Profs and Pints Onlinepresents: “The White Supremacists Among Us,” an in-depth look at their emergence and mobilization, with Robert Futrell, professor of sociology at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, researcher of political extremism and the far right, and co-author of American Swastika: Inside the U.S. White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate.

[This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link given here for tickets and access.]

The night that Barack Obama was elected President in 2008, the White supremacist web forum Stormfront lit up with posts about racial extremists’ fantastical visions of using violence to combat “White racial genocide.” On election night 2016, Stormfront lit up again as White supremacists triumphantly celebrated Donald Trump’s victory, exclaiming “We finally have one of us in the White House again!” Within a year, torch-wielding White supremacists would be marching openly in Charlottesville in a scene evocative of Nazi Germany. They’ve been marching on our streets and crowding into our public buildings ever since.

Many observers have struggled to explain what they call “a surprising and sudden” reemergence of white supremacism. But for Robert Futrell and other scholars who track the far right, there’s nothing sudden about any of this at all.

In this online, interactive talk, Dr. Futrell will draw upon more than two decades of research on white supremacists to demonstrate that today’s white supremacy is less a unique eruption than a continuation – and an acceleration—of our national story of racism and white supremacism. Looking back in time, he will trace how white supremacy reemerged and spread into our national discourse and political life. Before the 2016 election, White supremacists had worked to outwardly mask their real beliefs and intentions, enabling others to write them off as politically innocuous wackos. Having bided their time, they reemerged during the Trump presidency to capitalize on a racially recharged political climate.

Among the questions Professor Futrell will tackle: How and why does white supremacy persist? Where do white supremacists fit in the spectrum of U.S. far right activism? What are white supremacists' strategies and goals?

Our collective surprise at White supremacists’ arrival on the national stage reflects a lack of attention to the varied and persistent forms of racial extremism that have long simmered in America. By offering an extended view of our nation’s white supremacist extremism, he’ll give us a clear-eyed vantage point for thinking about how to oppose and curb it.

Profs & Pints Online: The White Supremacists Among Us