When President Joe Biden gave the Howard University commencement address this May and said, “White supremacy … is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland,” white conservatives lost their minds. Black people yawned.
In March 2021, when FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before Congress, labeling the Jan. 6 insurrection as “domestic terrorism” and warning that white nationalist-led “homegrown violent extremism” was the nation’s number one threat, the Blacks responded, “Duh.”
And when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2020 stated that white supremacy was an emerging domestic terrorism threat, Blackfolk said, “We agree, if by ‘emerging’ you mean it emerged 400 years ago, when they started enslaving, raping, torturing and lynching us.”
Black people have always recognized the dangerous reality of white domestic terrorism, even while the majority of white America and its political and law enforcement institutions feigned ignorance. Hell, it took over 100 years of Congressional attempts to finally get an anti-lynching law. And that only happened in 2022! But has this recent awakening of the U.S. government to the presence of this longstanding threat come too late? For, now there is overwhelming evidence that white nationalists – the main instigators of white domestic terrorist violence – have infiltrated every level of law enforcement, branch of the military and level of political offices.
This historic threat remains a clear and present danger to Black American life.
HISTORIC EXAMPLES (source: zinnedproject.org)
The long history of white mobs terrorizing Black neighborhoods (e.g., Tulsa/Black Wall Street, Rosewood FL, and the many nationwide incidents during the “Red Summer of 1919”) is as American as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie. Here are just a few of thousands of historical accounts of such violence.
New York City Draft Riots/Massacre (July 13, 1863)
Harper’s Weekly illustration of the burning of the orphanage during the Draft Riots. Source: Digital Public Library of America
The New York City Draft Riots/Massacre was the largest civil insurrection in U.S. history besides the Civil War itself. White mobs attacked the African-American community — committing murder and burning homes and institutions, including an orphanage.
Wilmington Massacre (Nov. 10, 1898)
The elected and interracial Reconstruction-era local government was deposed via mob violence and murder in the only successful coup d’etat in America.
Elaine Massacre (Sept. 30, 1919)
Black farmers were massacred for their efforts to fight for better pay and higher cotton prices. A white mob shot at them, and the farmers returned fire in self-defense. Estimates range from 100-800 killed, and 67 Black survivors were indicted for inciting violence.
Ocoee Massacre (Nov. 2, 1920)
More than 50 African Americans were killed after going to vote in Florida.
CURRENT ATROCITIES
Beyond the Charlottesville, VA white supremacist rally (Aug 13, 2017), Charleston, S.C. St. Emanuel AME Church mass murder by Dylann Roof (June 17, 2015) and the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Insurrection in Washington DC, there have been far too many other modern-day acts of white domestic terrorism. Here are a few.
Dylann Roof appears via video before a judge in Charleston, S.C., on Friday, June 19, 2015. The 21-year-old accused of killing nine people inside a black church in Charleston made his first court appearance, with the relatives of all the victims making tearful statements. Centralized Bond Hearing Court, of Charleston, S.C. via AP
Jacksonville, FL Dollar General (Aug. 26, 2023)
Earlier this year, 21-year-old white supremacist Ryan Christopher Palmeter murdered three Black people in a hate-motivated attack at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida, before killing himself. The gunman used racial slurs, drew swastikas on his firearm, and left behind racist manifestos. Earlier in the day, he attempted to enter the campus of a historically Black university but was turned away by security when he would not identify himself.
“As we mourn those we lost in yet another white supremacist terrorist attack, we recognize that it is further evidence of a national crisis of hate and extremism,” said Michael Breen, president and CEO at Human Rights First as reported by HumanRightsFirst.org. “When extremists perpetrate crimes like this one against Black Americans, they attack everyone who believes in a fair, just, and pluralistic society. As a nation, we must address white supremacy in all its forms. We must hold accountable those who mainstream hate and redouble our efforts to prevent attacks against Black and Brown people, as well as those targeting members of the LGBTQ+ community, refugees, women, and other groups extremists target.”
Buffalo, NY Tops Friendly Market (May 14, 2022)
A memorial for the supermarket shooting victims is set up outside the Tops Friendly Market on Thursday, July 14, 2022, in Buffalo, N.Y. N.Y. The Buffalo supermarket where 10 Black people were killed by a white gunman is set to reopen its doors, two months after the racist attack. AP Photo/Joshua Bessex
Ten Black people were killed by 18-year-old white supremacist Payton Gendron, who live-streamed his attack which took place at a Buffalo, NY Tops Friendly Market. Gendron drove his parents’ car over 200 miles from Conklin, NY to target Blacks. Gendron filmed himself shooting 13 people (11 Black and two white), killing 10, including a retired police officer and an 86-year-old woman who had recently visited her husband in a nursing home. During his domestic terrorist act, Gendron took time to apologize to a white man for pointing a gun at him. Gendron wrote the N-word and “Here’s your reparations” on his gun, along with the number 14 which is used to symbolize the white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” (source: Brookings.edu)
Two-State Close Call (Jan. 2020)
In Jan. 2020, members of “The Base,” a neo-Nazi white separatist group aiming to start a race war, were apprehended in Maryland and Georgia (two states with large affluent Black communities) thanks to tipped law enforcement work.
Portland, OR Anti-Black/Muslim Murders (May 26, 2017)
On a Portland MAX Light Rail, Jeremy Joseph Christian, a 35-year-old white supremacist with a criminal record, fatally stabbed two men and injured a third after he was confronted for shouting racist and anti-Muslim slurs at two Black teenagers, Destinee Mangum and Walia Mohamed. The men Christian killed and seriously injured sought to protect the Black teens from Christian who hurled racial slurs and anti-Muslim epithets at the two women, one whom was wearing a hijab.
STRATEGIES TO FIGHT WHITE DOMESTIC TERRORISM
There are several entities and individuals offering strategies to fight white domestic terrorism, including the Biden/Harris Administration. Here are a few offered by the Center for American Progress and U.S. Senator and University of Houston alum Elizabeth Warren:
Improved data collection, research and reporting. Collecting better data can aid other efforts to halt white domestic terrorism.
Make it a federal case as state and local jurisdictions often lack the resources, training, and expertise to take on bias-motivated crimes.
Standardize and consistently designate hate crimes as domestic terrorism when the offense meets the threshold, regardless of the alleged perpetrator’s race, beliefs, or ethnicity.
Disrupt international networks by multiple methods including employing financial and technological tools and authorities.
Address and counter white nationalism recruiting and infiltration in law enforcement and the U.S. military.
Prevent convicted hate-inspired criminals from owning a gun.
Teach tolerance at K-12 level, as 17% of hate crimes reported to the FBI in 2017 were committed by minors.
Address incitement to violence on the internet.
Create an interagency task force to combat white nationalist crime and enhance its power by leveraging the actions and responsibilities of the executive branch (POTUS). Though the U.S. President doesn’t make laws, the office wields incredible power in terms of defining the priorities of the nation.
Restrict qualified immunity to hold police officers accountable, especially since police forces nationally have been infiltrated by white nationalists.
DN: Spotlight on Texas incidents of white domestic terrorism
