American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress

by Wesley Lowery

“American Whitelash is indispensable. Really. It is.” — Ibram X. Kendi, author of  How to Be an Antiracist

Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Wesley Lowery confronts the sickness at the heart of America: the cyclical pattern of violence that has marred every moment of racial progress in this country and whose bloodshed began anew following Obama’s 2008 election.

In 2008, Barack Obama’s historic victory was heralded as a turning point for the country. And so it would be — just not in the way that most Americans hoped. The election of the nation’s first Black president fanned long-burning embers of white supremacy, igniting a new and frightening phase in a historical American cycle of racial progress and white backlash.

In American Whitelash, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and best-selling author Wesley Lowery charts the return of this blood-stained trend, showing how the forces of white power retaliated against Obama’s victory — and both profited from, and helped to propel, the rise of Donald Trump.

Interweaving deep historical analysis with gripping first-hand reporting on both victims and perpetrators of violence, Lowery uncovers how this vicious cycle is carrying us into ever more perilous territory, how the federal government has failed to intervene, and how we still might find a route of escape.

Genres: Nonfiction, Politics, History, Race, Audiobook, Social Justice, Sociology

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 27, 2023

Reviews

[Traci Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lowrey is a really strong and engaging writer and so this book is very readable. I struggled with the organizing principal as the book bounces around a lot, I'm ultimately not sure what he was saying about whitelash and why. I liked what I read as essays but not sure its as cohesive of a book as I would've liked.

[Thomas Kiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Whitelash is an insightful discussion of the modern era of white backlash to racial progress that has occurred since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Wesley Lowery's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism skills are in full fource in American Whitelash. Lowery incorporates narrative non-fiction about specific incidents of hate crimes with a broader discussion of the history and ideology of white supremacy.

The book is organized around specific hate crimes that have occurred in the last decade and a half, including well-known events (like the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville) and crimes I was not as well aware of (like the 2012 mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin). It also explores different groups targeted by white supremacy in each section, which allows it to be more expansive in its view of the threat of white supremacy. Lowery's on the ground reporting from those who knew the victims and perpetrators of hate crimes is tragic and fascinating. He does a great job trying to explain the "Why?" of these events, how the perpetrators came to their belief system, and how these individual perpetrators are part of a larger system of white supremacy.

Lowery makes a very compelling argument that the incidents of white supremacist motivated violence are the latest in a series of violent acts representing white resistance to any progress from a minority group. The more historical sections of the book contextualize the modern events and shows how America has always been paying the price for white supremacy. I highly recommend this book for anyone wanting to get another perspective on the threat of white supremacy in this country.

Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for a copy of American Whitelash in exchange for an honest view.

[Becky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished this book the night prior to Biden announcing his decision to withdraw from the Presidential race, and instead endorsed Kamala Harris to replace him as the nominee. So, of course, I 100% knew at that point, with this fresh in my mind, that Trump would win the election. This country is not ready for a woman to be president, and especially not a Black and Indian woman.

This book outlines the rise of white supremacy and Christian nationalism in post-Obama America.

And as we have seen, it is 100% accurate.

I don't really know what to say about this book. It was really well written, well researched, and thoroughly depressing, especially given the timing of my read, and subsequent events. Believe me when I say that I did everything I could (volunteer, canvass, postcard, donate, register voters, etc) to help Kamala Harris win... And it should have been the easiest win in history - against the WORST candidate ever to run - but in the end, people failed to show up for her, letting white supremacy and misogyny and cult mindsets win.

And I don't know how we as a nation move forward from here. We are currently in the Fuck Around stage. We will Find Out soon enough.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Whitelash takes a look at the modern white backlash to racial progress and how it fits into the broader history of white supremacist backlash. For me, a lot of American Whitelash was a review of history I already knew (which isn't a bad thing). I'd definitely recommend this for anyone looking for an entry point into historical/political nonfiction.

[Kathleen Ninke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This nonfiction is clearly well-researched and readably well-written. Overall, I learned a lot and was engaged throughout. Where the book falls short: I’m not sure Lowery quite defends his thesis.

“American Whitelash” explores the term popularized by the election of Donald Trump after Barack Obama, basically meaning white Americans’ backlash of racist actions after the real or perceived success of racial minorities “over” white people. Lowery uses Trump’s election as a jumping off point. Then, he moves through modern history providing other examples of this whitelash.

