Hate Groups | Introduction
Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian immigrant, was killed by three white skinheads in Portland, Oregon, in November 1988. Two years later, Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), and his son John were found liable for Seraw’s murder in a civil suit because they recruited the skinheads and encouraged them to participate in violent behavior against nonwhites. In Fayetteville, North Carolina, James Burmeister, a soldier and self-described skinhead, shot and killed a couple out walking one night in December 1995 “because they were black.” In June 1998 in Jasper,Texas, three men with ties to a white supremacist group chained James Byrd Jr. by his ankles and dragged him behind a pickup truck until his body literally fell apart. He was killed, said one of the men involved, because the truck’s driver did not like blacks.
Because of their racial overtones, these murders have drawn the public’s attention to white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan,WAR, Aryan Nations, Christian Patriots, and various skinhead groups. The groups’ members contend that while they believe in the supremacy of the white race and the separation of the races, they do not condone acts of violence— especially murder—against nonwhites. The criminals who commit these crimes are the exception to the law-abiding citizens who comprise these groups, they assert. Hate crimes studies appear to support their contention, showing that most hate crimes are committed by individuals acting on their own.
Members of white supremacist groups claim that they are misunderstood by the public, and that they themselves are the victims of religious persecution. They do not hate nonwhites, they assert, but are only following their religious beliefs—based on the Bible—that decree that the races must be kept separate. Their politically incorrect beliefs lead to persecution, charges Jim Stinson, a Knight of the White Kamellia, Ku Klux Klan of Texas:
You know there are all kinds of good Christians out there. They don’t hate anyone, right? That is, they don’t hate anyone but us. We believe in our race and our God and we don’t back away from that. That makes us the bad guys, the racists. It’s open season on us.
White supremacists contend that this “open season” includes harassment by law enforcement officers and others at their rallies, meetings, and marches. In addition, supporters of white supremacist groups maintain that their religious beliefs are singled out for abuse while practitioners of other unusual religions are allowed to practice their beliefs in peace. For example, some point out that the use of peyote, an illegal drug, is permitted during religious ceremonies performed by Native Americans, and doctors respect the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists who refuse blood transfusions or other medical treatments. However, they assert, white supremacists are not allowed to follow their religious beliefs concerning racial separation and white supremacy.
Many white supremacists also resent being forced to support welfare recipients with tax dollars, accept homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle, and permit legalized abortion, all of which, they argue, are mandated by the government and contradict their beliefs. These groups see themselves as defenders of traditional American values that are under attack by the government.
Critics of white supremacists do not see them as victims of persecution but rather as the persecutors. White supremacists are racists, they contend, and their beliefs are based on hate, not religion. Hate crimes observers blame organizations such as WAR, Aryan Nations, and Christian Patriots for many of the hate crimes committed, even if they are committed by people unconnected with the groups. According to hate crimes experts Jack Levin and Jack McDevitt, skinheads and violent racists rely on WAR, Aryan Nations, and similar groups for guidance and encouragement in acting out their aggression and resentment against nonwhites and other “undesirables.” Furthermore, they contend, organizations such as WAR have a pervasive influence on alienated teenagers and young adults. These youths see themselves as helping the white supremacist groups carry out their mission of “ridding the United States, if not the world, of its ‘subhuman’ residents,” Levin and McDevitt write.
Due to the pervasive influence of political correctness, how- ever, racism is less effective than it once was for attracting new members to hate groups, according to Loretta Ross, program research director at the hate crimes watch group Center for Democratic Renewal. She contends that hostility toward the government seems to rally more new members to hate groups than racism or anti-Semitism. A central theme of the extremists’ antigovernment rhetoric is that the federal government is trying to restrict as many rights of the people as it can. While the views of hate group members may be harmless in and of themselves, hate crimes observers note that the extremists speak of using violence to prevent the behaviors of which they disapprove—such as abortion and homosexuality—from being tolerated or accepted. The intended subjects of these proposed and actual armed assaults are usually federal officials, law enforcement officers, abortion providers and clinics, environmentalists, minorities, gays and lesbians, Jews, and welfare recipients. According to authors Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, white supremacists believe these groups all represent a threat in some way or another to maintaining the rights and privileges of the white race.
The debate over whether certain organizations violate individuals’ civil rights when they act out or verbalize their hate toward specific people or whether these groups are simply protecting their right to live according to their beliefs is the subject of Hate Groups: Opposing Viewpoints. The authors explore hate crimes and hate groups in the following chapters: Are Hate Crimes a Serious Problem? Do Certain Groups Promote Hate and Violence? Does the Militia Movement Present a Serious Threat? How Can Hate Crimes and Terrorism Be Reduced? The viewpoints in this anthology examine whether hate groups constitute a danger to America.
