by Nik Mitchell, PhD
There are few topics that American society ignores at its own peril more than the intersection of radicalization and race. From the 4,075 Black people lynched between 1877 and 1950 to Timothy McVeigh and, most recently, Dylan Roof, racism has long been a radicalizing ideology in America; to pretend otherwise is intellectually dishonest.[1] Jonathan Githens-Mazer argues that radicalization is generally described in one of three ways: process, causation, and the negative definition.[2] Radicalization is a topic that is currently reserved for conversations about Islam and terrorism. This is problematic as it elevates a minority action to a pathology inherent to Muslim dominated cultures. In America, racism is the source of much of its past domestic radicalization and terrorism. Racism as a radicalizing force can be examined through both a process and a causation lens. In this article, race radicalization will be examined from a causation lens.
In recent months, journalists and essayists have written about the radicalization of White men, especially on-line.[3] Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center agrees and asserts that the internet allows for young potential recruits to explore supremacist ideology anonymously and connect with other like-minded individuals.[4] The radicalization of White men and segments of the larger White population are causing concerns because, Potok argues, that, while Klan and Black separatist groups increased in 2016, White nationalist groups declined, which may be a result of their acceptance into the cultural and political mainstream.[5] What ideology is radicalizing a segment of the White population and being absorbed into the main stream and how is it different from previous configurations of White racism? This article asserts that an emerging reconceptualization of pre-World War II White racism, which for the purposes of discussion I have termed White Dominionism, is the radicalizing ideology in question.
As an overarching ideology, White Dominionism is the intellectual descendant of the Reconstruction Era Redeemers and the Eugenicists of the first half of the 20th century, who were the architects and maintainers of Jim Crow respectively.[6] It contains smaller movements such as the alternative right and other variants of the identitarian movement–– which are active in Europe as a rejection of the broader European Union cultural block.[7] In the American context, White Dominionism, as seen with the alternative right, rejects the baby boomer cultural principles such as post-Civil Rights Movement multiculturalism.[8]