Or, at least, that’s what he says he’s going to do. IMO, what he does instead is dig into the motivations of a number of individual racist actions, and some of them he connects clearly to whitelash, but some he doesn’t really? At least not that I can tell. Don’t get me wrong; it’s all interesting, and it’s all good work trying to understand WHY racist violence happens so often in this country. But I struggle to follow the consistent thread of “whitelash” in his reasoning. To be clear, I absolutely believe in whitelash. However, for someone else reading this looking to be convinced, I’m not sure this book does the job. For example, in one account, a Black truck driver is imprisoned for days on a minor charge that likely only was pursued because of his race. After that, he can’t get a job and get back on his feet because this is on his record. Definitely an account of racism in the justice system (and the job market), but Lowery doesn’t draw the line from that to whitelash…so I’m left wondering why this particular anecdote is in this particular book.

I don’t know. Maybe I just missed the connections, or it was supposed to be subtle, and my silly brain couldn’t keep up. Anyway, still a 3 because it’s a worthwhile account of modern racist violence in the U.S., lack of thesis defense aside.

[Rebajane Strömberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

American Whitelash raises extreme concern over the increase of white terrorism. Lowery exposes the increase of white terrorism through two lenses, historical context and current events.
I found this book to be moving, informative, and will sound alarms for people that may have their head in the sand. I found myself angry while reading the entire book, which I believe is important.
So many individuals choose to believe progress is being made or racism doesn’t exist - it does and Lowery writes beautifully and intentionally.
I enjoyed the historical lens of this book as it really provides a mirror to current events and highlights how much progress we still need to make, or haven’t made at all.
In addition, sometimes nonfiction books can be dull or heavy, chalked full of information that someone’s grandma can’t understand.
Lowery’s writing is concise and grandparents, parents, anyone reading a physical copy or listening via audiobook can understand clearly everything in this book.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

[b. ♡]

A good introductory book to someone who has not often thought deeply about racial politics in the United States, but not one I would recommend to anyone who has been regularly keeping up with U.S. news (in particular anyone familiar with Lowery’s work prior).

Lowery takes us through many examples of “whitelash” and gives a cursory explanation as to what whitelash is, but there is a lack of depth when looking at how to combat it, the implications this has for the future, etc.

While he takes great care when discussing the impact of racial violence on the families and communities of specific victims, little broader discussion occurs. I was moved by the interviews Lowery includes with individuals who had suffered from and lost loved ones to hate crimes, and the more stories and anecdotes we were told, the greater my feeling of “so what do we do now?” became, and I don’t feel that the epilogue provided much in terms of a call to action.

That being said, this upcoming U.S. election is sure to stoke the flames of white supremacy, and I think this book serves as a great and poignant reminder that whitelash is neither a new nor revolutionary phenomenon, but rather an ingrained facet of American existence.

[Patricia Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading, especially in advance of the November election. Much of what is covered here in detail will seem like common knowledge—so many of the events were part of the patchwork of the last decade. Here the author offers more context and also logical causality between national politics and the rise of hate groups and hate crimes.

[Nowhere · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lowery does an excellent job of describing these intense, personal, disheartening, violent tragedies and an even better job the emotional build-up the perpetrator and victims go through.

[Rohit Borah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent journalistic work to go deep on the seminal moments of violent white extremism since 2008. Ultimately a deeply tragic read.

Shoutout for shouting out Clint Smith’s How the Word Is Passed.

I thought it was missing a sort of key thesis / narrative- I did not think the questions of why and what’s next were asked and answered well enough. Unclear if intentional but the author was very kind to police and other state/system actors.

The aforementioned Clint Smith as well as Alex Vitale’s The End of Policing are must reads for those interested in this topic.

Some of those that work forces / Are the same that burn crosses

[Antoniette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written, emotional read.
Lowery's theory makes perfect sense to me, but I would've liked for him to expand a bit more on it.

[Gene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of us, Americans, thought the election of President Barack Obama signaled at least the beginning of the end of racial animus in this country. The truth is it signaled, as have other events both heroic and horrific, the reinvigorated fear of white supremacists that whites were about to become, or already were, demonized for the color of their skin. The insane irrationality of that thinking was exacerbated and fed by the election of Donald Trump and the collapse of the Republican Party into a racist misogynistic cesspool from which it has yet to emerge. I don’t think it ever will. It’s dying and doesn’t yet know it.

