» hate crimes American Inquiry

The coordinated slaughter of Muslims in two New Zealand mosques last week was the latest atrocity sociopaths have committed in the name of the white race. The idea that there is such a thing as a “white race” and that it is superior to all others defines a disgusting but deeply historically rooted movement that civil society must stamp out. White supremacy is a comfortingly naive ideology that turns its adherents into soulless monsters, waging war on the racial and religious toleration central to peaceful, free, democracies.

In the US, white supremacy has long been associated with the local and provincial order of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan’s commitment to violence against blacks takes the form of a face-to-face fraternity whose members “man up” by getting together in numbers and donning disguises that mask the essential cowardice of their heinous acts. The psychology of the cult and its rituals binds powerless and feckless individuals together, emboldening them to commit terrifying sins against their neighbors.

Lately, however, white supremacy is taking a different form, manifest in the persona of one of the gunmen who mowed down the Muslim worshippers in New Zealand. He committed his crime in broad daylight, alone, even broadcasting it live on social media. This was an individual zealot who methodically prepared for this day, justifying it with a manifesto he published on Facebook and linking his actions to a “tradition” of ideologically motivated hate crimes committed in recent years in Charleston, South Carolina, and in Norway, where a so-called “white knight” slew 77 people.

In an outstanding segment of the PBS Newshour, historian Katherine Belew urged viewers to recognize that these apparently disparate “lone wolf” attacks are part of a global “White Power” movement. Though perpetrators are often socially and geographically isolated, they share the same creed and believe their crimes serve a common purpose, that of “defending” “white civilization” (typically defined as Christian) against people who are non-Christian or non-white. Civil society, the ultimate victim of these kindred crimes, must cease to reward such sociopaths with publicity and fully discredit the febrile ideology that fuels the assertion of “white power.”

Image: Charles Henry Dana, “Like the Moth, It Works in the Dark” (circa 1922)
from this source.

I recoil at seeing photographs of the smirking white racist who gunned down nine African-Americans in a Charleston church last week.

His actions, like those of so many other mass-murderers and terrorists, were directed not just toward his victims but toward us, the public. His actions were calculated to command our attention. This low-life left a manifesto explaining the influential effect he hoped his actions would have. His motive was to show up society. When journalists give this despicable creature publicity, they fulfill his perverted and malevolent dream of glory. They realize the image of what, without us, he could never be. Perversely, they grant the craven narcissist celebrity.

Society and the media should shun and ostracize actors who terrorize and assail society. Coverage of their actions should be bland: imageless, minimal, and uninteresting. The pronouncements, images, and names of terrorists and sociopathic killers should be consigned to annihilation, as beneath our acceptance or recognition. Let their names and deeds be publicly recalled only to the extent required in the justice system. Cast them into an acid bath of oblivion, consign them to social death, silently and without a second thought.

The virtuous stance of the victims’ families is far more worthy of our consideration, far more sensational, and fuller of the power that inspires our awe.

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Tag Archives: hate crimes

Like the Moth, It Works In the Dark

Consign The Sociopath and Terrorist to Oblivion