A scholar of American anti-Semitism explains the hate symbols present during the US Capitol riot

Crowds carrying hate symbols as they stormed the U.S Capitol on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C.
Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University

One of the many horrifying images from the Jan. 6 rampage on the U.S. Capitol shows a long-haired, long-bearded man wearing a black “Camp Auschwitz” T-shirt emblazoned with a skull and crossbones, and under it the phrase “work brings freedom” – an English translation of the Auschwitz concentration camp motto: “Arbeit macht frei.”

Another image, more subtle but no less incendiary, is of a different man whose T-shirt was emblazoned with the inscription “6MWE” above yellow symbols of Italian Fascism. “6MWE” is an acronym common among the far right standing for “6 Million Wasn’t Enough.” It refers to the Jews exterminated during the Nazi Holocaust and hints at the desire of the wearer to increase that number still further.

These and related images, captured on television and retweeted on social media, demonstrate that some of those who traveled to Washington to support President Donald Trump were engaged in much more than just a doomed effort to maintain their hero in power.

As their writings make clear to me as a scholar of American anti-Semitism, some among them also hoped to trigger what is known as the “Great Revolution,” based on a fictionalized account of a government takeover and race war, that, in its most extreme form, would exterminate Jews.

Extreme anti-Semitism

Calls to exterminate Jews are common in far-right and white nationalist circles. For example, the conspiracy theorists of QAnon, who hold “that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump,” traffic in it regularly.

The anonymous “Q” – the group’s purported head who communicates in riddles and leaves clues on message boards – once approvingly retweeted the anti-Semitic image of a knife-wielding Jew wearing a Star of David necklace who stands knee-deep in the blood of Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Ukrainians and asks with feigned innocence, “Why do they persecute me so?”

Images of long-nosed Jews dripping with the blood of non-Jews whom they are falsely accused of murdering have a long and tragic history. Repeatedly, they have served as triggers for anti-Semitic violence.

More commonly, including in recent days, QAnon has targeted Jewish billionaire philanthropist and investor George Soros, whom it portrays as the primary figure shaping and controlling world events. A century ago, the Rothschilds, a family of Jewish bankers, was depicted in much the same way.

Among the crowd that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 were QAnon supporters.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

QAnon members also mark Jews with triple parentheses, a covert means of outing those whom they consider usurpers and outsiders, not true members of the white race.

‘White genocide’

Another website popular in white nationalist circles displayed photographs of Jewish women and men, downloaded from university websites, so as to help readers distinguish Jews from the “Aryan Master Race.” “Europeans are the children of God,” it proclaims. “(((They)))” – denominating Jews as other without even mentioning them – “are the children of Satan.”

The website justifies rabid anti-Semitism by linking Jews to the forces supposedly seeking to undermine racial hierarchies. “White genocide is (((their))) plan,” it declares, again marking Jews with triple parentheses, “counter-(((extermination))) is our response.”

Members of the Proud Boys, another group that sent members to Washington, likewise traffic in anti-Semitism. One of the group’s leaders, Kyle Chapman, recently promised to “confront the Zionist criminals who wish to destroy our civilization.” The West, he explained “was built by the White Race alone and we owe nothing to any other race.”

Chapman, like many of his peers, uses the term “white genocide” as a shorthand way of expressing the fear that the members of the white population of the United States, like themselves, will soon be overwhelmed by people of color. The popular 14-word white supremacist slogan, visible on signs outside the Capitol on Wednesday, reads “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Composed by David Lane, one of the conspirators behind the 1984 assassination of Jewish radio host Alan Berg, this slogan originally formed part of a larger document entitled “The White Genocide Manifesto.” Its 14 planks insist that Jews are not white and actually endanger white civilization. “All Western nations are ruled by a Zionist conspiracy to mix, overrun and exterminate the White race,” the manifesto’s seventh plank reads.

While influenced by the infamous anti-Semitic forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the document goes further, blaming members of what it euphemistically calls the “Zionist occupation governments of America” for homosexuality and abortion as well.

QAnon followers, the Proud Boys and the other far-right and alt-right groups that converged on Washington imagined that they were living out the great fantasy that underlies what many consider to be the bible of the white nationalism movement, a 1978 dystopian novel, “The Turner Diaries,” by William Luther Pierce.

The novel depicts the violent overthrow of the government of the United States, nuclear conflagration, race war and the ultimate extermination of nonwhites and “undesirable racial elements among the remaining White population.”

Symbolism outside the Capitol

As opinion writer Seyward Darby pointed out in The New York Times, the gallows erected in front of the Capitol recalls the novel’s depiction of “the day of the rope,” when so-called betrayers of their race were lynched. Unmentioned in The New York Times article is that the novel subsequently depicts “a war to the death with the Jew.”

The book warns Jews that their “day is coming.” When it does, at the novel’s conclusion, mass lynchings and a takeover of Washington set off a worldwide conflagration, and, within a few days “the throat of the last Jewish survivor in the last kibbutz and in the last, smoking ruin in Tel Aviv had been cut.”

“The Turner Diaries”’ denouement coupled with the anti-Semitic images from the Capitol on Wednesday serve as timely reminders of the precarious place Jews occupy in different corners of the United States. Even as some celebrate how Jews have become white and privileged, others dream of Jews’ ultimate extermination.

Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Young people are exposed to more hate online during COVID. And it risks their health

Shutterstock

Joanne Orlando, Western Sydney University

COVID has led to children spending more time on screens using social networks, communication apps, chat rooms and online gaming.

While this has undoubtedly allowed them to keep in touch with friends, or connect with new ones, during the pandemic, they are also being exposed to increased levels of online hate.

That’s not just the bullying and harassment we often hear about. They’re also being exposed to everyday negativity — Twitter pile-ons, people demonising celebrities, or knee-jerk reactions lashing out at others — several times a day.

This risks normalising this type of online behaviour, and may also risk children’s mental health and well-being.

What are children exposed to?

Hate speech can consist of comments, images or symbols that attack or use disapproving or discriminatory language about a person or group, on the basis of who they are.

It can even be coded language to spread hate, as seen on the world’s most popular social platform for children, TikTok. For example, the number 14 refers to a 14-word-long white supremacist slogan.

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People can be exposed to hate speech directly, or witness it between others. And one study, which analysed millions of websites, popular teen chat sites and gaming sites, found children were exposed to much higher levels of online hate during the pandemic than before it.

The study, run by a company that uses artificial intelligence to detect and filter online content, found a 70% increase in hate between children and teens during online chats. It also found a 40% increase in toxicity among young gamers communicating using gaming chat.

Of particular note is the rise of hate on TikTok during the pandemic. TikTok has hundreds of millions of users, many of them children and teenagers. During the pandemic’s early stages, researchers saw a sharp spike in far-right extremist posts, including ideologies of fascism, racism, anti-Semitism, anti-immigration and xenophobia.

Children may also inadvertently get caught up in online hate during times of uncertainty, such as a pandemic. This may be when the entire family may be in distress and children have long periods of unsupervised screen time.

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Witnessing hate normalises it

We know the more derogatory language about immigrants and minority groups people are exposed to (online and offline), the more intergroup relations deteriorate.

This leads to empathy for others being replaced by contempt. Terms like “hive mind” (being expected to conform to popular opinion online or risk being the target of hate) and “lynching” (a coordinated social media celebrity hate storm) are now used to describe this online contempt.

Being exposed to hate speech also leads young people to become less sensitive to hateful language.
The more hate speech a child observes, the less upset they are about it. They develop a laissez-faire attitude, become indifferent, seeing hateful comments as jokes, minimising the impact, or linking hateful content to freedom of speech.

In real life, people are sent off the pitch for bad behaviour. But there is no such consequence in online gaming.
Shutterstock

There is also little reputational or punitive risk involved with bad behaviour online. A child playing soccer might get sent off the field in a real-life sporting game for “flaming”, or “griefing” (deliberately irritating and harassing other players). But there is no such consequence in online gaming.

Social platforms, including Facebook and TikTok, have recently expanded their hate speech guidelines. These guidelines, however, cannot eradicate hate speech as their definitions are too narrow, allowing hate to seep through.

So kids are growing up learning “bad behaviour” online is tolerated, even expected. If what children see every day on their screen is people communicating with them badly, it becomes normalised and they are willing to accept it is part of life.

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Technology and regulation must work in concert to combat hate speech online

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Witnessing hate affects children’s health and well-being

Prince Harry recently warned of a “global crisis of hate” on social media that affects people’s mental health.

It impacts the mental health of all involved: those giving out the hate, those receiving it, and those observing it.

If a young person has negative, insulting attitudes or opinions, this is often put down to having unresolved emotional issues. However, channelling pent-up emotions into hate speech does not resolve these emotional issues. As hate posts can go viral, it can encourage more hate posts.

And for people who are exposed to this behaviour, this takes its toll.
The increased mental preparedness it takes to deal with or respond to microaggressions and hate translates into chronically elevated level of stress — so-called low-grade toxic stress.

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In the short term, too much low-grade toxic stress lowers our mood and drains our energy, leaving us fatigued. Prolonged low-grade toxic stress can lead to adverse health outcomes, such as depression or anxiety, disruption of the development of brain architecture and other organ systems, and increases in the risk of stress-related disease and cognitive impairment, well into the adult years.

It can also cause a child to develop a low threshold for stress throughout life.

Children growing up in already vulnerable, stressed environments will be more impacted by the stress they are also exposed to long-term online.

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What to do

Unfortunately, we can’t eradicate hate online. But the more we understand why others post hate speech and the strategies they use to do this helps a child be more in control of their environment and therefore less impacted by it.

Hate speech is driven not only by negativity, but also by the simplicity in how groups are portrayed, for instance, boys are superior, girls are side-kicks. Teach children to notice over-simplicity and its use as a put-down strategy.

An aggressor (the one dishing out the hurt) can also easily hide behind a non-identifying pseudonym or username. This type of anonymity allows people to separate themselves from who they are in real life. It makes them feel free to use hostility and criticism as a viable way of dealing with their pain, or unresolved issues. Teach your child to be aware of this.

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Resources on the impact of toxic stress on young people, mental health support and what to do if you experience or witness online hate are available for parents and children.

