Politicians are trying to use a distorted idea of patriotism and a distorted definition of nationalism to whitewash white nationalists and white nationalism.
White supremacy, white nationalism and white terror were fundamental to the creation of America. Those facts don’t change because they make some uncomfortable or others angry. No one has the power to change a yesterday.
This current impulse to wish it away, to ban the books, to pressure the teachers, to alter the language, to muddy the waters, isn’t the answer. And it’s insulting.
Take the case of Republican senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville when asked if he believes white nationalists should be allowed in the military. His answer: “Well, they call them that. I call them Americans.”
But the definition of white nationalism, a decades-old term, isn’t up for debate or a varied interpretation. Websters dictionary defines is as: “one of a group of militant white people who espouse white supremacy and advocate enforced racial segregation.”
It’s not the first time that a prominent Republican has tried, particularly on the subject of race, to reduce fact to opinion — to convert the absolute into a matter of partisan interpretation. Nationalism is cast simply as profound patriotism.
They might say their comments had nothing to do with race — and that to suggest otherwise is, itself, racist. But in this stew of adulterated meanings, “white nationalist” gets conflated with being a white patriot and allows any suggestion of racism to become an aspersion cast at white nationalists without cause.
Ryan Walters, the superintendent of public schools in Oklahoma, was asked how teaching students about the 1921 Tulsa race massacre could be done without violating the state’s ban on teaching what it calls critical race theory. He said: “They did this for this reason.’ But to say it was inherent because of their skin is where I say that is critical race theory. You’re saying that race defines a person.”
The facts: White racists attacked and destroyed the Black community in Tulsa called the Greenwood District, and that community was attacked because it was Black.
In US history, Racism was preached in church. Law enforcement was part of the racial terror. Elected officials championed resistance to racial equality. People sold and sent postcards of lynchings
And the rising popularity of hate groups today is due in part to the mainstreaming of white nationalist ideas.