Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

I served in the military from 1966-1976, and it never crossed my mind there was white nationalism there. Racism, yes, bigotry, yes. misogyny, OMG yes. But on personal levels. The thought of white supremacy as a political philosophy … well, maybe we were still too close then to having fought and defeated Nazis to consider it. And then, I was never in combat. In other words, my experience doesn’t mean it wasn’t there then – and it certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t there now.
================================================================

Americans aren’t worried about white nationalism in the military – because they don’t know it’s there

Jennifer Spindel, University of New Hampshire; Matt Motta, Oklahoma State University, and Robert Ralston, University of Minnesota

White nationalist groups, who make up some of the most serious terror threats in the country, find new members and support in the U.S. military. These groups believe that white people are under attack in America.

In their effort to create an all-white country where nonwhites do not have civil rights protections, these groups often instigate violent confrontations that target racial and religious minorities. Since 2018, white supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the United States than any other domestic extremist movement.

The Proud Boys group, for example, whom President Donald Trump addressed in the first presidential debate of 2020, includes veterans and active duty service members. The group’s members, who are required to engage in physical violence before joining, celebrated Trump’s statement to “stand back and stand by,” considering his call an endorsement of their extremist ideology.

While many Americans were appalled at the president’s statement, our research shows that most Americans remain unaware of the connections these groups have to the military.

The links between the U.S. military and white nationalists date back to the 1990s, with many believers seeing military service as an opportunity to hone their fighting skills and recruit others.

Our research has found that most Americans don’t know much about the level of white nationalism in the military – though when they find out, they’re worried about it.

White nationalists active in the military

Researchers do not have reliable data on how many active duty or veteran service members belong to white nationalist groups. But current military members are increasingly aware of the influence of far-right groups in the ranks.

In the most recent poll by Military Times, an independent media organization covering the military, about one-fifth of service members have reported seeing signs of white nationalism or racist ideology in the military community. Those include the casual use of racial slurs and anti-Semitic language, and even explosives deliberately arranged in the shape of a swastika.

More than one-third of service members surveyed in 2018 said white nationalism is a significant threat to the country – which is more than were seriously concerned about threats from Syria, Afghanistan or immigration.

White nationalists with military experience have committed acts of violence, usually after leaving the service – like the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing and the 2012 mass shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh temple.

But active duty personnel have also been involved in white nationalist activity. In July 2018, a white nationalist was dismissed from the Marine Corps for his involvement in hate groups, including attending the 2017 “Unite the Right” protest in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In February 2019, a Coast Guard officer stationed at the agency’s headquarters was arrested and accused of stockpiling weapons as part of a plan to start a race war.

In April 2019, a Huffington Post investigation revealed that at least 11 members of various military branches were under investigation for involvement in a white nationalist group.

In September 2019, an Army soldier who had expressed support for right-wing extremism was arrested after sharing bomb-making instructions with undercover agents. That same month, an Air Force master sergeant who had been involved with a white supremacist group was demoted but allowed to continue serving.

In June 2020, an Army private was charged with terrorism offenses after he leaked sensitive information about his unit to two white supremacist groups, including one that promotes rape and murder as part of its quest for a race war.

Congressional concern

Lawmakers have been paying attention to the problem. In 2019, the House of Representatives approved a requirement to screen potential military enlistees for signs of white nationalism, as part of the Pentagon’s annual budget allocation. But the Senate removed that provision before sending the bill to the White House for the president’s signature.

Military and academic experts agree that violent ideologies in the ranks make it harder for soldiers to form the bonds of trust with one another that they rely on in combat.

If Congress did ban white nationalists from serving in the military, members of white nationalist groups would have a harder time receiving military training. They would also be cut off from an important recruitment network.

American views of white nationalism

We wanted to find out how much the public knew about white nationalism in the military, and what they think about it. So in early May 2019, we conducted a demographically representative survey of 1,702 American adults.