This book chronicles white supremacist fears, hatred and propensity for deadly violence. Acts that continue to this day. We cannot move forward until we confront and understand our vicious past. Our two-tiered society has to change radically. Within 20 years the nation will be less than half white. As we approach that inevitable demographic, we must find ways to not just chronicle our culture, past and present, but realize that race itself is a social construct. We are one species of many beautiful hues. Beautiful and stronger because of our diversity not in spite of it. We will not be a civilization until that is the common truth.

[Cerealflakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful book about something I have never been clear on - why were so many saying before obama’s election that there would be a racist backlash if he’s elected? It seems counterintuitive that electing a Black president (a very good thing) would cause all sorts of racism to become overt (a horrible thing).

Lowery takes us back through history and shows us when similar cycles have happened before. While writing about more recent events, Lowery writes about racist attacks that happened all across the country. I was familiar with some of them but others were new to me.

Lowery is an engaging writing, but sections of the book were, obviously, hard to read.

[Phillip Boyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Included interesting, telling, and sad anecdotes of racism in America. Didn’t really get a strong sense of learning anything new or any hope for fixing the issue. The ending was also abrupt. The stories seemed random, kind of surprised this won the Pulitzer, although the writer is good at reporting the facts.

[flannelpetticoat]

Legacies . . . are constructed . . . from the spots where in the position of history we instead place fiction. Our history is simply a story that we tell ourselves. So often the tale that we tell is a lie.

In what feels like long-form journalism, Wesley Lowery explores the history and present of how whiteness was created in the United States and how it's been used to consolidate political and social power. He quotes New York Times journalist Brent Staples, saying that racial categories "grow out of highly politicized myth making."

Even as they occupied a nation structured, from its inception, to advantage people who looked like them, the post-Obama era saw white Americans becomes convinced, in the aggregate, that they were the targets of antiwhite bigotry and being systematically discriminated against.

Lowery talks about the political history of race in the United States similarly to how Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses how Donald Trump is the first white president in We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, citing the election of Barack Obama in 2008 as a critical moment in U.S. history: white supremacists renewed the ferocity of their rhetoric while white moderates deemed complete the work of racial progress, plugging their ears and decrying cancel culture any time someone dares to point out that we're not done perfecting the union.

Lowery makes clear that what we may perceive as an increase in racist rhetoric and radicalization is no political accident, saying that "Americans may reside in one country but live in very different worlds." Through the lens of recent events, the book charts "the racial divide planted before our founding, watered throughout centuries of American life and aided still by the stubborn refusal to uproot its rotten tares."

Of particular interest to me was the book's focus on how the U.S.'s history of racism, particularly anti-immigrant propaganda, contributed to the coup attempt on January 6, 2021. Via stories of brutal physical violence beget by verbal rallying cries, legislative action, and court rulings, Lowery charts a white supremacist movement as it's transmogrified from an overwhelmingly violent group hellbent on "preserv[ing] a racial caste system in which white American swere the only true citizens" to a group whose aims are broader: the destruction of our multiracial democracy.

To be black is to not belong, to be viewed as less than fully citizen and less than fully human, to be excluded from democracy's spoils while blamed for its ills.

Using examples from media and politicians, the book examines a handful of violent incidents in U.S. history, explaining that the perpetrators of racist crimes were radicalized by a combination of the "American tradition" of xenophobia, dog whistles "laundered" into the USian lexicon by media personalities, politicians grappling for power in a post-9/11 country, and web searches that funnel people to neonazi websites. The in-depth discussions of how racist groups valorize violence and redefine their violence as self-defense are insightful and horrifying.

Lowery briefly explores how a racial caste system helps the U.S.'s wealthy elites prevent class solidarity from redistributing wealth. And there's some limited commentary on how hate groups have grown in the US by "'melding racism and ethnic bigotry with evangelical Protestant morality'" (quoting The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition by Linda Gordon). I would like to have seen more of that in the book, but I'm cognizant that veering down those paths, while relevant to the broader systems at work in the U.S., would hinder the book's focus on the clear and present dangers posed by unchecked and, in some cases, aided and abetted white supremacy.

[Alan Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is somewhere very close to 5 stars for me. I think it lacked a little impact on the theory side. It is an amazing account of the modern face of white reactionism, and as a gen z, the first president I thought about in the present tense is probably Obama.

