There are no white supremacists — here’s why

Across a Georgia college campus, signs are popping up that call for the rise of “white power” symbols and messages, and promise to defend the “European Christian Heritage.” It’s the old lie, dressed up to look like a movement.

One of those posters shows a 1950s white couple with two kids, looking proud while black hands and arms reach out to stop them. Behind them, ironically, is the exact same sun and design of Japanese Nationalism, which fueled racism against all non-Japanese. But I bet the poster designer didn’t even understand that.

As someone who is white, I have seen all kinds of posters and literature, and heard speakers on television claiming to be “fighting for me.” But like the overwhelming majority of fellow whites, we reject those false calls, despite the promise of these people to do battle for me. Because many of us know that these so-called white supremacists really don’t like most white people, outside of themselves.

First of all, there are the Jewish people. From assassinated radio broadcaster Alan Berg to the Jewish victims of the Philadelphia, Mississippi, massacre (featured in the film “Mississippi Burning”), the KKK didn’t like these Jewish people, even though they were white.

If you’re a white liberal, you’re a target, too, a “traitor to your people.” Scores of such liberals have found themselves killed or beat up, just for believing something different. They are white, but their skin color didn’t serve as any sort of a shield.

If you’re a white conservative, chances are you don’t support the Klan. By and large, you support the free market, not segregation or intimidation. You don’t want some local bully who you can tell you who to serve to and sell to, and who can visit your town and when.

If you’re a white Christian, you realize that killings and beatings and lynchings are wrong, even anti-American. You probably know that many early Christians were Middle Easterners, possibly non-white, and you don’t support anti-semitism. Unfortunately, for such self-described white supremacists, “if you’re not with us, you’re against us.” And you’re in the same boat with other Caucasians, despised by white supremacists.

If you follow hate groups and terrorists long enough, you’ll see cases where supremacists kill bystanders, Good Samaritans, and even family members in “murder-suicides,” without much conscience. Good golly, who are the whites these white supremacists support?

Themselves.

Those who analyze people who fit this description often find that these folks have an authoritarian personality. They see themselves as the center of the universe, and seek to dominate, starting with the family members and moving to others they think they can control. They hope for bigger things, claiming to push for white rights, but in reality, it’s just a selfish power grab.

That’s why there are no real white supremacists. There are just “self-supremacists” or people around whom (they think) the universe revolves. They want some supporters, which is why they play the “white supremacist” card and promise to defend the “European Christian Heritage.”

But it’s all a sham. As you can see, such folks would just as soon kill a white person, and even a family member, and couldn’t care less about the “white race,” as a result.

This story was originally published March 31, 2017 at 2:09 PM with the headline "There are no white supremacists — here’s why."