Wednesday, August 26, 2015

ADL Report on Racist Extremism

When Jews migrated to the United States, alas, they were often discriminated against. In response American Jews chose to stand up against xenophobia and racism and worked to help create a society fair to all regardless of ethnicity and religion. One American Jew, Leo Frank, was lynched by a racist mob in 1913. Some American Jews were even killed in the civil rights struggle against racial segregation.

Continuing this proud tradition the Anti-Defamation League has released a report discussing the present state of racist white supremacists in the United States. It was published shortly after the horrifying racist terrorist attack in Charleston.

It is entitled With Hate in their Hearts: The State of White Supremacy in the United States.
The white supremacist movement has a number of different components, including 1) neo-Nazis; 2) racist skinheads; 3) “traditional” white supremacists; 4) Christian Identity adherents; and 5) white supremacist prison gangs.
"Christian Identity" is a racist extremist movement derived from British Israelism and thus related to Armstrongism. Like Armstrongism they also believe that white Americans are the descendants of the Biblical Israelites. But unlike they Armstrongism they hate the Jews. "Christian Identity" has been discussed in previous posts.
However, generally speaking, white supremacists of whatever sort adhere to at least one of the following beliefs:  1) whites should be dominant over people of other backgrounds; 2) whites should live by themselves in a whites-only society; 3) white people have their own “culture” that is superior to other cultures; and 4) white people are genetically superior to other people. Anti-Semitism is also important for the majority of white supremacists, most of whom actually believe that Jews constitute a race of their own—a race with parasitic and evil roots.
So one of the features of white supremacy is that "whites should be dominant over people of other backgrounds".

Is this why Armstrongism traditionally demonized Japan even though they have been allies of the United States since 1945?

Is this why many Armstrongites chose to sympathize with the apartheid regime in South Africa instead of the vast majority of the population who yearned to be equal citizens in their own homeland?

The ADL says more about "Christian Identity".
Christian Identity is a religious sect whose roots extend back well into the 19th century. It is a modern racist and anti-Semitic variation on British-Israelism, an older faith whose central tenet is that Europeans, or people of European extraction, are actually descended from the so-called “Lost Tribes” of ancient Israel, scattered after invasions of the region by Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians.

By the mid-20th century, some adherents of British Israelism began to adopt racist and anti-Semitic interpretations of scripture; these ideas evolved into what is now called Christian Identity. One central tenet is the belief that non-whites were created by God not at the time that God made “man,” but rather when he created the “beasts of the field.”  Christian Identity adherents often refer to non-whites as “mud peoples.”  Additionally, many Christian Identity believers contend that Jews are actually descended from Satan through a sexual liaison between Eve and the serpent. Sometimes people refer to Christian Identity as “fundamentalist,” but it is not.
And to think these racist extremists are related to Armstrongism through British Israelism.

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