I remember his election. It isn’t the actual inauguration, or any of his heralding speeches that stuck with me though. It is the reckoning I had with politics as I got into an emotional debate with one of my then friends in the fourth grade who was CONVINCED that Obama wasn’t actually American and was instead a African Muslim immigrant in disguise would ruin our country. I remember this vividly, and even though I don’t speak of it much it often lingers in my mind. Several memories like this are what I recalled while reading this book. It is a little different to recall where you were during so much of a non fiction book. As a young person, it isn’t an experience I often have. I remember when I first saw Charlottesville on the news. I remember the racial climate during Obama’s presidency. As a black boy who lived through a lot of this book, I know the story first hand.

One of the biggest triumphs of the book for sure is the prose, it isn’t poetic but it conveys very succinctly a somewhat nebulous message about the historic trend of White backlash against racial progress. It’s when we get beyond the area of explaining the phenomenon that I think the book may falter a little.

[ReGina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be a required read for anyone working in the anti-racism movement or anyone truly trying to understand the nuance of racism and racial politics in this country. Take a look behind the curtain and see the drivers of white nationalism and racists groups are likely not what you think they are and recruitment is happening right in front of our faces.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

No tries to put todays racist state in historical context. Mostly for me though, it was a recap of the last decade. Lots of sad events that have been well publicized. Others I knew less about. Sadly, felt like I hadn’t actually learned much new. Also didn’t feel like there was much to do by the time the book ended z

[Electra · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a book that is a compilation of data of things that you would already know if you were even mildly paying attention. The craziness, racism and uptick therein is as a result of having the first and only black President. Everything from hate crimes to immigration policies. It's nothing groundbreaking but it is nice to have all of that information located in one source. 4.5 stars.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond the theory of whitelash, which I think was well-supported, I wish there was a little more of what-do-we-do-next. (Hard to imagine what counter action looks like under the thumbs of emboldened fascists in office.) Still a five star for me though, because I doubt Lowery has the answer, and the book was well-written, factual, and engaging. A very important read.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Poorly done. I wanted to like this book, but it is simply a collection of vignettes about various racist people and the impact on the victims’ immediate families. There is no underlying analysis of why whitelash happens, under what conditions, how to prevent it, etc. I feel like this is a book written for centrist liberals who have never heard or thought about racism.

[Fumi L · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did. It didn’t really cover any new ground that you couldn’t get from reading the news.

[Katharine Mantzouris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely eye opening. Reviewed a lot of cases in the US with much more context than you got from the headlines at the time

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, journalistic writing - he connects individual, human stories to the crisis of hate in America, which has always been here and is more recently emboldened and fed by people who are or want to be in charge. I wish it left me with solutions or hope for the future, but that wasn't his goal. I'll go back Kendi and Coates for that.

[Brett Milam · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can demarcate different periods in the United States simply by the “whitelash” that occurs after each progression made with civil rights and when it seems like white supremacy is in its death throes. The most readily available examples include the various rises in popularity and carnage of the Ku Klux Klan, first, in response to Reconstruction after the Civil War, then in the early 1920s after the popularity of Birth of a Nation, and then in response to the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In our time, there are two demarcation points: 1.) the election of the first African American to the presidency, Barack Obama, which resulted in the Tea Party movement, with ostensible anti-taxation and spending rhetoric, but which was really steeped in racism and birtherism (the belief that Obama wasn’t born in America and thus, ineligible to be president), which itself propelled Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, to the presidency (ironically, including with the help of Obama-to-Trump voters!); and 2.) the rise of the largest civil rights movement since the 1960s, the Black Lives Matter advocating for criminal justice reform, primarily involving the police, begun in earnest after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson in 2014 and through to the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, which again, along with Trump’s ascendancy to the presidency and national politics, emboldened white supremacist movements, i.e. whitelash. In his 2023 book, American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery, one of the journalists who has been in the thick of it reporting on the civil rights uprising and the whitelash (he was famously arrested while covering Ferguson), explores the phenomenon of American whitelash through in-depth reporting and an erudite examination of history.

Programming note: I listened to the audiobook version, which was nicely voiced by Lowery himself.