If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone
you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Children and Technology, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Everyday racism fuels prejudice and hate. But we can challenge it

Establishing relationships with people who are different from ourselves is one of the best approaches to reducing prejudice.
(AAP/Jono Searle, CC BY-ND

Kumar Yogeeswaran; Chris G. Sibley, University of Auckland; Danny Osborne, University of Auckland; Marc Wilson, Victoria University of Wellington, and Mike Grimshaw

In the aftermath of the Christchurch terror attacks a month ago, New Zealanders are grappling with difficult, albeit necessary, questions about discrimination and casual racism.

The response to the horrific attack has been heartwarming. Tens of thousands of people from different backgrounds offered support to the Muslim community and paid their respects to those senselessly killed and wounded. The response of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been similarly refreshing, and has become a global talking point. This gives us hope for a better future.

But lurking behind news articles and commentary proclaiming that this is “not us”, debate is growing about what this atrocity also tells us that we have been reticent to acknowledge.

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Everyday racism links to extremism

In some ways, both of these narratives ring true. On the one hand, we have bought into New Zealand’s high global ranking for tolerance and inclusion. On the other hand, New Zealand’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) and those of us who research prejudice and bigotry routinely find evidence for everyday experiences of casual racism. These experiences give extremism the space it needs to breathe.

One in three of the complaints received by the HRC in New Zealand is about racial discrimination. In 2017, the commission launched a Give Nothing to Racism campaign fronted by acclaimed film director Taika Waititi.

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission launched a campaign in 2017 to highlight everyday racism.

Everyday, or “casual” racism and bigotry can appear relatively subtle or blatant. It may include comments such as complimenting someone who doesn’t fit the dominant group for being “well-spoken”, calling someone a “good” Muslim/Māori/Asian, excusing race-based jokes or comparisons as “just joking”. These seemingly benign comments are often accompanied with more blatant experiences of ethnic slurs, being told to go back to one’s country, or managers admitting they do not hire people with “foreign” sounding names (a violation of New Zealand law).

Compounded with such day-to-day experiences is research spanning decades and using a variety of tools (including neuroscience methods, reaction-time measures, and behavioural measures) to show bigotry lies on a continuum from blatant to subtle.

It’s worth mentioning, even subtle biases contribute to negative outcomes for minority groups’ health, well-being and participation in wider society. And even subconsciously perceiving minorities as “less civilised” can fuel intergroup conflict and violence towards minority groups, as shown by decades of research

While terrorism may represent the actions by a small number of extremists, they are fuelled by social norms that allow these ideologies to take root and propagate. As acclaimed French theorist Jean Baudrillard observed in The Spirit of Terrorism:

terrorism merely crystallizes all the ingredients in suspension.

Social norms shape attitudes

This does not imply that communities themselves are responsible for acts of terrorism, but rather that terrorism reflects what circulates in geopolitics, national politics, normative beliefs of those around us, the media and the influence of other ideological and social forces. Global context is, of course, important, but New Zealand now needs to reflect on how social norms within our own community can inadvertently promote hate and prejudice.

In Christchurch, and New Zealand more generally, extremist groups have been omnipresent for decades. Just last year, there was a white supremacist march down a main street in Christchurch that received numerous car horn toots of support. Students in Auckland have reported an increase in extremist group messaging on campus, even after the disbanding of a controversial European student association.

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More broadly, data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey (NZAVS) show that 28% of New Zealanders are willing to express negative feelings toward Muslims. Fortunately, this is where all of us may be able to contribute to reinforcing the inclusive and tolerant society we tout in international rankings.

Where to from here

Well-intentioned and fair-minded people are often unaware of everyday experiences of members of minority groups. They often dismiss them as unrepresentative because the majority has a psychological investment in believing it “doesn’t happen here”. But such experiences do happen here as empirical research consistently finds, and these experiences cannot be undone simply through a similar number of positive experiences. People have a “negativity bias”, which means that negative events are weighed more heavily than positive ones. And if we have limited opportunities to forge meaningful close connections with people from other groups, then all it takes is a handful of negative experiences to wash away the benefits of other positive interactions and create distrust and social distancing between groups. Research shows although positive experiences are more common, negative experiences influence our attitudes more strongly.

Even as we work in increasingly diverse workplaces, our social circles tend to be fairly homogenous. Data from the NZAVS show that as recently as 2017, 64% of White New Zealanders report that they did not spend any time in the last week socialising with someone Māori. Some 83% say the same about socialising with someone Pasifika, and 77% report spending no time with someone Asian, suggesting that for many of us, our social networks are largely homogenous.

While this is similar to patterns elsewhere in the world, these homogenous networks create psychological distance between “us” and “them”. This also insulates us from hearing differing perspectives because minorities often fear that they will be seen as complainers if they share negative experiences in casual settings.

Instead, establishing relationships with people who are different from ourselves promotes positive intergroup contact, which is one of the most well-established approaches to reducing prejudice. Similarly, promoting social environments that encourage dialogue and cooperation, establishing common goals and providing opportunities for multicultural experiences offer some starting points for how to move forward.

At a time when the UN estimates more than 250 million people live outside of their country of birth, cultural diversity is an inevitable reality. It means we must learn to live and work together, and at the very least tolerate our differences. If each of us works to remove everyday bigotry within our immediate environment, we make it that much harder for extremist ideologies to take hold.

