It’s easy to say racism is bad. It’s easy to say Nazis are horrible. It’s easy to tell others to be tolerant; what’s hard is to weed out the ones that claim to agree with you.
In the current day, people have become skeptical from the overuse of the terms ‘Nazi’ or ‘racist.’ During the 2016 presidential election, many mocked Trump supporters as being useless racists, ignoring that a quarter of all Asian votes, as well as a quarter of all Latino votes, went to Trump. The idea of anyone disagreeing with left-wing beliefs being racists, Nazis, or white supremacists was parroted often enough to make one immediately turn their brain off the moment the accusation arose.
Today we’re facing the backlash for that. Many fall back onto groups and people that insist that they’re the rational, skeptical thinkers. The claim is only a lie, however, to hide their true feelings and to make like-minded people think their offensive beliefs are “rational.”
Richard Spencer hates being called a white supremacist, and insists that he is not. However, in 2016, during the annual National Policy Institute conference, he said:
“To be white is to be a striver; a crusader, an explorer, and a conqueror. We build, we produce, we go upward. And we recognize the central lie of American race relations: we don’t exploit other groups; we don’t gain anything from their presence. They need us, and not the other way around.”
In Richard Spencer’s eyes, saying whites are inherently better than other races and that other races rely on whites, is somehow not the textbook definition of white supremacy.
Another example could be Carl Benjamin, better known under his YouTube alias Sargon of Akkad. Benjamin refutes the notion that he is alt-right, and claims to be liberal. However, his views can only be described as alt-right; in a video titled ‘Elliot Rodger The Demon,’ he claims the following:
“This is a disease of the modern age. You are responsible for perpetuating it by disenfranchising these poor fucking guys, who don’t have any options left. When someone takes the option of absolute, insanely last resort [sic], you have to wonder what kind of system is producing them. And I’ll tell you what, Laci, it is a fucking feminist system!”
Despite claiming that he is not alt-right, Carl Benjamin excuses the actions of Elliot Rodger as being the problem of a “feminist system,” all but agreeing with Rodger’s manifesto that laments being a virgin as the fault of women.
This is a dangerous era we live in, and it’s important to remember to let people’s words speak for themselves. Don’t fall into the trap of believing in cruel people who claim to be the moderate, rational side of the argument.
Think critically, and think for yourself.