Many people saw Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency as a different kind of demarcation line, pivoting America into a new post-race society, including Lowery points out, The New York Times. Obama, much to the consternation of some progressives on the left, positioned himself as not the harbinger of retribution for America’s racial sins — or even just a long overdue reckoning — but rather, a clean slate. America’s racial sins were more out of “innocence than deliberate” to paraphrase Lowery. That’s the story we like to tell ourselves, at least. Meanwhile, despite that, right-wing media figures, like the firebrand radio talk show host, Rush Limbaugh, characterized Obama as the punitive president out for retribution against whites and on an “apology tour” for America (which encompasses war issues, too). Through such a lens, the right-wing media ecosystem and regular Americans viewed anti-white animus as rampant, on the rise, and more concerning than anti-Black animus. It’s that perception of Obama, and the “vibes, man” that anti-white animus was on the rise that animated the whitelash to Obama’s presidency.

The way Obama himself tried to embody and echo the innocence narrative is how the promise of Obama met the limitations of Obama, Lowery smartly points out. After all, a few of the reported cases Lowery highlights occurred under the Obama presidency, including the Ferguson uprising.

What I particularly thought enlightening about how Lowery connected historical whitelash with modern and present whitelash is the difference in what the instigators of the whitelash sought and now seek. Historically, like with the KKK, white supremacy was wielded in a bid to return to power or maintain power — the status quo of the system. On the other hand, the white supremacists of today, who find a willing hero in Trump (I say willing instead of useful idiot), want to overthrow the system entirely because they view the system as irrevocably broken owing to its multiracial and democratic makeup.

The reason Lowery highlights particular cases of white supremacist “whitelash” is because through his reporting, he seeks to put faces to the “relentless cycle of violence that has defined American history,” including modern history.

The cases Lowery examines include: (and as mentioned, I’m listened on audio, so, it’s possible I’ve missed one here because I wasn’t able to include it in my Notes app):
- The hate crime killing of Marcelo Lucero, a Hispanic man, in Long Island in 2008. Despite one of the defendants, Jeffrey Conroy, literally having a Swastika tattoo and targeting Latinos, he was still painted by his defenders as not racist. Lowery rightly asks then, what the heck makes you a racist if that doesn’t? Fortunately, he was found guilty. Which things like that (a jury finding him guilty) and the fact that Obama did win the presidency two terms in a row, makes people argue that talk about white supremacy is overblown. And yet, the whitelash is occurring.
- The Oak Creek Sikh gurdwara mass shooting in Wisconsin in 2012, where Michael Page, who was submerged in the white supremacist fever swamps, killed six people. He hated Muslims, and like a lot of idiot white supremacists, he conflated Sikhs with Muslims. Lowery’s recounting of the shooting was chilling, especially how almost robotic and hollow Page seemed while doing the killing.
- The Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting, where Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. attempted to kill Jewish people in Overland Park, Kansas, and incidentally, the three people he shot and killed weren’t even Jewish. Miller, not surprisingly, was a former and unrepentant Klansman, who arrogantly defended himself in court in an attempt to bolster his racist, anti-Semitic rhetoric.
- The 2015 shooting of Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis, who were protesting the shooting by police of Jamar Clark. Of course, Minneapolis would also be where Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin. Black Lives Matter protests then, and later after Floyd’s killing, were prime moments for white supremacists to clash in a “whitelash” response. In fact, when I was a reporter for a county near Cincinnati, a little village, Bethel, made national news in the summer of 2020 for hosting a Black Lives Matter rally, which was disrupted by hundreds of white bikers, who thought, like many white Americans in response to the protests, they were antifa being bussed in from the cities to destroy the village. It was awful, and naturally, the police weren’t prepared.
- Perhaps the most infamous example under Trump of “whitelash” is Charlottesville, where open and avowed Neo-Nazis marched through the town talking about blood and soil and how the Jews wouldn’t replace them. The latter idea, known as the Great Replacement Theory, has been mainstreamed by the likes of Tucker Carlson and others within the right-wing fever swamps. The protests and counter-protests reached their fatal climax when Heather Heyer was killed by white supremacist, James Alex Fields Jr., who plowed his car into counterprotesters, injuring 35 people and killing Heyer. Thereafter, Trump obfuscated on the issue, and then said there was “blame on both sides” and “very fine people on both sides.” Trump and his apologists have tried to gaslight people who take that quote at face value — calling Neo-Nazis “very fine people” — but anyone who was participating in the Unite the Right Rally are racists at best and neo-Nazis at worst; ergo. (Also, even defenders of Confederate statues, where Trump’s addled brain segued into, are attempting to uphold the instigators of the Civil War, who fought the United States in a bid to create an empire built on slavery.)
- The murder in Maryland in 2017 of Richard Collins III by white supremacist, Sean Urbanski.
- Lowery also talks about the death of Oscar Grant by police in 2009 in Oakland, and Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson.

