I truly cannot grasp the mindset where one believes that simply because someone has a differing skin color or religious faith that person is immediately deemed to be "other," if you will, and not entitled to the same civil lights and rights to life. liberty and the pursuit of happiness as oneself. Perhaps I cannot grasp the mindset because my parents were not prejudicial and I went to school at a small school division where we had both African American and American Indian (Onondaga Indians to be specific) who fully participated in school life: band, cheer-leading, sports. I slow danced with a black girl when I was probably around 13 years old (I still recall her name). And while even then I knew in my heart that I was attracted to boys who were "my type" - even though I was in deep denial - I never thought of those who were different as somehow lesser, or not fully human. I do not say any of this to sound self-congratulatory. I simply do not understand the mindset. Perhaps being gay and often targeted by bigots makes one think more of the plight of others. I simply do not know.
All of this said, sadly, such is not the case with white supremacist and Neo-Nazis. Worse yet, by failing to openly condemn those who are racists and bigots, many become white supremacists by default. They allow the hate to spread and continue. A piece in CNN looks at the way in which too many allow themselves to be white supremacists by default. Here are article excerpts (Note: Edward Ball, cited in the article, is the cousin of two of my college fraternity brothers):
Blame President Trump for his tepid moral response. Call the neo-Nazis and white nationalists thugs. Fill your Facebook and Twitter accounts with moral outrage.
But the tragedy that took place in Charlottesville last weekend could not have occurred without the tacit acceptance of millions of ordinary, law-abiding Americans who helped create such a racially explosive climate, some activists, historians and victims of extremism say.
It's easy to focus on the angry white men in paramilitary gear who looked like they were mobilizing for a race war in the Virginia college town last Saturday. But it's the ordinary people -- the voters who elected a reality TV star with a record of making racially insensitive comments, the people who move out of the neighborhood when people of color move in, the family members who ignore a relative's anti-Semitism -- who give these type of men room to operate, they say.
That was the twisted formula that made the Holocaust and Rwanda possible and allowed Jim Crow segregation to survive: Nice people looked the other way while those with an appetite for violence did the dirty work, says Mark Naison, a political activist and history professor at Fordham University in New York City.
''You have to have millions of people who are willing to be bystanders, who push aside evidence of racism, Islamophobia or sexism. You can't have one without the other,'' Naison says.
"We are a country with a few million passionate white supremacists -- and tens of millions of white supremacists by default," he says.
four types of ordinary people who also play a part in the country's racial divisions, Naison and others say:
No. 1: The 'down-low' segregationists
Many of the white racists who marched in Charlottesville were condemned because they openly said they don't believe in integration or racial equality.
But millions of ordinary white Americans have been sending that message to black and brown people for at least a half a century.
They send it with their actions: They don't want to live next to or send their children to school with black or brown people, historians say.
This isn't the Jim Crow segregation that one reads about in the history books. It's the covert or "down-low" segregationist movement that has shaped much of contemporary America since overt racism became taboo in the 1960s, says David Billings, who wrote about growing up white in the segregated South in his memoir, "Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in United States History and Life."
"Across the country, white people withdrew from the 'public' sphere and migrated to 'whites only' suburbs to evade racial integration," Billings wrote. "The word 'public' preceding words like 'housing,' 'hospital,' 'health care,' 'transportation,' 'defender,' 'schools,' and even 'swimming pool' in some parts of the country became code words that meant poor and most often black and Latino. The word 'private' began to mean 'better.'''
This white separatism continues today. . . . "White people in the past century and a half have made a conscious effort to resegregate themselves," says Edward Ball, author of "Slaves in the Family," a memoir about coming to terms with learning his family owned slaves.
"We have to work hard to make our social lives reflect our values, because white people do not choose the company of people of color generally," he says.
The angry white men in Charlottesville were just being open about their white supremacy. Ball says he wasn't surprised by their boldness.
No. 2: Those who say 'yes, but...'
President Trump's critics blasted him for not coming out strong enough against the white racists who marched in Charlottesville. Trump initially denounced the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides." It was the "many sides" qualifier that infuriated some people. They wanted an unequivocal denunciation of racism from a leader.
Trump's "many sides" response, though, wasn't that abnormal in the context of US history. It used to be the norm for white political leaders to draw a moral equivalence between racists and those who suffered from their acts of brutality, historians say.
That "yes, but" approach is often used today to discredit the grievances of the Black Lives Matter movement, another professor says. Whenever an unarmed black or brown person is shot by police, some deflect the issue by saying, "Yes, but all lives matter."
No. 3: Those who choose chaos
There's a famous line from the classic film, "Casablanca." A police officer is closing down a casino, declaring, "I'm shocked -- shocked -- to find that gambling is going on in here!" -- all while pocketing his casino winnings as they're being handed to him on the sly.
That line could apply to Trump supporters who say they're frustrated by the President's statements on race since Charlottesville erupted.
How could you be shocked?
"This is who he is, this is what he does," says Anderson, the Emory University professor. "'Mexicans are rapists and criminals.' That's what he said in his first speech. Their complicity comes in the form of self-denial instead of owning it." For those who say they voted for Trump despite his intolerance, Anderson offers this analogy: Minister Louis Farrakhan.
Farrakhan is a leader in some parts of the black community because of his message of self-help and black empowerment. He reached peak popularity in the 1990s, but he also preached anti-Semitic, anti-white, anti-Catholic and anti-homosexual rhetoric. And the organization he leads, the Nation of Islam, has taught that white people are inherently evil.
No. 4: Those who look the other way
Ari Kohen knows something about the cost of hate. When he looked at images of neo-Nazis chanting "Jews will not replace us!" in Charlottesville, he thought of his grandfather, Zalman Kohen. He was living in rural Romania in 1944 when the Nazis rounded him up with the help of his neighbors and sent him to a death camp.
His grandfather survived, moved to the United States and lived until he was 90. But he never returned to Romania, says Kohen, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"He could never forgive his neighbors," he says. "These were people who, maybe they didn't love Jews, but these were people who lived next to each other. They knew his family and he knew their family. The idea that they could all stand by while life was completely and forever changed for large portions of their community -- he could never understand it."
Never underestimate the ability of ordinary people to look away.
Some do it with family members. Kohen says the hundreds of white racists who descended on Charlottesville must have family or friends who noticed their behavior beforehand. He suspects that some refused to confront them.
"There's this wink and nod, everyone knows that this person is going down a dangerous path and people passively go along with it," he says. "They don't want to rock the boat. This is family or a friend. It's hard to distance yourself from people you care about."
This passivity extends to how people react when their country's leaders become intolerant, others say. Once you see it coming, you have a duty to act, says Naison, the activist and Fordham professor.
"If you don't speak up when this sort of ideology is being promoted at the highest level, you end up being complicit in the actions taken by its more extreme adherents," Naison says. "Once the demons are unleashed, you've become a co-conspirator."
There's also evidence, though, that millions of ordinary Americans from all walks of life don't want that kind of America. Heather Heyer, the demonstrator who lost her life in Charlottesville, was a young white woman who marched in solidarity with black protesters. Millions of Americans have since taken to the streets or social media to stand against what happened there.
If you want to know why those white racists now feel so emboldened, it may help to look at all the ordinary people around you, your neighbors, your family members, your leaders. But first, start by looking at yourself.
For my "friends" who voted for Trump, if you are not loudly condemning his actions and refusing to look the other way, then you are complicit. You betrayed your LGBT friends when you voted for Trump and it will be your actions that determine whether or not you are a white supremacist by default.
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