Sisters in Hate: American Women and White Extremism

by Seyward Darby

White Americans are often quick to distinguish between everyday prejudice and radical bigotry, between what I saw in Harrisonburg and what happened in Charlottesville, almost as if one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. It’s a convenient distinction, if a false one. “We like to think that the white-supremacist movement is in fact a ‘lunatic fringe.’ Yet the vitriol of hate groups is not so much an aberration as it is a reaffirmation of racist and gendered views that permeate society,”

The thoughts I hear aloud from white ppl that sound exactly like what WN say, it is astounding.

White nationalists make explicit ideas that are already coded, veiled, or circumscribed in the wider white imagination. Hate is what many white Americans would see if they looked in a fun-house mirror: a distorted but familiar reflection.

White supremacy lurks in mediocrity and civility as much as it fuels slurs and violence. It conceals itself in the false promises of Christian kindness, race blindness, and e pluribus unum.

Many white Americans rationalize their racism—or even refuse to call it that—by insisting that it isn’t as bad as someone else’s. They could spit on immigrants instead of complaining in private about foreigners stealing American jobs. They could put Jewish people in camps instead of muttering about how they have too much power. They could lynch black people instead of making jokes about their intelligence.

Ayla found comfort in Andelin’s assertions that men and women have different needs. The book helped her see her first marriage in a new light: One reason it failed, she told me, was that she didn’t provide her husband with the respect he required.

Male egos must be shite, requiring all this idol worship

The least Americans can ask of one another is to have frank conversations about whiteness, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable. People concerned about the rising tide of hate can also get involved in antiracist initiatives that seek to empower populations of color, tackle inequality, facilitate dialogue about prejudice, and root discriminatory ideas out of American life.i They can demand better media coverage of race and vote bigots and xenophobes out of office. They can support the work of groups like Life After Hate, which helps people leave far-right groups. But first and foremost, combating hate requires understanding it—not what it seems to be or what we hope it amounts to, but what it actually is. That includes who supports it, why they do, and how their experiences reflect a reality we all share.