This should be a brief diary but is something that needs to be said again, and again and again and again. The attacks in New Zealand were horrible. The Hate is striking. The President of the United States was named by the attacker killer mass murderer as a symbol of White identity. That is the thing that sticks in my craw the most. This is what we are as a nation right now.
I’m struck by something I heard yesterday at an interfaith service in honor of the victims about the Hate of the alt-right.
“This is not new! None of this is new!”
And there were only a few of us aware enough to clap at that line.
Because you see it is not new. Timothy McVeigh carried out his attack mass murder in Oklahoma City in 1995. Yes, 23 years ago we saw the power of this movement and we seem to have learned precious little from that event. Or at least the President has learned precious little from it and so many others like it. He doesn’t see it as so much of a problem but as a small group of people with wrong priorities.
One of the groups that has done a great amount of work on the rise of Hate on the right is the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their research and publications have revealed the breadth and depth of this Hateful ideology. They are who I trust in times like these. And they have been talking about this movement for a long time.
Fresh cut: A newly indoctrinated skinhead whose head has recently been shaved for the first time.
Hang-around: A young person who associates with skinheads but is not yet a probate, akin to a gangbanger "wannabe."
RAHOWA: Short for "Racial Holy War," a slogan that originally came out of the neo-Nazi Church of the Creator; also the name of a defunct band.
Red laces: Bootlace color indicating the wearer has shed blood for the skinhead movement. Racist skinheads will often randomly attack non-whites to "earn" their red laces.
Spider web tattoo: Racist skinhead "badge of honor," often worn on the elbow, indicating wearer has committed murder for the skinhead movement.
ZOG: Shorthand for "Zionist Occupation [or Occupied] Government," reflecting the neo-Nazi conspiracy theory that the American government is secretly controlled by a powerful Jewish cabal.
Brenton Tarrant, the man accused of murdering 49 worshippers and injuring dozens of others in two New Zealand mosques Friday, posted a manifesto steeped in white supremacist propaganda and references to “white genocide,” a belief that white people are being systematically replaced across the world by non-whites.
Tarrant, a 28-year-old man from Australia, titled his manifesto “The Great Replacement.” This term can be traced to the French writer Renaud Camus. Influential on the racist right, Renaud is sometimes credited with inspiring the now infamous “Jews will not replace us” chant voiced by white nationalists and neo-Nazis on Aug. 11, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the eve of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally.
In the manifesto, the accused terrorist alludes repeatedly to the far-right ecosystem of online propaganda. Shortly before the shooting, a post apparently from Tarrant was made on the far-right forum 8chan. It read, “It’s time to stop shitposting and time to make a real life effort post.” “Shit posting” and “effort posting” refer to slang describing short and long pieces of writings on 8chan and similar forums.
No, this is not new. None of this is new. And it is past time to confront Hate and White Nationalism.