What’s important to remember, whether it’s Conroy, Miller, Fields, or Urbanski, is that white supremacy is inherently violent, and it’s only a matter of time until it turns from vitriolic rhetoric and harassment to overt violence. In other words, the ideology of white supremacy is built on the belief that white Christians are superior to other races, ethnicities, and religions. That ideology doesn’t allow for coexisting in a society with other races, ethnicities, and religions, hence the desire now to overthrow multiracial America and the democratic government its built upon (delivering these multiracial outcomes). Or the historical fact of mob violence with no due process. That is what makes white supremacy, and the whitelashes that occur throughout American history so pernicious and dangerous: they inevitably lead to violence! And Lowery points out how the federal government, primarily the FBI who would deal with it, has not taken the threat seriously, despite cases like the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Of course, 9/11 and the overwhelming focus on Muslims, and then later, the overwhelming focus on “illegal immigration” and Black Lives Matter protesters, didn’t and hasn’t helped matters.

Lowery also touches on another area that is specifically hard for authorities and our politics to take seriously: the pipeline between the military and white supremacy, and between the military and white supremacist attacks. But the pipeline makes sense to me on a basic level. The federal government trains people to be killers, and then when those killers return home, unable to assimilate back into normal society, they find brotherhood among the fever swamps created by white supremacist groups. They’re already primed to defend the country against (perceived) enemies, foreign and domestic.

Lowery’s book is a must-read for anyone who wonders how we went from the naive promise of Obama’s presidency to Trump, the Birther President, and the resulting white supremacist and whitelash conflagrations, both with necessary historical context and with intimate, empathetic modern reporting.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very impactful read on racial division and inequality in America. It highlights the rise of white Christian nationalism since President Obama taking office, and highlights both the challenges and perseverance of marginalized communities. I really enjoyed this read, thanks for the recommendation Daisy!

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writers like Lowery are masters at sifting through and rising above the daily, exhausting news cycle and helping us see the forest for the trees. By stringing together a series of recent heartbreaking, racist events, he makes meaning and shows where we are headed (and WHY!).
Highly recommend.
If you like Clint Smith, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram Kendi, Adam Serwer, Wesley Lowery should be on your list.

[Courtney Kaplan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every American should read this book.

[Diogenes Grief · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last call for Americans to wake-the-f-up. Do not be surprised if none of the overwhelming indictments stick to T-Dawg, or if he gets the Republican nomination, or even if he wins the election next November (https://www.newsweek.com/trump-voters...). How is this NOT a cult? The blatant lies, flagrant hypocrisy, and wanton moral corruption of the GOP will be the undoing of representative democracy in the United States of Stupidity.

The ACLU’s At Liberty podcast interviewed Lowery in July, talking about this book, its subject, and the 10-year anniversary of the Movement for Black Lives (https://www.aclu.org/podcast/blackliv...).

Now I see the most supported reviewer on Goodreads whines about this book’s lack of cohesion in a Tweet-ready soundbite. “I’m ultimately not sure what he was saying about whitewash and why”. Huh, and she has 10k followers. On page 35 (Libby), Lowery gives his thesis:

“My aim is to examine and explain the proud, avowed white supremacists we see in our streets—defined as those who believe in the genetic and societal superiority of the ‘white race.’ Throughout these pages I’ve also sought to uplift the stories of the real people victimized by their violence, and to chronicle the next churn in the cycle—the new wave of anti-racist activism that has emerged in response to the violence.”

Then, on pages 49-50, he hammers the point home after defining xenophobia from the 1800s onward:

“A similar script played out through two centuries of American history: a new group of immigrants shows up, their arrival prompts outrage and panic. Coarse, inflammatory political rhetoric—driven by derogatory racial stereotypes, which it then reinforces—is accompanied by new restrictions and limitations aimed at excluding and reprising the new population. The citizenry, convinced that these immigrants present a unique threat to their way of life, lashes out violently. This is the American Whitelash.”

