The White Patriot Party. Framing and Resource Mobilization Theories - Essay Example

? The White Patriot Party Introduction This paper discusses the White Patriotic Party and develops a sociological understandingof their hate and terror, in the context of racism. The WPP is based in the United States, formed in 1980 by Glenn Miller. It was formed as the paramilitary wing of the Ku Klux Klan and they shared the Klan’s racist ideologies, even supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa. The group set up telephone hotlines that consisted, in one instance, of a recording featuring a black man being lynched. The WPP was widely supported in North Carolina by a population endeared to them by their blaming of Jewish bankers for the dreary economic climate faced by the farmers. It was estimated that they numbered 3000 at their peak. The founder’s goal was for an independent South, the formation of an all-white-nation that lay within the 1,000,000 miles2 of mother Dixie. In an impassioned appeal to the members, miller claimed that all hope was lost for New York that was under the Jews and for “San Fran-sissy-co” and more areas dominated by non-white minorities, communists, perverts, Jews, and “rectum-loving queers”. The party was closed down by the SPLC and Morris Dees who was a fierce civil rights advocate and became a KKK target after a confrontation with Louis Beam, the Louisiana grand dragon in 1981. After Dees managed to get a court to protect Vietnamese shrimpers, via issuing an injunction, from the Louisiana Klan, Beams challenged Dees to a duel. The SPLC managed to access the WPP’s network, uncovering information that there was a hit on Dees, which caused a judge to forbid Miller and WPP from paramilitary activity. The WPP was blamed for over 140 attacks from 1979 to 1983 in North Carolina (Atkins, 2011). In 1980, the WPP burnt a cross on Lauren and Paul Martin’s lawn. The two were an interracial couple. In the county of Moore, White Patriots paid a visit to an African American prison guard who was up for promotion in the correctional unit at Moore County. In Lee County, WPP members burnt a cross on a black minister’s lawn because he had protested at their presence at the local jail where the members had offered to pay bond for an African American man in jail for sexually assaulting a white woman. As many hate groups in America, in the 80s, the WPP was revolutionizing its activities rapidly. They set out their targets in the form of judges, lawyers, and enforcement officers. The WPP attacked a black couple that moved to a predominantly white community in Moore County, North Carolina in 1979 (Bullard, 2008). They were at first made the subject of vandalism acts on their residence, with bottles, bricks, and rocks thrown through their windows. This caused extensive damage to their house. The couple also found themselves the victim of racial threats, slurs, and taunts. In November 1982, the United States BOP officials at the Leavenworth Penitentiary got information that four inmates planned to escape the jail later that month (Bullard, 2008). The inmates were members of the WPP and were in jail for the murder of a young black male during a protest in Lee County. The plan involved the smuggling of weapons into the jail via a prison contact in the laundry room, where the weapons would be stored until the escape would be made. The 4 inmates, who included three notorious members; Randall Evans, Richard Scutari, and Bruce Pierce planned to shoot their path through prison security when the prison yard would be filled with inmates. An inmate, who was an FBI source, with the four inmates being transferred to the Marion, Illinois United States prison, uncovered their plan. Other attacks and activities linked to the WPP include: The 1982 terrorism of a black prison guard, Bobby Pearson, and others, including a woman involved in a biracial relationship with an African American man. This attack was carried out by the Carolina Knights of the KKK who attacked while bearing arms (Center, 2006). In 1985, Glenn Miller and a number of his followers paraded through black neighbourhoods of North Carolina and threatened, harassed, and harmed African Americans together with Whites that supported them (Center, 2006). In 1983, the WPP was blamed for the lynching of 19-year-old Michael Donald, a case that ended up in court with the sentencing of two WPP members (Center, 2006). In June 1984, a member of the WPP murdered Harold Mansfield. The victim was an African American war veteran (Center, 2006). The White Patriot party was involved in widespread attacks on individuals of African American and Jewish origin. The following section of this paper aims to explore the causes that led to the emergence of the WPP and the response to their emergence by various bodies, including government institutions. 