Kumar Yogeeswaran, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology; Chris G. Sibley, Professor, University of Auckland; Danny Osborne, Associate Professor of Political Psychology, University of Auckland; Marc Wilson, Professor of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, and Mike Grimshaw, Associate Professor of Sociology

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Christchurch attacks are a stark warning of toxic political environment that allows hate to flourish

Greg Barton, Deakin University

When lives are tragically cut short, it is generally easier to explain the “how” than the “why”. This dark reality is all the more felt when tragedy comes at the hands of murderous intent. Explaining how 50 people came to be killed, and almost as many badly injured, in Christchurch’s double massacre of Muslims at prayer is heartbreaking but relatively straightforward.

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Christchurch mosque shootings must end New Zealand’s innocence about right-wing terrorism

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As with so many mass murders in recent years, the use of an assault rifle, the ubiquitous AR15, oxymoronically referred to as “the civilian M-16”, explains how one cowardly killer could be so lethal.

It was much the same in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando three years ago, when one gunman shot dead 49 people in a crowded space and, though the motive appears very different, the same sort of military instrument of death lies behind the 58 deaths in Las Vegas a year later. An AR15 was used to shoot dead 11 worshippers in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue last October and a similar weapon was used to kill six people in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017.

It is a credit to the peaceful nature of New Zealand society that, despite the open availability of weapons like the AR15, the last time there was a mass shooting was in 1997. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rightly identified reform of gun laws as one of the immediate outcomes required in response to this tragedy.

But lax gun laws are arguably the only area in which blame can be laid in New Zealand. Ardern, together with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was also right to refer to this barbaric act of cold-blooded murder of people in prayer as right wing extremist terrorism driven by Islamophobic hatred.

State and federal police in Australia have long warned that, next to the immediate threat posed by Salafi jihadi terrorism, they are most concerned about the steady rise of right-wing extremism. There has been some comfort in the recognition that the most active right wing extremist groups, and there are many, are disorganised, poorly led, and attract but small crowds.

On the face of it, then, right wing extremism in Australia is nowhere near as serious as the neo-Nazi movements of Europe or the various permutations of white supremacy and toxic nationalism that bedevil American politics. In America, it is conservatively estimated that there were 50 deaths due to terrorist attacks in 2018, almost all linked to right-wing extremism.

In 2017, it is calculated that there were 950 attacks on Muslims and mosques in Germany alone. Many of last year’s attacks in America involved a common right wing extremist hatred of Islam, and a targeting of Muslims, joining a long-standing enmity towards Jews.

Almost all recent terrorist attacks have been lone-actor attacks. They are notoriously difficult to predict. Whether inspired by Salafi jihadi Islamist extremism or right wing extremism, lone-actor attacks commonly feature individuals fixated on the deluded dream of going from “zero to hero”.

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One of the main reasons authorities struggle with identifying right wing extremist “nobodies” who post online, before they turn to violence, is that it’s difficult to pick up a clear signal in the noise of a national discourse increasingly dominated by exactly the same narrative elements of mistrust, anxiety, and a blaming of the other.

In Australia, as in Europe and America, mainstream politicians and mainstream media commentators have increasingly toyed with extremist ideas in the pursuit of popularity. Many have openly brandished outrageous ideas that in previous years would have been unsayable in mainstream political discourse or commentary.

Donald Trump can be deservedly singled out for making the unspeakable the new normal in mainstream right wing politics, but he is hardly alone in this. And sadly, for all of the relative civility and stability of Australian politics, we too have now come to normalise the toxic politics of fear.

No-one put it better than The Project host Waleed Aly in saying that Friday’s terrorist attacks, although profoundly disturbing, did not come as a shocking surprise. Anyone who has been paying attention and who really cares about the well-being and security of Australian society has observed the steady growth of right wing extremist and right supremacist ideas in general, and Islamophobia particular.

They have seen the numerous attacks on Muslims and Jews at prayer and worried about the day when the murderous violence that has plagued the northern hemisphere will visit the southern hemisphere. But more than that, they have worried about the singling-out of migrants, and in particular asylum seekers, African youth and Muslims as pawns to be played with in the cynical politics of fear.

Scott Morrison is right to say these problems have been with us for many years. But he would do better to point out that our downward trajectory sharply accelerated after John Howard’s “dark victory” of 2001. The unwinnable election was won on the back of the arrival of asylum seekers on the MV Tampa in August followed by the September 11 attacks, and at the price of John Howard and the Liberal party embracing the white supremacist extremist politics of Pauline Hanson.

Both major parties, it must be said, succumbed to the lure of giving focus groups and pollsters the tough language and inhumane policies the public appeared to demand and reward. We are now beginning to see the true price that we have paid with the demonising of those arriving by boat seeking asylum, or looking too dark-skinned, or appearing too religious.

The result has been such a cacophony of hateful rhetoric that it has been hard for those tasked with spotting the emergence of violent extremism to separate it from all the background noise of extremism.

There are, of course lessons to be learned. Authorities need to do better. We can begin with a national database of hate crimes, with standard definitions and robust data collection. Clearly, we need to pay attention to hateful extremism if we are to prevent violent extremism.

