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Culture Warlords
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Culture Warlords

My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy

Talia Lavin
Legacy Lit, 2020
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8

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  • Controversial
  • Background
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

White supremacy radicalizes young people – especially white males – using extreme methods and ideologies that go well beyond politically conservative thought. By shining a light on far-right extremists and their violent ideas, author Talia Lavin hopes to impede these radical groups’ underground organizing. Lavin explains their beliefs and their networks, details the hate they manufacture and stoke, and describes the consequences of their activities for a multicultural, diverse society.

Summary

Far-right forums and media outlets spread racism, misogyny and anti-Semitism.

When Talia Lavin, under a pseudonym, visited a far-right chat group – “The Bunkhouse” – on the social media app Telegram, she encountered white supremacists chatting about her, using her real name, calling her an anti-white supremacist, and Jewish journalist, and agreeing she was too ugly to rape.

These supremacists followed the neo-Nazi leader James Mason, author of the book Siege, who advocates terrorism to destroy American society. Mason’s followers, who call themselves “Siegeheads,” praise neo-Nazi mass murderers, including Dylann Roof, who prayed with and then murdered nine African Americans in a Charleston, SC church in 2015.

The internet makes it easy for false conspiracy theories – such as the belief that a diabolical Jewish cartel is oppressing the white masses – to spread, and for conspiracists to get to know one another and to build racist networks. White supremacists may begin by trying to shock others with brutally racist or anti-Semitic language, but their “ideological journey” leads them, ultimately, to embrace...

About the Author

Talia Lavin is a journalist who has worked at The New Yorker, the Huffington Post and Media Matters.

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