In My Backyard

When I've presented my work on white supremacy in public lectures, professional conferences, or job talks (for faculty positions) in variably someone will say something to the effect that white supremacy "doesn't exist here." Sometimes, this comes out in reference to where I'm from originally (Texas), and a suggestion that that must be a fertile area for studying white supremacy. And, indeed it is and was.

But then, so is where you live...wherever that is.

Now, I live in New York City and people tend to think that white supremacy in its most extreme expressions doesn't exist here, but it does. Just recently a neo-Nazi from the Bronx, Thomas Zibelli, pleaded guilty to harassment charges for his involvement in vandalizing a Jewish Center in Throgs Neck. He also apparently recruited teens to the white supremacist cause.

The response to white supremacy that says "this doesn't exist in my backyard" is one of the ways white people (and, yes, it's almost always white people who say this kind of thing) keep blinders on about the way racism, white supremacy and privilege work together. Saying "this doesn't exist here" is another way of saying, "this isn't my responsibility."

One of the things I think the internet does, in addition to making white supremacist speech more pervasive and accessible, is it also makes those of us who oppose such speech more accountable for taking action because we can't say "this doesn't exist here." Hate speech exists on the same internet that I use to read the morning paper, download my favorite songs, or post on this blog. And because it does, it's in my backyard.