Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America

by Kathleen Belew

The defendants, many of whom represented themselves, tapped into a deeply rooted and powerful rhetoric about protecting white female bodies, one that found easy traction not only in the white power movement but among many other Americans. In the purportedly colorblind 1980s, the rhetorical defense of white women from miscegenation, racial pollution, and other dangers continued to structure the worldview not only of white power movement activists but also of several jurors as well as the mainstream media coverage that shaped the trial’s public perception. Danger to civilians, though clearly evinced, failed to move the jury as much as the rhetoric deployed by the defense.

Almost Identical to the Bundy case in Oregon.