I’m not sure what they are teaching in schools anymore. Most likely the Marvel Comics method of storytelling ("Keep the bad guy away from the glowy thing".), but kudos to anyone who chooses to read this book. It’s a strong lit review, with Lowery pulling from many great works he cites throughout, covering systemic racism and the pervasiveness of xenophobia in America. I too believe “race” to be nothing but a horrendous construct meant to divide the population for power, and Virginia 1691 is a solid year for witnessing how that construct came to be. “[f]aced with the reality that black people are mistreated and that those in power benefit from that ongoing mistreatment, it is not only easier but advantageous to blame black people—to invent an ideological pseudoscience suggesting that black people must be inferior—than it is to take public policy steps required to correct inequality” (pp. 53-4, italics are his). Of course while races weren’t specifically mentioned before then, the age of European conquest of the Americas was rife with dehumanizing language to form power constructions backed by Bibles, bullets, and bacteria to subjugate, enslave, pillage, and mass-murder the indigenous peoples of everywhere outside Europe.

Lowery gives a nice overview of the resurgence of Whitelash since we elected—by popular vote—the first Black American as President, and how Whitelash was supercharged after the BLM movement took form. It should be abundantly clear to anyone with half a brain how this came to be. If not, read this book. Trump and his cronies undid much of what Obama had created. They won’t stop until they are wholly defeated, one way or another. As the Chicago Daily News journalist Mark Royko wrote after the assassination of Dr. King:

“FBI agents are looking for the man who pulled the trigger, and surely they will find him, but it doesn’t matter if they do or they don’t. They can’t catch everybody, and Martin Luther King was executed by a firing squad that numbered in the millions. They took part, from all over the country, pouring words of hate into the ear of the assassins. The man with the gun did what he was told. Millions of bigots, subtle and obvious, put it in his hand and assured him he was doing the right thing.”

All the racial violence since 2008 is a surging tide of White Christian Nationalism, and I fear it will only get worse. “If we are to be a nation and society that hold both multiracial democracy and freedom of speech as foundational values, what do we do with those who would use one to go to war against the other?” (p. 96). Lowery gives us glimpses of how individuals become radicalized, as well as humanizes several victims of such violence. I will say it did seem a bit clunky moving from lone-wolf wingnuts to contemporary police brutality, but there are plenty of other books that look into systemic racism amongst police forces, the radicalization of groups from the Klan to the Proud Boys, and psycho-emotional dynamics of voting demographics, and Lowery cites many of them here for you to do further research, to gain heightened enlightenment, and to hopefully be mad enough to be galvanized into action in the fight against moronic authoritarianism pumping the same blatant lies as their predecessors did:

“It’s essential to note that this white replacement theory—the central tenet of the U.S. white supremacist movement—is as false today as it is historically and scientifically baseless. There is no biologically distinctive white race to be eliminated. With regard to our socially understood concepts of race and whiteness, there are hundreds of millions of ‘white people’ across the globe—any alleged centuries-long effort to eradicate them has been a remarkable failure. To the extent that a genocide has ever been orchestrated on American soil, it is the subjugation and isolation of the Native peoples who populated this land long before the waves of white immigrants set foot on the continent. Those who advance replacement theory would have you believe that the Jews have masterminded this ever-lurking global conspiracy. Of course, no such conspiracy has ever existed” (p. 114).

White Christian Nationalism fears anything not White, Christian, hetero, or flag-waving nationalistic, and the emotionally volatile of them will lash out in acts of violence, hence all the dog-whistling from their politicians, media networks, and online echo-chambers to get them riled up and radicalized.

The epilogue felt weak to me as well, focused on Sean Urbanski and Richard Collins III in Portland, 2017, but that’s not my call. Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil paints such things all too succinctly, and from the Charlottesville tiki-torch parade to the Capitol insurrection, we see how such movements snowball quickly. It’s not over, this movement to preserve power for White Christian Nationalism, and the coming months will most likely test the guardrails of democracy, law, order, and justice to their very limits. Buckle up and prepare for the worst.

For those living in US counties and states turning backwards into puritanical idiocracies, The Banned Book Club is here to toss you an app-lifeline (https://thepalaceproject.org/banned-b...). Spread the word.

Thank you, Public Library System, for having this title available. #FReadomFighters

Playlist:
Vicious Rumors’ “Digital Dictator” (the album) from 1988 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA2KP...)
Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up” from 1992 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHEhz...)
Anti-Flag's "Red, White, and Brainwashed" from 1996 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudrO...)
Body Count's "No Lives Matter" from 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlk7o...)

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure what the point of writing this book was. Anyone who’s paid attention over the last 15 years knows everything that Mr. Lowery wrote; most anecdotes are well known, the stories of the victims of hate crimes are well documented. Seems like this was another book in a long line of similar narratives, though with nothing new to add to the conversation.