Over the past two decades, acts of domestic terrorism and extremist content on social media have dramatically increased. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and “American WhiteLash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress” author Wesley Lowery argues the trends are in direct response to progress made by Black people and people of color.
Lowery spoke with theGrio’s Natasha S. Alford about how it’s no coincidence the numbers started to go up right after former President Barack Obama’s election and why people who once supported America’s first Black president switched to supporting polarizing Republican candidates like Ron DeSantis.
The following is a transcript of their conversation:
Natasha S. Alford [00:00:06]: Hello, I’m Natasha Alford and welcome to theGrio Weekly where we cover the stories you are talking about or we’ll soon be talking about — stories that impact all aspects of life in Black America.
Alford [00:00:31]: That was FBI Director Christopher Wray testifying to Congress in 2021, clearly stating the threat posed by white violent supremacists in our country. The Government Accounting Office reports that between 2010 and 2021, there were more than 230 acts of domestic terrorism in America. So what’s driving the spike in violent hatred? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery says it’s in direct response to the progress made by Black people and people of color.
He writes about it in his book, “American WhiteLash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress.” Wesley, thank you so much for joining us. But let’s talk about this very serious issue. We’re watching a violent spike in white supremacy. And you say that it’s no coincidence that the numbers started to go up right after the historic election of Barack Obama.
Wesley Lowery [00:01:23]: Well, in 2008, we see two big things happen. The first, obviously, is the election of Barack Obama, a Black president, and this idea, this feeling that perhaps America has taken a major step towards multiracial democracy. At the same time, you see the census projections that say that by 2050 America will be a majority-minority country, that there’ll be more people of color than there are people who are considered whites.
Now, both of these things speak to massive changes within the United States of America. And what we see pretty quickly is an increase in racial anxiety and generalized anxiety among white Americans. This feeling that the country has changed in some way and it’s leaving them behind by the end of the Obama years, 55% of white Americans believe that they are racially discriminated against.
That in function, the election of a Black president and in the years that follow, lead white Americans to believe that they are a racial minority and that they face systemic discrimination of some sort. What we see then is a political movement that plays to that rhetoric, plays to that anxiety, and is taken advantage of by white supremacists, by people who hope to divide us by race, who hope to take us back to being a white country in a white ethnostate.
Alford [00:02:46]: Wes, I saw this very interesting package about mothers, majority white mothers who were attracted to Ron DeSantis in part because they had been attacked on Twitter by what they said was a “woke mob.” And they found that they felt welcomed in the DeSantis camp, right. They were attracted to this idea that they were understood there. What do you do with those folks, right?
Some of those folks said that they actually voted for Barack Obama before, but because they felt so attacked, they decided to go in the other direction. What does that balance of calling out truth and the reality of white supremacy, white privilege and society, while also figuring out how you build coalitions with people? I’m very interested in your thoughts on that.
Lowery [00:03:36]: Of course. And it’s really hard as a political question because, as you noted, two things can be true at the same time. We are seeing a reactionary conservative movement across the country, people who feel as if the country has changed in ways that are leaving them behind, that their way of life, be it how they think of themselves coded racially, be it their perception, is an understanding of gender or sexuality, be it how they want their children educated.
There are people who believe that that way of life is fundamentally under threat, and that is not unlike similar populist reactionary movements in the past. The Klan of the 1920s — we remember it for its anti-Black racism, but we forget that at the core of its political appeal and of its political support was anti-immigrant animus, anti-Catholic animus, anti-Jewish animus. The suggestion that the urbanization of America was changing and threatening the culture, right?
That it was a fundamentally reactionary conservative movement wanting to keep things the way they had been and operating off of a nostalgia for an America that actually hadn’t even really existed in the past. We see a lot of that now. Among this movement on our political “right,” folks who are upset about immigration and the changing demographics of the country, folks who are upset about the rise of a new racial justice movement and advances towards racial equity. Folks who are upset about our new understandings and developing understandings of sexuality and gender, and people being willing to express their experiences and their identities.
People who are frustrated by pop culture. The fact that Little Mermaid is Black now and Spider-Man’s Afro-Latino right? This idea that their country is gone, that it’s changing, that technology has disrupted things. And so, those are people who are looking for a home and looking for people to tell them that they will not be and do not have to be the losers of American history. And in fact, that their understanding of America is a valid one. And so we get and we understand why political appeals to prejudice work in that case.
That “no, no, no, no, no, it’s not that the country’s changed, it’s that it’s been taken over by these bad, terrible people” and that “you’re the right one,” “you’re the real Americans,” “you’re the ones who get it.” And so we see why Ron DeSantis campaigns the way he does, why Glenn Youngkin was able to get elected in Virginia on the campaign issues he pursued, removing “Beloved” from schools and, you know, attacking Toni Morrison, right. And we see all of this at the core and at the heart of the Trump campaign as well.
Alford [00:06:21]: It’s a huge challenge that we’re going to continue talking about right after this quick break, Wesley. When we return, we’re going to talk more also about white lash and how it isn’t always cloaked in violence. Stay with us.
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