American Swastika

Pete Simi is professor of sociology at Chapman University and executive committee member for the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center at the University of Nebraska.Robert Futrell is professor of sociology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and longtime expert on right-wing extremism.Emily Wagner is a Ph.D. student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who studies right-wing politics and activism.

• Preface Introduction 1. Hidden Spaces of Hate Explaining White Power Persistence Studying White Power Persistence Plan of the Book 2. White Supremacy Ku Klux Klan Christian Identity and Neo-Paganism Neo-Nazis Racist Skinheads White Supremacy Doctrine and Collective Identity 3. White Supremacist Hate in the HomeSeth and Jessie’s Hard-Core Home Life The Newly Respectable: Todd and Kate Darren and Mindy’s Communitarian Family Life 4. White Power Parties Getting Back to “God’s White Wilderness” White Supremacist Bible StudyHouse Parties and Crash Pads White Power Ritualism 5. White Power Music Hate Train’s Rise Hate Bands and Hate Music Consciousness-Raising Music White Power Bar Shows A Place to Let Go Music Rituals and Member Recruitment Festivals A Chance to Build UnityWhite Power Music Companies6. Virtual Hate White Power Hate Culture Online Selling the White Power Aesthetic White Power Online Gaming Children’s Virtual Indoctrination White Power Video and Social Networking Sites “It Keeps Me Feeling Connected” Discovering “Truth” Betrayal, Dispossession, and Violence Declarations of Faith White Power Virtual Therapy Coming Out to Nonmembers Dependency and LonelinessOnline Ties to Offline White Power Spaces7. Private White Power CommunitiesPure White SpaceThe Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the LordElohim City National AllianceAryan Nations 8. Enduring White Power Activism: Estimating White Supremacy’sThreat and What to Do about It An Infrastructure of HateEstimating the White Supremacist ThreatWhat to DoAppendix: Making Contact and Developing RapportNotes Bibliography Index

American Swastika is a must-read volume for anyone trying to understand both the history and the rise of white supremacy in the US. Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, Simi and Futrell interrogate white supremacy organizations in the contemporary US. Specifically, they take a deep dive into four social movements, broadly defined: the Ku Klux Klan, Christian identity groups, neo-Nazis, and racist skinheads. The authors accomplish this task by considering the history of white supremacy in the US and among these social movements, but they go one step further, elucidating the processes of their formation by focusing on key structures of white supremacy movements, including hate in the home, white power parties, white power music, virtual hate, and white power communities. Drawing heavily on their ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, Simi and Futrell paint a stunning and horrifying picture of white supremacy movements, both at the margins and right under everyone's noses. This critical update to the first edition (CH, Nov'10, 48-1786) is a necessary study for any scholar, student, or citizen seeking to better understand the persistence and pervasiveness of white supremacy in the US. Essential. All readers.