But ultimately, we need to address the permissive political environment that allows such hateful extremism to be promulgated so openly. The onus is on commentators and political leaders alike. They cannot change the past, but they will determine the future.

Greg Barton, Chair in Global Islamic Politics, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The psychology of fear and hate, and what each of us can do to stop it

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has travelled to Christchurch after yesterday’s terror attacks.
NZ Prime Minister’s office, CC BY-SA

Stephen Croucher, Massey University

As an immigrant to New Zealand, I am saddened and outraged by the events in Christchurch. The apparent innocence of New Zealand has been stripped away by acts of cowardice and evil.

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Christchurch mosque shootings must end New Zealand’s innocence about right-wing terrorism

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Police remain on high alert and authorities are still responding to events following the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch that took the lives of 50 people and seriously injured many more. Three people have been arrested, and one, an Australian living in New Zealand sporadically, has appeared in court on murder charges.

My research focuses on how members of a majority perceive a growing immigrant population, and what we can all do to keep fear and hatred in check.

Migrants target of hate

The alleged gunman (whom the Conversation has chosen not to name) is a self-identified white supremacist. Before the attacks he posted an 87-page manifesto online. In his manifesto and social media accounts, he refers to the rise of Islam, and to towns and cities being shamed and ruined by migrants.

He posts photos of ammunition, retweets alt-right references and praises other white supremacists. The manifesto includes references to “white genocide,” which is likely a reference to a conspiracy theory embraced by the alt-right and white supremacists that “non-white” migration dilutes white nations.

The gunman’s motivations seem to echo those of other white supremacists who have committed similar atrocities: the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter, the Charlottesville attacker, the Charleston church shooter, and attackers in Sweden, Quebec and Norway.

In each of these cases, the attackers voiced hatred toward minorities or immigrants and expressed a belief that their way of life, the “white” way, was being destroyed by these groups who were infiltrating their societies.

Over the past decade, my team has conducted research in India, France, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, analysing how members of the dominant group perceive minorities and immigrant groups. The research has shown that many dominant group members, often white Christians in the countries studied, express fear of immigrants in their nations. In particular, respondents have voiced fear of immigrants changing their cultural, political, and economic way of life.

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Hearing hate speech primes your brain for hateful actions

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Combating fears to reduce hate

Normally such fears are benign and lead only to misunderstanding or lack of interaction. But as we have seen too often, they can lead to prejudice, hatred and much worse.

Recently, such fears have become more visceral with the proliferation of social media platforms. With the use of social media, individuals can easily find others who share their feelings, and therefore not feel alone. The ability to find a community that shares one’s feelings provides a sense of security and validates ones fears and feelings of hate.

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In our increasingly connected world, it’s essential we take steps to combat these fears to reduce the chances of such atrocities happening in the future. First, how families talk about minorities and immigrants is critical. In work that we conducted in Finland, we found prejudicial opinions of Finns toward Russian immigrants are largely shaped during adolescence. It’s incumbent upon parents to be role models for their children and adolescents and to promote tolerance and mutual respect early.

Second, in an increasingly computer-mediated world, it is our shared responsibility to challenge racist and hateful cyber messages. If you see a YouTube clip that you deem abusive or offensive, report it.

Third, the more contact we have with each other and learn about one another, the less likely we are to fear one another. This may sound trite, but the more we know about other groups, the more likely we are to pass that information onto one another and improve overall social cohesion. In turn, we are better able to identify and challenge those bent on dividing society. It is our collective responsibility as diverse societies to recognise our diversity and to face the psychology of hate that would attack our home and us.

Stephen Croucher, Professor and Head of School of Communication, Journalism, and Marketing, Massey University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Racism in a networked world: how groups and individuals spread racist hate online

We could see even sharper divisions in society in the future if support for racism spreads online.
Markus Spiske/Unsplash

Ana-Maria Bliuc, Western Sydney University; Andrew Jakubowicz, University of Technology Sydney, and Kevin Dunn, Western Sydney University

Living in a networked world has many advantages. We get our news online almost as soon as it happens, we stay in touch with friends via social media, and we advance our careers through online professional networks.

But there is a darker side to the internet that sees far-right groups exploit these unique features to spread divisive ideas, racial hate and mistrust. Scholars of racism refer to this type of racist communication online as “cyber-racism”.

Even the creators of the internet are aware they may have unleashed a technology that is causing a lot of harm. Since 2017, the inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has focused many of his comments about the dangers of manipulation of the internet around the spread of hate speech, saying that:

Humanity connected by technology on the web is functioning in a dystopian way. We have online abuse, prejudice, bias, polarisation, fake news, there are lots of ways in which it is broken.

Our team conducted a systematic review of ten years of cyber-racism research to learn how different types of communicators use the internet to spread their views.

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Racists groups behave differently to individuals

We found that the internet is indeed a powerful tool used to influence and reinforce divisive ideas. And it’s not only organised racist groups that take advantage of online communication; unaffiliated individuals do it too.

But the way groups and individuals use the internet differs in several important ways. Racist groups are active on different communication channels to individuals, and they have different goals and strategies they use to achieve them. The effects of their communication are also distinctive.

