An Ethnographer Looks at Neo-Nazi and Klan Groups

Abstract

The author re-examines his fieldwork with neo-Nazi and Klan leaders and followers. He first reviews primary findings: official movement ideology expressed crude social Darwinism and an apocalyptic struggle between Whites (humans) and Jews (children of Satan); everyday beliefs of members spoke more of a fear that they, as Whites, were going to be economic losers; leaders were intelligent, shallow men, and at core were political beings motivated more by a drive for power than by racism; members were male, young, dropouts without work skills, with a deep fear of personal annihilation—social isolates whose membership expressed personal needs that might be satisfied equally by alternative engagements. The article next asks how a working-class youth becomes a neo-Nazi activist and identifies social and personal factors, relating them to other research. It draws implications for prevention, looking at community organizing and education, and then at the relation of militant White racism to ordinary White racism.