Status Updates From American Whitelash: A Chang...

It’s triggering to read about the things demagogues spew about immigrants. It’s also strange to read a book concerning recent history, especially when its premise pertains to black and brown people like me. I can actively think of how these events have affected me throughout my life.

To study white supremacists is to examine a collection of broken people who see their own hardships and traumas as evidence that they are the world’s victims… the movement offers members a family, though one whose loving bonds are forged in shared hatred and delusion... the brokenness that brought these men into the movement, that they buried beneath layers of hatred, lies in wait for its moment to resurface.

Time and time again, experts in extremism and hate speech would stress that degrading and demonizing la gauge toward specific ethnic and racial groups by powerful political leaders can bring about predictable outcomes.

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.