Individuals mostly engage in cyber-racism to hurt others, and to confirm their racist views by connecting with like-minded people (seeking “confirmation bias”). Their preferred communication channels tend to be blogs, forums, news commentary websites, gaming environments and chat rooms.

Channels, goals and strategies used by unaffiliated people when communicating cyber-racism.

Strategies they use include denying or minimising the issue of racism, denigrating “non-whites”, and reframing the meaning of current news stories to support their views.

Groups, on the other hand, prefer to communicate via their own websites. They are also more strategic in what they seek to achieve through online communication. They use websites to gather support for their group and their views through racist propaganda.

Racist groups manipulate information and use clever rhetoric to help build a sense of a broader “white” identity, which often goes beyond national borders. They argue that conflict between different ethnicities is unavoidable, and that what most would view as racism is in fact a natural response to the “oppression of white people”.

Channels, goals and strategies used by groups when communicating cyber-racism.

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How the alt-right uses milk to promote white supremacy

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Collective cyber-racism has the main effect of undermining the social cohesion of modern multicultural societies. It creates division, mistrust and intergroup conflict.

Meanwhile, individual cyber-racism seems to have a more direct effect by negatively affecting the well being of targets. It also contributes to maintaining a hostile racial climate, which may further (indirectly) affect the well being of targets.

What they have in common

Despite their differences, groups and individuals both share a high level of sophistication in how they communicate racism online. Our review uncovered the disturbingly creative ways in that new technologies are exploited.

For example, racist groups make themselves attractive to young people by providing interactive games and links to music videos on their websites. And both groups and individuals are highly skilled at manipulating their public image via various narrative strategies, such as humour and the interpretation of current news to fit with their arguments.

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Race, cyberbullying and intimate partner violence

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A worrying trend

Our findings suggest that if these online strategies are effective, we could see even sharper divisions in society as the mobilisation of support for racism and far-right movements spreads online.

There is also evidence that currently unaffiliated supporters of racism could derive strength through online communication. These individuals might use online channels to validate their beliefs and achieve a sense of belonging in virtual spaces where racist hosts provide an uncontested and hate-supporting community.

This is a worrying trend. We have now seen several examples of violent action perpetrated offline by isolated individuals who radicalise into white supremacist movements – for example, in the case of Anders Breivik in Norway, and more recently of Robert Gregory Bowers, who was the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

In Australia, unlike most other liberal democracies, there are effectively no government strategies that seek to reduce this avenue for the spread of racism, despite many Australians expressing a desire that this be done.

Ana-Maria Bliuc, Senior Lecturer in Social Psychology, Western Sydney University; Andrew Jakubowicz, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Technology Sydney, and Kevin Dunn, Dean of the School of Social Science and Psychology, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

How believers in ‘white genocide’ are spreading their hate-filled message in Australia

An alt-right protestor promoting the idea of ‘white genocide’ at a rally in Washington on the anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville protest.
Michael Reynolds/EPA

Kaz Ross, University of Tasmania

This piece is part of a series on race and racism in Australia. The series examines this complex and incendiary topic, and the role it plays in contemporary Australia.

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In October, the ABC’s Background Briefing outlined how the NSW Young Nationals Party had been the target of an organised infiltration attempt by members with neo-Nazi or “alt-right” views. Once this infiltration was exposed, 22 members were banned for life and individuals in other extremist groups were barred from becoming future members.

The group’s aim was to influence party policy in the area of immigration, as shown in motions they proposed at the Young Nationals’ annual conference. Controversially, they wanted immigration to be curtailed to only “culturally compatible peoples” and for white South African farmers to be granted refugee status on the basis of racial oppression.

These views have been gaining support in Australia. Senator Fraser Anning and MP Andrew Laming have both spoken publicly about the plight of white South Africans, and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton floated (then discounted) the idea of special visa attention for the farmers.

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Read more:
Why Australia should be wary of the Proud Boys and their violent, alt-right views

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Senator Pauline Hanson’s most recent maiden speech in 2016 also called for an end to multiculturalism and the granting of visas for “incompatible” people, specifically Muslims.

Anning’s defence of Western civilisation on Facebook.
Senator Fraser Anning/Facebook

These views are based – perhaps unknowingly – on a core belief of neo-Nazis: so-called “white genocide”.

The defence of Western civilisation and pride in “white” achievements – on the rise both here and abroad – have become racist dog whistles for this call for action to prevent the “disappearance” of the white race.

This fear of white genocide is also leading to violence. The shooter who killed 11 people in the recent Pittsburgh synagogue attack justified his actions by claiming that Jews were committing “genocide” against his people.

So, what is ‘white genocide’?

The recent manifestation of white genocide has its origins in the American neo-Nazi movement. The Turner Diaries, a very influential 1970s novel by William Luther Pierce, posited a dystopian world in which white Americans were oppressed by non-white minorities at the behest of Jewish politicians. A righteous, armed resistance then takes back control of the world after a bloody nuclear war.

Pierce’s work inspired a spate of violent crimes, including the Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh in 1995. It also led to the formation of secret groups, including the infamous and ultra-violent white supremacist group The Order. It was an influential member of the Order, David Lane, who coined the white nationalist mantra:

We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.

