bed rock of talk radio ever since, particularly right-wing talk radio.

In the language of today, Father Coughlin was a populist—he was anti-communist but also anti-capitalist. He supported some unions, but not the more radical unions. He started out left, though not extreme left. As Justin Ling the host and writer of the CBC podcast Flame Throwers said, “Coughlin’s audience was estimated at 40 million listeners. At that time that was a third of America. Limbaugh at his height would have only about 1/20th of America.” This is much more than Fox News obtains today. These were huge numbers! And all this from a Canadian priest!

Meanwhile money poured into the church he was restoring and he arranged for it to build a huge iron cross, one the KKK could not burn.Coughlin turned to a politician he could support. It was someone who distrusted the political class like he did. So, he turned instead to someone who distrusted the bankers and big business. This was a champion of everyman. Not a far right politician.  This political leader was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the author of the new deal.

Coughlin was clear, “It is either Roosevelt or ruin,” he said. FDR was a shrewd politician and “he saw in the radio priest, a new way of meeting the masses.” Coughlin saw in FDR a vehicle for his new social justice calling.  Justin Ling pointed out “As President, FDR recognized the visceral yet intimate power of radio. Through his fireside chats he entered into America’s living rooms as a trusted guest.” Coughlin inspired the President who followed suit. As Ling said, “Coughlin is no longer that small town Catholic  fighting anti-Catholic bias.” Later Coughlin abandoned FDR when he started making deals with the bankers rather than throwing them out as he done earlier. Later, when FDR made a deal with Stalin (and Churchill) Coughlin was furious. “Coughlin was vehemently anti-Communist.” He changed his slogan to “Roosevelt and ruin.”

Coughlin started his own political party and then turned to the dark side–the far right. He blamed Jews for their own persecution. He also adopted various conspiracy theories such as the one that Jewish bankers were part of an international cabal. He also cited the conspiracy theory of the elders of Zion which falsely claimed that Jews were part of a international Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. He claimed that Jews and Communists together were determined to take over America. Coughlin gave up on left wing causes and turned instead to supporting Hitler and the Nazis. He went about as far right as he could go.

He came to be called “the father of Hate radio.” Though someone else grabbed that crown from him about 100 years later.  We will get to him. Coughlin began to be abandoned by his erst while supporters. Many called out his mistaken litany of facts that were not facts at all. Federal regulators warned him that they would not allow the airwaves to abused in that manner. As Ling said, “In today’s world he was cancelled and de-platformed.” The radio star was done, but his influence lived on to be used by other pundits from other political persuasions.

As Ling said, “Coughlin was radio’s first real celebrity. He weaponized bombast but met his listeners where they were at. He sat in their living rooms and echoed their concerns. He helped to propel presidents to power. He tried to have a say in running the country from behind a microphone.”  He did all this by unleashing the power of hate. He was soon followed by many others.

The genie of political radio was out of the bottle and would never get back in. as Ling said, “Coughlin fell into conspiracy theories and hate as a way to energize and galvanize his support, and he would not be the last.” Once politicians, pundits, and frauds saw the power of hate, others followed as surely as night follows day. He proved how powerful the toxic combination of racism, hatred, and conspiracy theories could be.