First, we asked respondents how prevalent they thought white nationalism was in the military. Most – 70% – said there were “some” white nationalists on active duty. Another 20% said there were “many.” Just 10% thought there were none.

Then we sought to find out whether people thought it was a problem. To answer that question, we split our respondents into two groups. We asked one half of them whether “white nationalism in the military” is “not a problem,” a “somewhat serious problem” or a “serious problem.” Only 30% of them thought it was a “serious” problem; 47% percent thought it was “somewhat serious” and 23% thought it was “not a problem.”

The other half of the respondents got the same question – but before we asked, we gave them the results of a 2018 Military Times poll finding that “22% of service members … have seen evidence of white nationalism or racist ideology within the armed forces.” Having learned that information, 35% of this group said the problem is “serious” – a statistically significant increase of five percentage points.

After that, we returned to the first group, and gave them the information from the Military Times poll – and found that 39% of them considered the problem “serious.” This nine-point increase was also statistically significant.

We did see an initial political divide among our respondents. People who identified as strong conservatives were less concerned about white nationalism in the military than were strong liberals. But respondents across the political spectrum were willing to update their views, and considered white nationalism a serious problem, once we gave them additional, factual information.

The military is a trusted institution

The American public is deferential to the military, and trusts it as an institution. White nationalist groups and ideologies get a boost of credibility and legitimacy through their links to the U.S. military. Civilians often take cues from the statements and actions of those who served.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Our work suggests that informing the public about service members’ worries about white nationalism in the military could increase concern among both liberals and conservatives about the growing power of these groups. Increased public concern could create an incentive for policymakers to try to combat white nationalist groups, in the military and in society at large.

Jennifer Spindel, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of New Hampshire; Matt Motta, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Oklahoma State University, and Robert Ralston, Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science, University of Minnesota

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

================================================================
AMT, I absolutely am “concerned” about this. In fact, that is throwing roses at it. (I also find it telling that the Democratic House in 2019 attempted to address this and was overruled by the Republican Senate.) I can see why white supremacists would want to join the military … but those motivations would also be the main reason sane Americans who support the Constitution would NOT want them to be there. I’d say this is something Congress needs to revisit as soon as it is able to pass appropriate legislation.

The Furies and I will be back.

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

I considered addressing redlining this week – though technically illegal, it is still very much with us – but I decided since I doubt tha anyone who reads here buys and sells a lot of properties, whereas we all encounter microaggressions and may even have been guilty of then, it would be a more current topic.
================================================================

Microaggressions aren’t just innocent blunders – new research links them with racial bias

Jonathan Kanter, University of Washington

A white man shares publicly that a group of Black Harvard graduates “look like gang members to me” and claims he would have said the same of white people dressed similarly. A white physician mistakes a Black physician for a janitor and says it was an honest mistake. A white woman asks to touch a Black classmate’s hair, is scolded for doing so and sulks, “I was just curious.”

It’s a pattern that recurs countless times, in myriad interactions and contexts, across American society. A white person says something that is experienced as racially biased, is called on it and reacts defensively.

These comments and other such subtle snubs, insults and offenses are known as microaggressions. The concept, introduced in the 1970s by Black psychiatrist Chester Pierce, is now the focus of a fierce debate.

On one side, Black people and a host of others representing multiple diverse communities stand with a wealth of testimonials, lists of different types of microaggressions and compelling scientific evidence documenting how these experiences harm recipients.

Some white people are on board, working to understand, change and join as allies. Still, a cacophony of white voices exists in the public discourse, dismissive, defensive and influential. Their main argument: Microaggressions are innocuous and innocent, not associated with racism at all. Many contend that those who complain about microaggressions are manipulating victimhood and being too sensitive.

Linking bias to microaggressions

Until recently, the majority of research on microaggressions has focused on asking people targeted by microaggressions about their experiences and perspectives, rather than researching the offenders. This previous research is crucial. But with respect to understanding white defensiveness and underlying racial bias, it’s akin to researching why baseball pitchers keep hitting batters with pitches by only interviewing batters about how it feels to get hit.