2. The Principle Causes of the Terrorist Campaign 1. Strain/Breakdown Theory One significant factor that led to the emergence of the White Patriot party was the structural shifts prevalent in the socio-economic environment (Gillespie, 2003). Hate crime violence in the 1980s was shaped by antagonisms of the cold war period. Many citizens thought this shift a result of red baiting of the CWP whose friends had perished in the Greensboro attacks, which fertilized the ground for the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. However, hate violence, especially in the WPP stronghold of North Carolina was driven by economic, structural shifts resulting from transfer of jobs in transnational corporations overseas. By restructuring themselves into massive multinationals, these transnational corporations occupied fifty one out of the biggest 100 economies globally. During this structural shift, union jobs fell to 145 from 34% of the United States economy jobs from 1955 to 1998. This was especially impactful since union jobs pay approximately one third higher than jobs that are nonunion. This led to a great drop in general wages. This flight of capital was especially devastating for the state of North Carolina’s tobacco, textile, and furniture industries (Marks, 2006). This is reflected in the loss of approximately 65,000 jobs in the North Carolina textile industry since 2001, with the industry bracing for more shock as Chinese workers begin to flood the global economy. The United State’s manufacturing industry has dropped to 15% from 35%, with North Carolina one of the areas most hard hit by this capital flight. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration cut down on programs that were meant as a safety net for the structurally vulnerable, with the economic shifts turning the residents into contingent workers. Federal aid given to cities was systematically reduced since the late 70s, from a high of $40 billion in 1978 to $20 billion in 1990 (Marks, 2006). Cuts to housing were also made, with the figure dropping to $6 billion in 1989 from $32 billion in 1981. This ultimately led to the cutting f housing units from the 1980 high f 183,000 to 19,000 in 1989. This decade was a tragic one, for North Carolina, and its elements were all the clearer in their presence in Greensboro in 1982. The rise of contingent work, lower wages, no benefits, and part time work needed the government to engineer a new social safety net. This is because when the citizens fell out of the permanent employment sector, they would have to fall somewhere. The lack of a social safety net and vulnerability of the work force was always going to lead to a xenophobic reaction, especially given that the jobs were going overseas to foreigners. Glenn Miller was the founder of the WPP. His main reason for founding the group was that he wanted to unite the white masses to stand up against threats to their existence (Prentice & Miller, 2009). He followed the teachings of David Duke, founder of the KKK’s National Knights. His vision was to create an organization that resembled the GNSP of Hitler. He, however, denied forming any relationship with swastika and socialism. The organization would present a Southern and American image. It was Hitler’s ability to educate, organize, and unite the white masses, which attracted him to form a white supremacist group and shape his ideology. His main reason for forming the WPP was to educate, organize, and unite all white people against the wrongs that he felt so destructive to Americans of the Aryan race. 2. Framing Theory David duke was one of the founding fathers of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, which transformed into the White patriot Party in North Carolina (Segrest, 2009). His doctrine was laced with racism, which he attempted to rationalize by playing to the disenfranchised and jobless youth. Officials of White Patriot Party, to justify their actions, have used their most infamous rationalizations for their grievances. Some of these are: Non-white people living in America are expected to adhere to Christian principles and are expected to recognize that mixing of races is wrong and not up for discussion. The nonwhites were also told to be grateful to be living under the authority from a compassionate government of white Christians, who otherwise would have been right to send them back to their countries. Politicians, holed up in Washington D.C., were working day and night to curtail their liberty, but because of the founding fathers foresight, America had been able to hold up for longer than the other countries against homosexuality, race mixing, and forces of the antichrist. The birth rates of Mexicans in America is 5 times what it is for white people, the birth rate for black people is four times more. If this is left unchecked, America will turn into a third world country. This should be redressed by cutting of immigration, increasing border control, and encouraging recipients of welfare to give birth to fewer children. Without this, the American people will have to rise and take back their country. That is when we do what we want to do. That is also when we white people can have the white girls and all the free food stamps. Fear of the Ku Klux Klan cannot win over our people. However, rekindling their heritage’s love will. In addition, this is what the Klan wants. Love of faith, nation, and race. This is our ultimate goal and hope. The WPP’s plan for the attraction of the masses was via the use of message units from the leader, Glenn Miller, and a newspaper published by Glenn Miller (Smith, 2005). They also used the local and national media, political elections, rallies and marches with increasing regularity until appoint when the white masses saw that Miller was right. The White Patriot Party embarked on a move to raise money, in order to buy radio ad TV time, as well as print millions of copies of his newspaper. For the first meeting on Glenn Miller’s farm, the party distributed thousands of leaflets within a radius of 20 miles, as well as advertising through their message machines. Glenn Miller also appeared on National media defending the WPP and even shared a podium with Jim Martin, later the governor for North Carolina. Miller used these avenues, especially the media, to take on critics of the WPP, working to show that