You’ve got to fight to be white: the rural foundation of the new militia for race control

Abstract

In this paper, we situate the recent rise of racialized and often violent political discourse within a framework of a class-based conception of nature and property. In this theoretical work, we contribute to thinking about how Whites are racially constituted by showing how an understanding of whiteness among the far right is significantly linked to narratives surrounding rural spaces as havens of individualism and in sharp contrast to the perceived multiculturalism of the city. In developing our argument, we utilize public statements made by Ted Nugent as observable examples of this far-right, violent, and racialized rhetoric. We argue that the far right is able to create a common ground with moderate conservatives around a shared understanding of rural places as embodiments of virtuous white culture, private property, and individualism. This politicized whiteness project, we argue, helps to galvanize and strengthen a conservative coalition while simultaneously pulling their collective ideology further to the right.

What makes violence martial? Adopt A Sniper and normative imaginaries of violence in the contemporary United States

“…Colonial imagery and concomitant claims of (White) US exceptionalism were common at Tea Party rallies (Zeskind, 2012: 504) and inflect the discourse of the Trump-era Republican Party. Masculinist discourses of individualism, self-reliance and idealization of the rural 'frontier' are also present in the contemporary White militia movement's nativist constructions of a purposively White, armed community (Wood et al, 2015). Adopt A Sniper cultivates community with the far-right and militia movements, participating in gun shows (Wills, 2011), including the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association (Jackson, 2017), and counting Soldier of Fortune, a key publication of the new-right militia movement, as a supporter of the organization (AmericanSnipers.org, 2016).…”

Race, police, and the pandemic: considering the role of race in public health policing

“…In response, an emerging body of research has begun to explore how social constructions of crime and related criminal justice responses account for what Eastman (2015) terms "white innocence," or processes that "rationalize, excuse, and overlook White deviance" (239). Some of this research explores how mug shots of White women are viewed with empathy (Dirks, Heldman, and Zack 2015), how White militant radicalization is often associated with aspirations for individualism rather than violence (Wood, Jakubek Jr, and Kelly 2015), and how mass shootings committed by young White men are often attributed to mental health factors rather than a predisposition to violence (Heitzeg 2015). Related research has also found that Whites are overrepresented as victims of crime as well as law enforcement officers in local television news (Dixon 2017).…”