Stormfront White Nationalists: Those who disagree with us…go somewhere else.

A while back I was looking at a Huffington Post article about the white supremacy threat to Obama now that he’d won the election.  There’s a clip from a documentary about just that, in which they talk about a website for white supremacists and white nationalists, www.stormfront.org.  

I decided to browse the forums, places for white nationalists from all over the world to share information (or sometimes, “information”) and ideas.  I recommend reading some of the posts.  For those of us who want to protest and enlighten (just like they do), I think it’s essential to know what these people actually think and say.  I thought I did, and you probably think you do, too, but after monitoring the site for the last month or so—something that I will continue to do, both for research purposes and out of pure fascination—I have come to realize that what we think we know about white supremacists, particularly in the U.S., is just a small part of their community.  This site is full of scary, interesting, informative, ridiculous, hateful, and sometimes hilarious wonders.

I was surprised to find, for example, that there is a broad spectrum of white nationalists on the forums.  Some have violent feelings of hate toward members of other races, particularly blacks and Jews.  Some have minds ridden with conspiracy theories about worldwide or European plots to wipe out the white race.  Others are calmer, but feel that the white race is the best and all other races and ethnicities bring it down.  And there are some that don’t seem to harbor any ill will toward other races, they just believe that the white race and culture deserve to be preserved and pure.  And there are lots of people in between.

For the most part, the grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, the general use of the English language, is atrocious (something the top guys at the forum seem to know, which I’ll get to later).  But I was intrigued to discover that there are also intellectuals and academics on the forum.  And there are long, guilt-ridden posts from people who allegedly used to be super-liberal and all about equality.  I think the rest of us are inclined to think that the more educated we are, the less likely we are to hold these types of prejudices, which may be true overall.  Many people would also argue that anyone who holds these views isn’t truly educated.  Regardless, there are people whom our society would deem academics or intellectuals who are a part of this white nationalist community, and the forum members seem to be very aware that there is an education and class divide in the white nationalist family, and there are even forum posts from self-proclaimed intellectuals looking for other white nationalist academics to share their ideas with.  Additionally, I found that, as much as people like me would hate to acknowledge this, some of their ideas are similar to ours.  For example, I’ve read posts on “how to wake up people around you“, and some of the methods described are similar to what you or I might use to wake up a white supremacist to the fact that they’ve been misinformed and misguided.

But I’ve saved the best for last.  I took a look at the Guidelines for Posting, and was surprised by two things: First, that regardless of what you might say about the intelligence of someone who leads a white nationalist movement, the people in charge of the group and forums are significantly smarter than the stereotype of a white supremacist, and surely are significantly smarter than many of their followers.  Second, anyone who disagrees with them, even polite protesters who want a discussion or a debate, are not allowed to post anything on normal forums, only on the one forum specifically designated for “Opposing Views“, or people that many forum members refer to as “anti-whites”, what they call people who are anti-white supremacist.  Here are the guidelines:

Guidelines for Posting:

DO NOT advocate or suggest any activity which is illegal under U.S. law.

Keep discussion civil and productive:

• No profanity. Avoid racial epithets.
• No personal flames.
• No attacks against other White nationalities.
• If you wish to debate religion, you must request to join the Theology usergroup. Religion is a personal issue which often becomes bitterly divisive.
• Make an effort to use proper spelling, grammar and capitalization (no ALL-CAPS posts).
• No spamming. Don’t post unless you have something relevant to say.
• Post only to appropriate forums.
• Post only under one user name. Anyone with “multiple personalities” will have all their accounts deleted.
• If you’re here to argue with us, confine your posts to the “Opposing Views” forum if you don’t want them deleted.

Before you post anything, remember that words have consequences, both for you and others. This is true even if they’re posted pseudonymously on a discussion board. Don’t come back in a few months or years and ask us to delete all your posts because you can’t take the heat or you’ve “changed your mind.” It wouldn’t make much difference anyway, since public posts are cached by search engines and recorded by countless other people with varying motives.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask a moderator.

The author of these rules and “Proprietor of Stormfront”, Don Black, is no dummy.  Notice that in his rules he doesn’t condemn doing illegal acts, only posts promoting them.  Because that’s how people get in trouble.  The earlier link to the HuffPost article/video refers to some young men who found each other using technology like Stormfront, and were arrested after a plot to murder some black students and assassinate PE Obama was reported because they… wrote about it online.  I don’t imagine these boys would have succeeded in killing Obama, but the black students that were to be victims of a shooting might not have been so lucky.

Some of the other rules, like the ones about using profanity and racial epithets, and being careful with grammar and spelling, to me indicate that Mr. Black knows the reputation he and his kind have, and has seen from his forum members’ posts that the reputation has some truth to it.  Appropriate language, good grammar, and good spelling all make for better communication and a better forum in general, and he must be aware that the language of many of his members drastically damages the credibility of the forum, its posts, and its members.

But my favorite is the “opposing views” part.  I understand that these sorts of websites usually need regulation, as there is a large population of people with opposing views who would gladly deluge the forums with fact corrections, explanations, ideologies, and hateful posts of their own.  You have to try and keep some of those out, because whether we like it or not, the forums are for the white nationalists and their ideas.  But forums like this site’s always have moderators, and they threaten in the rules to delete inappropriate posts, so why not just delete the ranting/hateful/irrelevant/etc. ones?  Part of the problem is that all opposing views might be lumped into that category to them, I don’t know.  (I was reading a thread started by a white nationalist entitled “Wanted: An Intellectual Argument in Defense of Anti-Racism“, in which some opposing guests mention that they’re not going to find a decent one in the forum because some opponents had submitted some good posts and they were immediately rejected by the forum moderators)   To require anyone with any sort of opposing views, even those who just have questions, are doing research, or are looking for a healthy discussion, to go to their own forum (where, by the way, the white nationalists can post as much and as often as they want, and there aren’t any rules listed for their responses to the opposing views), just makes the forum and its members sound like…insecure sissies?  I’d say Nazis but I don’t think that would have the desired effect.

Anyway, you should check it out.