White genocide adherents want a return to a so-called traditional way of life defined by the nuclear family and prescribed gender roles. They divide humans into separate races and see multiculturalism and migration as a threat because each race should be contained to their perceived homeland.

Imagined racial homelands posted in the Australia’s Future Exposed Facebook group.
Facebook

The idea of a homeland is important. Following the second world war, American neo-Nazis drew on notions of place and race that took root in Germany in the 19th century and were later adopted under Adolf Hitler as the slogan “blood and soil”.

“Blood and soil” is the cry of the nativist, asserting the belonging of a people to a place to the exclusion of outsiders. The slogan reappeared as one of the chants at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

‘Blood and soil’ was among the many racist chants of protesters in Charlottesville.

For white nationalists, this idea forms the “solution” to the threat of white genocide. Neo-Nazi groups like Identity Evropa advocate for ceasing immigration from “non-compatible” nations and encouraging population growth amongst whites.

The most important goal of white nationalists, however, is the creation of a white “ethno-state”.

This is a state that is presumed to have strong bonds and social cohesion due to shared ethnicity or race, as argued by the evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald. Some adherents go so far as to call for the removal of non-whites from multicultural societies, such as the US and Australia, to so-called ethnic homelands in other parts of the world.

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Read more:
Twelve charts on race and racism in Australia

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‘White genocide’ fears in Australia

After the US, Australia has the most active white nationalist presence on social media, according to J.M. Berger, a leading researcher on extremism. Over the past 10 years, various white supremacist groups have formed online, such as the self-described neo-Nazi group Antipodean Resistance.

As documented by the ABC, the ideas of neo-Nazis like Pierce and Lane are also actively being explored in secret online groups in Australia. An influential collection of writings called Siege by the neo-Nazi James Mason was cited as an inspiration for some of those expelled from the NSW Young Nationals, along with the aim of creating an ethno-state.

Another recent manifestation of this white supremacist ideology is the meme “It’s OK to be white.” Worn on a T-shirt by Canadian racist provocateur Lauren Southern during her recent visit to Australia, then raised as a motion in the Senate by Hanson, the slogan aims to portray whites as victims who are not protected by anti-racism legislation or social practices.

It is this belief that whites are being targeted that underpins the resignation letter of the leader of the NSW Young Nationals infiltration attempt. Clifford Jennings claimed that young white Australians face a grim future in which they are at risk of becoming a “harried, persecuted minority” due to an “oppressive multicultural regime” supported by the “treasonous” leaders of the major parties.

This is a clarion call to the believers in white genocide.

Why this theory is flawed and dangerous

Jennings is harking back to the long-abandoned Immigration Restriction Act (1901) and other racially targeted pieces of legislation known colloquially as the White Australia Policy. These privileged certain Europeans in migration programs with the aim of “keeping Australia white”.

But how do Australia’s white supremacists side-step Australia’s 60,000 years of Indigenous history? For the believers in white genocide, the term “genocide” does not refer to the impact of European colonisation on Indigenous peoples because they claim Australia only came into being as a nation with the arrival of white Europeans.

Visiting alt-right speakers such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux have openly denigrated Aboriginal culture. This has supported a belief that there is no place for Aboriginal people in the white ethno-state.

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Read more:
Australian politics explainer: the White Australia policy

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Of course, the idea of whiteness itself in Australia has changed dramatically over time. And despite the claims of DNA testing companies, there is no scientific basis for “race” itself and, therefore, for racial superiority claims.

Are white Australians at risk of becoming a persecuted minority? Hardly.

Regardless, the white genocide theory is based on a flawed premise – that only white people can be authentic Australians (or residents of other perceived “ethno-states”). And in multicultural Australia, the facts tell a different story.

Kaz Ross, Lecturer in Asian Studies, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

View from The Hill: A ray of bipartisan good comes out of obscure senator’s hate speech

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Immigration has become one of the most divisive issues in Australian politics. It has created open fractures within government ranks and sparked dog whistling; it’s being exploited to nefarious political ends by fringe and not-so-fringe players.

But an appallingly racist diatribe, by a senator who not one in a thousand Australians would have heard of, on Wednesday brought almost all the parliament together to reassert some core values of Australia’s policy.

Delivering his maiden speech on Tuesday, Fraser Anning called for a ban on all further Muslim immigration and invoked the words “final solution” – the term referring to the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews – when calling for a popular vote on immigration.

Anning arrived in parliament by chance, replacing the equally controversial Malcolm Roberts from One Nation, who fell foul of the citizenship crisis. But Anning immediately parted ways with One Nation, and has recently joined Katter’s Australian Party.

Among much else, the Queensland senator told parliament on Tuesday that “the one immigrant group here and in other Western nations that has consistently shown itself to be the least able to assimilate and integrate is Muslims”.

“The first terrorist act on Australian soil occurred in 1915 – when two Muslim immigrants opened fire on a picnic train of innocent women and children in Broken Hill – and Muslim immigrants have been a problem ever since.”

Such are the rituals of first speeches that many Coalition senators and even crossbencher Derryn Hinch (who has been beating up on himself publicly ever since) went over to pay Anning the traditional congratulations afterwards.

