White Man's Burden: A History of Nationalism from Leonard Zeskind (VIDEOS)

[TOOLZ]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wellington-ennis/white-mans-burden-a-histo_b_658034.html

In a tumultuous month of racial discourse -- the pro-slavery sentiments of the Tea Party Express leader, the smearing of Shirley Sherrod, the faux-troversy over "New Black Panthers," the ratcheting of anti-immigrant rancor -- a refrain of outrage has become the norm. That this outrage has consistently been coming from white conservatives seems indicative of a crest in a country that has lived under slavery as long as it hasn't.

This white backlash has been metastasizing over decades and has worn many mantles, argues Leonard Zeskind, author of the engrossing book, Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. Zeskind has spent many years following the movements' leaders and attending gatherings, developing a unique insight into the membership, mindsets, and resources comprising a diaspora of Klansmen and Holocaust deniers, anti-immigration forces and militia men, executives in offices and everyday Americans.

Stressing a chasm of cultural difference between Middle America and the Coasts, Zeskind explained to me in this sit-down interview that many of the mainstream mouthpieces bemoaning the disenfranchised white man are hardly influential, but rather pandering to an existent culture ingrained with separatism.

Zeskind places the origin of this self-martyrdom at the repeal of the Jim Crow laws back under the Civil Rights Act in 1964. As alienation under loss of privilege set in, the defense of America's identity as a white nation became a unifying cause. In the years since, spurred by a preeminent entitlement to America, some form of white nationalism has continually emerged, often making headway into the mainstream.

(Click through to read more and see videos of Zeskind on Breitbart, the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and more.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-wellington-ennis/white-mans-burden-a-histo_b_658034.html

[MissMarple]

1. I think people like Sarah "real American" Palin, Rush, et al have a ready audience,

but I also think they can influence their followers because of the deep need for validation on all their parts. The rushbots, palinites, since the tea partiers are basically insecure and fearful people and need to feel that they are in good and righteous company. Even though they come to the party with their prejudices and paranoias firmly in place they can still be led ... if you can call what these people do leadership. They do have a measure of influence, and they giggle and snicker all the way to the bank.

When this festering sore of racial intolerance comes to a head, as Zeskind indicates, things will get very ugly. We are still fighting that damn war.