Over the past decade, scholars have struggled to conceptualize the diverse range and dynamic nature of activism that has manifested within US white supremacism. Our thinking has been too tied to conventional forms of activism such as rallies and marches and traditional indicators of white supremacism such as Ku Klux Klan regalia and swastika tattoos. There also has been a tendency to focus more attention on groups and leaders and less attention on how practices, ideas, and emotions circulate across time and space in a way that has transformed segments of the mainstream into radicalized factions with distinct points of focus but an underlying unity of purpose. As a corrective, we offer a constellation approach that emphasizes white supremacism’s adaptability and capacity to shift narratives. In today’s talk, I describe the conceptual benefits related to employing a constellation approach. As part of the discussion, I also address key points of continuity and change related to US white supremacism and its central role in the current attack on American democracy.
Speaker
Pete Simi is a Professor of Sociology at Chapman University and member of the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education (NCITE) Center at the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He has studied social movements and political violence for more than 25 years, conducting interviews and observation with a range of criminal groups and political extremists. His publications include more than 80 peer reviewed articles and book chapters and two book manuscripts, American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate and Out of Hiding: Extremist White Supremacy and How It Can be Stopped. On multiple occasions, he has been invited to provide US congressional testimony and was asked to submit written testimony to the J6 Select Committee’s investigation of the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. His expertise regarding these issues is frequently relied on in criminal and civil cases and in 2021, he provided expert testimony on behalf of the plaintiffs in the landmark civil case, Sines v. Kessler aimed at holding the organizers of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally accountable for the violence they helped incite and commit in Charlottesville, VA.