The Ideology of Hate
A standard defence of white supremacists, or white separatists/nationalists as they like to call themselves, is that they are not preaching hate, merely separatism. That is, they do not hate other races but just want nothing to do with them. This is one of the defences that the 11-year-old Lamb Gaede had evidently been trained to make when she phoned up KERN radio in her hometown of Bakersfield two years ago. “We don’t hate ‘em,” she says, referring to Blacks, “we just want our own living space.” I must admit that I believe that Lamb doesn’t hate, but I’m not so sure about her mother:
“I find other races annoying. I don’t like their chattering in other languages, I don’t like the way they look. I mean, 99 per cent of them, they’re just not pretty. I don’t want to be around them. I don’t like the fact they seem to make everything just dirty and messy wherever they are. I don’t like to be around them. I want to be around all white people.”
This invective was delivered to Louis Theroux, who spent several days in the company of the Gaede family in 2003 while making a documentary about white supremacists. In his words: “Though April claims not to hate other races but simply to love her own race, the truth is she clearly does hate other races – she has a contempt for them that borders on loathing.”
An even worse example of rabid hatred comes from the pen of William Pierce. Pierce, who died three years ago, was a physicist, a high-ranking member of the American Nazi party, and the founder of the white supremacist group the National Alliance. He was also a friend of the Gaede family – Lamb refers to him in a song she wrote: “Dr. Pierce, a man so wise, helped so many of us open our eyes, and see the future for what it could be: a future for our Race’s eternity.” The wise doctor’s infamous novel, The Turner Diaries – considered by the FBI to be the primary influence on Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and described by Pierce himself as a “blueprint” for a coming race war – recounts the story of how a group called the “Organization” take over the US and then proceed to murder every Jew, every Black, and every “race traitor” in the country before attacking Israel with nuclear weapons. Of the Jews, the novel’s protagonist, Earl Turner, writes: “We’ll go to the uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan’s spawn.”
This is racist, genocidal hate in its purest form. It is not something you are born with, nor is it something you are taught. It is a feeling that is born out of the pain, hardship, and failure that in rich countries are normally only experienced in adulthood. An emotionally healthy individual does not stumble across the ideology of white supremacism and suddenly realize that it makes sense. Rather, an emotionally brutalized individual will develop hate first; the ideology is then found to be appealing because it legitimizes that hate. But for the Gaede twins, who have led quite an easy life so far, such hatred could not ever have developed. It’s not surprising that Theroux found the girls “charming and well-adjusted.” That they have been indoctrinated by a fallacious ideology they don’t really understand, but also lack the hate that sustains it, is quite apparent in this extract from the conversation between Lamb and radio talk-show host Inga Barks mentioned above:
Inga: If you could pick your neighbours, you would not pick a black person to live next to you?
Lamb: Correct.
Inga: Why?
Lamb: Just because.
Inga: I need a better reason than that, honey.
Lamb goes silent.
Just because is the logic of a child. The idea has not been thought through, just accepted. Ultimately, the only answer to the question Barks asks is: “Because I hate Blacks.” On the radio show, Lamb comes across as sweet, polite, unaggressive, and mostly unsure of herself. Pretty much what you would expect from a girl that age. If anything, she seems younger than her 11 years – no doubt the effect of being home-schooled. The only thing unusual about her is the ideas she is spouting. She cannot answer the above question, not because she’s afraid of admitting to hate, but because she doesn’t hate. Her answer is an admission that she doesn’t know why she wouldn’t want to live next to a black person; it is just something that she’s been taught by the racist, hate-filled adults, like her mother and Pierce, that have surrounded her for her entire life.
“I find other races annoying. I don’t like their chattering in other languages, I don’t like the way they look. I mean, 99 per cent of them, they’re just not pretty. I don’t want to be around them. I don’t like the fact they seem to make everything just dirty and messy wherever they are. I don’t like to be around them. I want to be around all white people.”
This invective was delivered to Louis Theroux, who spent several days in the company of the Gaede family in 2003 while making a documentary about white supremacists. In his words: “Though April claims not to hate other races but simply to love her own race, the truth is she clearly does hate other races – she has a contempt for them that borders on loathing.”
An even worse example of rabid hatred comes from the pen of William Pierce. Pierce, who died three years ago, was a physicist, a high-ranking member of the American Nazi party, and the founder of the white supremacist group the National Alliance. He was also a friend of the Gaede family – Lamb refers to him in a song she wrote: “Dr. Pierce, a man so wise, helped so many of us open our eyes, and see the future for what it could be: a future for our Race’s eternity.” The wise doctor’s infamous novel, The Turner Diaries – considered by the FBI to be the primary influence on Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and described by Pierce himself as a “blueprint” for a coming race war – recounts the story of how a group called the “Organization” take over the US and then proceed to murder every Jew, every Black, and every “race traitor” in the country before attacking Israel with nuclear weapons. Of the Jews, the novel’s protagonist, Earl Turner, writes: “We’ll go to the uttermost ends of the earth to hunt down the last of Satan’s spawn.”
This is racist, genocidal hate in its purest form. It is not something you are born with, nor is it something you are taught. It is a feeling that is born out of the pain, hardship, and failure that in rich countries are normally only experienced in adulthood. An emotionally healthy individual does not stumble across the ideology of white supremacism and suddenly realize that it makes sense. Rather, an emotionally brutalized individual will develop hate first; the ideology is then found to be appealing because it legitimizes that hate. But for the Gaede twins, who have led quite an easy life so far, such hatred could not ever have developed. It’s not surprising that Theroux found the girls “charming and well-adjusted.” That they have been indoctrinated by a fallacious ideology they don’t really understand, but also lack the hate that sustains it, is quite apparent in this extract from the conversation between Lamb and radio talk-show host Inga Barks mentioned above:
Inga: If you could pick your neighbours, you would not pick a black person to live next to you?
Lamb: Correct.
Inga: Why?
Lamb: Just because.
Inga: I need a better reason than that, honey.
Lamb goes silent.
Just because is the logic of a child. The idea has not been thought through, just accepted. Ultimately, the only answer to the question Barks asks is: “Because I hate Blacks.” On the radio show, Lamb comes across as sweet, polite, unaggressive, and mostly unsure of herself. Pretty much what you would expect from a girl that age. If anything, she seems younger than her 11 years – no doubt the effect of being home-schooled. The only thing unusual about her is the ideas she is spouting. She cannot answer the above question, not because she’s afraid of admitting to hate, but because she doesn’t hate. Her answer is an admission that she doesn’t know why she wouldn’t want to live next to a black person; it is just something that she’s been taught by the racist, hate-filled adults, like her mother and Pierce, that have surrounded her for her entire life.
posted by Garth Rumina at 5:11 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home