But after that reactions were quick, and by Wednesday morning condemnation was raining down on Anning from almost everywhere.

Labor with the support of the government moved a motion in the Senate and the House; the leaders in both houses spoke.

The motion, which did not mention Anning by name, acknowledged “the historic action of the Holt Government, with bipartisan support from the Australian Labor Party, in initiating the dismantling of the White Australia Policy”.

It gave “unambiguous and unqualified commitment to the principle that, whatever criteria are applied by Australian Governments in exercising their sovereign right to determine the composition of the immigration intake, race, faith or ethnic origin shall never, explicitly or implicitly, be among them”.

The motion was the same (except for the addition of the word “faith”) as the one prime minister Bob Hawke moved in 1988 after opposition leader John Howard had suggested a slowing of Asian immigration. Then, the Liberals voted against the motion, though with three defections.

In our frequently depressing and often toxic political climate, Wednesday’s bipartisanship was a small but significant and encouraging moment of unity on what we stand for as a nation.

Mathias Cormann, an immigrant from Belgium, said: “This chamber in many ways is a true reflection of what a great migrant nation we are.”

“We have … representatives of our Indigenous community. We have in this chamber representatives of Australians whose families have been here for generations, who are the descendants of migrants to Australia of more than 100 years ago.

“We have in this chamber first-generation migrants from Kenya, Malaysia, Belgium, Germany and Scotland. What a great country we are. Where first-generation Australians can join First Australians and those Australians whose families have lived here for more than 100 years and all work together to make our great country an even better country.”

While the mainstream had its act together, on the fringe it was a wild ride.

Hanson denounced Anning’s speech. “I have always advocated you do not have to be white to be Australian,” she said. And “to actually hear people say now that, as Senator Hinch said, it is like hearing Pauline Hanson on steroids – I take offence to that”.

Never mind that in her own maiden speech as a senator Hanson had declared that further Muslim immigration should be stopped and the burqa banned. “Now we are in danger of being swamped by Muslims who bear a culture and ideology that is incompatible with our own,” she said in September 2016.

Later on Wednesday Hanson introduced her private member’s bill “to give voters a say on whether Australia’s immigration levels are too high by casting a vote at the next general election”.

Then there was that force of nature, Bob Katter, who said he supported his new recruit “1000% … I support everything he said”.

It is never easy to navigate one’s way through Katter speak – on Wednesday it was at times close to impossible.

“Fraser is dead right – we do not want people coming in from the Middle East or North Africa unless they’re the persecuted minorities. Why aren’t you bringing in the Sikhs? Why aren’t you bringing in the Jews?” he told a news conference in Cairns – he could not fly to Canberra and parliament because of a sinus procedure.

As for the “final solution” reference: “Fraser is a knockabout bloke, he’s owned pubs and he’s not stupid – he built his own aeroplane. But he hasn’t read all the history books.

“He didn’t go to university, he was out working building pipelines for the coal and the gas and the oil with a hard hat on. He’s a member of the hard left, not the lily pad left. He didn’t go to university to know the significance of all these words.

“Fraser would have no idea about what that meant. For those of us, like myself that are fascinated by history and have read the history books – it is one of the worst statements in all of human history.”

“He like myself, has had constant meetings and addressed Jewish groups around Australia. We are strongly behind the Jewish people.”

Hanson wasn’t the only one complaining of being insulted. Katter turned on a journalist who referred to his Lebanese grandfather.

“He’s not. He’s an Australian. I resent, strongly, you describing him as Lebanese. That is racist comment and you should take it back and should be ashamed … No prouder Australian than my grandfather.”

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Australia: Kevin Rudd Has Resigned as Foreign Minister

The Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, has resigned. Will he now challenge the Prime Minister and try and get his old job back? One thing is for sure, despite the rhetoric coming from Julia Gillard and her supporters, Kevin Rudd is not to blame for the woes of the ALP government. Sure, they can use Kevin Rudd as a scapegoat as they are attempting to do, but everyone knows that the Gillard led government is something of a joke and they have no chance of winning the next election.

To win the next election there needs to be change and that has to start with the leadership. Simon Crean is not the answer – which appears to be something that has been suggested in recent days. That would be a very poor choice. As much as some members of the government would hate it, I do believe as many do, that Kevin Rudd is the best chance the ALP has of winning the next election, whenever that may be. That is my own opinion of course, but to do so (win I mean), he would have to a much better job than he did last time and actually govern.

Plinky Prompt: What Can't You Throw Away?

Casino Royale Poker Chip

There are plenty of things that people can’t throw away, or don’t want to throw away. I too have items of sentimental value that I would hate to part with. I also have things that I would hate to part with that are’t really of sentimental
value, but still are important to me for one reason or another.

The sentimental items though are not always items I have a lot of use for in practical terms – generally they mean a lot to me because of the people from whom they have come.

One such item that is very important to me is a ‘chip’ I received during a visit to a casino of all places, in Sydney, when I went there with Rebecca several years ago. Rebecca died almost three years ago, so this chip has special meaning to me as a reminder of both Rebecca and the trip to Sydney that we enjoyed together. I have made it into a keyring and it is always with me.