My colleagues and I – a team of Black, white (myself included) and other psychological scientists and students – went directly to the “pitchers” to untangle the relationship between these expressions and racial bias.

We asked white college students – one group at a university in the Northwest, another at a campus in the southern Midwest – how likely they are to commit 94 commonly described microaggressions that we identified from research publications and Black students we interviewed. For example, you are meeting a Black woman with braids; how likely are you to ask, “Can I touch your hair?”

We also asked our participants to describe their own racial bias using well-known measures. Then, we asked some participants to come to our laboratory to talk about current events with others. Lab observers rated how many explicitly racially biased statements they made in their interactions.

We found direct support for what recipients of microaggressions have been saying all along: Students who are more likely to say they commit microaggressions are more likely to score higher on measures of racial bias. One’s likelihood of microaggressing also predicts how racist one is judged to be by lab observers, as they watch real interactions unfold. We’re currently analyzing the same kind of data from a national sample of adults, and the results look similar.

With some microaggressions, like “Can I touch your hair?,” the influence of racial bias is real but small. When the white woman who asked to touch the Black woman’s hair responds, “I was just curious,” she’s not necessarily lying about her conscious intentions. She likely is unaware of the subtle racial bias that also influences her behavior. One can demonstrate racial bias and curiosity at the same time.

Even small doses of prejudice, especially when they are confusing or ambiguous, are documented to be psychologically harmful for recipients. Our research suggests that some microaggressions, such as asking “Where are you from?” or staying silent during a debate about racism, may be understood as small doses of racial bias, contaminating otherwise good intentions.

In our studies, other kinds of microaggressions, including those that explicitly deny racism, are strongly and explicitly related to white participants’ self-reported levels of racial bias. For instance, the more racial bias a participant says they have, the more likely they are to say, “All lives matter, not just Black lives.” These expressions are more than small doses of toxin. Still, even in these cases, racial bias does not explain all of it, leaving ample room for defensiveness and claims that the recipient is being too sensitive.

In our research, participants who agreed with the statement “A lot of minorities are too sensitive these days” showed some of the highest levels of racial bias.

Addressing microaggressions in context

Amidst chronic and widespread racial injustices, including segregated neighborhoods, disparities in health care outcomes, systemic police bias and rising white supremacist violence, a chorus of Black and other voices also have been expressing pain and anger about the stream of subtle microaggressions they endure as part of daily life in the United States.

Consistent with our research, they generally are not insisting that offenders admit to being card-carrying racists. They are asking offenders, despite their conscious intentions, to understand and acknowledge the impacts of their behavior. They are asking for understanding that those offended are not imagining things or just being too sensitive. Mostly, they are asking offenders to improve their awareness, stop engaging in behaviors that create and perpetuate race-based harm themselves and join in fighting against the rest of it.

As a clinical psychologist, I know that, even in the best of circumstances, true self-awareness and behavior change are hard work.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

U.S. society provides far from the best of circumstances. At the nation’s birth, people found a way to celebrate democracy, freedom and equality while owning slaves and destroying Indigenous populations, and then found ways to erase many of these horrors from the nation’s collective memory. Yet, as James Baldwin said of this history, “We carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.”

Science provides validation of the problem of microaggressions: They are real, harmful and associated with racial bias, whether the perpetrator is aware of it or not. Improving awareness of this bias is hard but important work. If Americans want to advance toward a more racially just society, identifying effective ways to reduce microaggressions will be necessary, and this research is just beginning.

Jonathan Kanter, Director of the Center for the Science of Social Connection, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

================================================================
Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, Mr. Kanter says, “even in the best of circumstances, true self-awareness and behavior change are hard work.” That may even be an understatement. My own suspicion is that the worst offenders at microaggression are those in deep, deep denial of white privilege – and they are the last ones to want to change. No work is as hard as that work one doesn’t want to do. Please help us in any way you can, ladies, to get through to those who don’t want to.

The Furies and I will be back.