the party was striving towards solving the problems besetting the country and that the opponents were the problem (Smith, 2005). In March 1981, he appeared in a WRAL TV program with Wade Smith, later the Democratic Party Chairman for North Carolina. Then debate was bout whether N.C. needed to acquire WPP. This was planned to follow a black woman who had debated on whether the state needed a white party on the same channel a week earlier. It was meant to counter her side of the debate, and milk the discontent arising from her argument, by the considerable white community supremacists that lived in North Carolina. On formation, the WPP was not famous for violence (Smith, 2005). However, with an increase in isolated cases of violence in Moore County and Lee County, the supremacists became more confident of their tactics and began to become more brazen with their attacks. 3. Resource Mobilization Theory To engage in their subversive acts, including violence, the WPP needed transportation and weapons (Stavenhagen, 1996). Most of this money came from donations by members and political supporters. It is a known fact that the governor for North Carolina at the time attended a meeting that was presided over by Glenn Miller. The WPP also needed spies in the police department to warn them of any raids. For their recruits, they held recruitment drives all over North Carolina, with the epicenter being Lee and Moore County. This recruitment drive was held via use of fliers distributed at youth meeting places and social halls. The group also sent hundreds of fliers to schools all over the state coinciding with the black history month (Stavenhagen, 1996). Another group created the WPP radio station to air music extolling white power, anti-Semitism, and racism. There is evidence of the WPP heeding the call of other KKK offshoots to try to gain greater unification of the fragmented groups (Stavenhagen, 1996). There have been joint KKK events, attended by the WPP, one gaining prominence, in 2006. This was the Fort Payne Klan Jam organized by the KKK white knights of North Georgia. This was an attempt to form an umbrella body, the Konfederation of Klans, consisting of approximately 15 various Southern Klan groups, WPP included (Stavenhagen, 1996). 4. The effects of Terror/Hate After the death of Robert Mathews who founded the Order white supremacist group, to which the WPP subscribed and borrowed ideologies from, federal authorities took the decision to wind down the group (Studies, 2009). Federal prosecutors drawn from five states including North Carolina met secretly, and made the decision to use the RICO statutes against remaining order members along with affiliates in such organizations as the WPP. Under these statutes, every defender is considered a co-conspirator and thus jointly responsible for the groups crimes. The statutes allow the administration to forfeit and seize all assets and properties utilized by the groups for the fulfillment of their goals (Studies, 2009). On April 15 1985, the Justice Department was able to get 23 members indicted on 20 counts including conspiracy, racketeering, and sixty-seven other separate offences. The WPP became visible at around the same time that civil rights activists were holding nation wide rallies and marches (Studies, 2009). This caused conflict and friction between the two groups. As this was happening, the government was alarmed at the militarist rhetoric pervading the speeches given by the White Patriots and thus formed a division in the N.C. police department to look into the activities of the WPP. The WPP led to increased visibility of the civil rights movement, in North Carolina, as did its KKK affiliates in other areas, in the South. This unintentionally led to sympathy from most of the country for the civil rights movement, leading to democratic rights of the minorities being hastened along. This, however, was not their intention. 5. Conclusion Glen Miller formed the WPP in North Carolina, in 1980. It grew in number, thanks in large part to the disenfranchisement of youths in the area due to loss of employment to foreigners. The group was involved in various terrorist activities against racial minorities. These included taunts, violence, and even murder. The party was complicit in the murder of a black prisoner guard who was up for promotion. While the group has decreased in numbers since its 6,000 follower’s heyday of the 80s, it is still present in various areas of North Carolina. Some members have also joined other KKK affiliates. References Atkins S. E. (2011). Encyclopedia of right-wing extremism In modern American history. Santa Barbara: : ABC-CLIO. Bullard S. (2008). Ku klux klan : a history of racism and violence. New York: DIANE Publishing. Center S. P. (2006). False patriots : the threat of antigovernment extremists. Montgomery, Ala.: : Southern Poverty Law Center, ©. Gillespie J. D. (2003). Politics at the periphery : third parties in two-party America. Columbia, SC : : Univ. of South Carolina Press, . Marks K. (2006). Faces of right wing extremism. Boston: Branden. Prentice D. A, Miller D. T. (2009). Cultural divides. New York: : Russell Sage Foundation, cop. Segrest M. (2009). Memoirs of a race traitor. Boston : : South End Press. Smith B. L. (2005). Terrorism in America : pipe bombs and pipe dreams. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, . Stavenhagen R. (1996). Ethnic conflicts and the nation state. Basingstoke, Hampshire [u.a.]: Macmillan [u.a. Studies I. f. (2009). Southern exposure. Durham: Durham, N.C [etc.] Institute for Southern Studies. Read More