Prior to civil rights, though people were increasingly less tolerant, White Supremacists had no fears being out in the open. In a country of “Separate but Equal”, Segregation being the norm, these people had no problems going out in the open, expressing their views. Sadly, these views were shared by a significant portion of the country. The Ku Klux Klan were able to march in full white sheet regalia in Washington DC. At that time, their membership was estimated to be well over a million, in a country where few people stood up against lynchings, church bombings and the like.

Slowly in the 1950’s things started to change. The move to grant full civil rights was beginning to take hold. It started with Harry Truman desegregating the armed forces, followed by Dwight Eisenhower ordering busing, and culminated in the Civil Rights Act signed by Lyndon Johnson. John Kennedy tried to get it done, but couldn’t get it through Congress made up of Dixiecrats and it took Texan Johnson, using the memory of the martyred president to get it passed. When he signed it, he acknowledged that the Democratic Party would lose the South for a Generation. He was right. Many in the South left the Democratic Party to join the Republican Party. Richard Nixon created his “Southern Strategy” that he used to take the White House in 1968 and this has been a mainstay of GOP politics for much longer than a single generation.

However,  during this time the racists began to go underground. Oh, they were still there, people knew of their existence, but they kept in the shadows. They knew the vast majority of the country had outgrown them and they became part of the counterculture.

Now, they are coming back. Many have no problems showing themselves, demanding to be part of the government with support of more people than many thought possible in this day, in this country. Did it have to do with the country electing its first Black President? That certainly played a role. Racists are by nature angry people needing something to vent their anger at. President Obama fills that role for them.

The picture at the top is JT Ready. He’s famous in Arizona. I’ve spoken of him before. He was in the Marines, Court martialed twice, and received a bad conduct discharge from the Corps. But in Arizona he found a calling. With the help of the Arizona Republican Party, controlled by the Arizona Tea Party coalition that convinced Arizonans that all their problems could be traced to people across the border, Ready became a big name in patrolling the border and dealing with those little brown people taking jobs, littering the desert, or whatever propaganda they could come up with. With the help of Senate President Russell Pearce with his SB1070 and Governor Jan Brewer seeing headless bodies in the desert, Ready was making a name for himself. He was running for Sheriff in Pinal County. That ended when Ready murdered his girlfriend, her daughter and granddaughter and the daughter’s fiance before killing himself. Ready is gone, but his racism remains vibrant in Arizona.

You would think that it’s a no brainer figuring who the White Supremacists are and what they stand for. If you do, then you are just like George Bush not understanding the difference between Shiite and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. White Supremacists are varied, have differing goals, differing politics, differing tolerances and actually only share one thing, extreme violent anger and hatred.

You have the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Brotherhood, Skinheads, Peckerwoods, White Pride Independents, the factions are varied. Many are in competition with one another. It’s interesting to note that Aryan Brotherhood are actually tolerant of other races to a point, and will deal with them, to a point, and tend to do drugs like heroin and meth. Skinheads are absolutely opposed to drugs and any association with any minority group. Aryan Brotherhood are more of a traditional outlaw gang while Skinheads are more of a political movement. Again, the only thing these groups have in common is violence towards minorities and those in their groups who don’t live up to their code.

Though the KKK are still an influence and of course come from the deep south, it is interesting to know that the Aryan Brotherhood and Skinhead groups mostly came from California. Aryan Brotherhood began in California around 1973 and moved to Arizona around 1979. Between these two states, the gangs are growing chapters across the nation. It’s interesting to learn that the Georgia Chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood was started by AB members from Arizona. Word is that Arizonan AB members are a key factor in starting many new chapters across the country. Go figure.

As I mentioned earlier, the various Skinhead groups are the fastest growing White Supremacists out there and they tend to be more of a political movement than a gang movement. They see this country as being only for the Whites, no tolerance for minorities. They do follow the Nazi doctrine to the letter. If they were to be part of any mainstream political party to enact their goals, odds are it would be the Tea Party Faction of the Republican Party.

Don’t be surprised. Besides, these people have been coming out of the woodwork more and more in recent years. They’re mainstreaming, knowing that to change the system, you must become part of the system. It’s classic. JT Ready was a Neo-Nazi skinhead who could have become Sheriff in Pinal County. Other “secret” racists, but clearly racists none-the-less are already in government. It includes Arizona and the National level. You know them by their rhetoric, their acts and their demeanor. If our country continues to just shrug it’s shoulders to these people and allow them to continue to mainstream, they will become more open and racist in their views.

Currently, the GOP is catering to the racist side of the Tea Party Coalition. I’m not saying that all Tea Party members are skinheads, Aryan Brotherhood, or simply racist. But if those people were to be in a party, it would be the Tea Party and they appear to be calling the shots.

White Supremacists have always been out there and they are involved in everything including law enforcement. They are getting more and more comfortable in not only expressing their views, but in trying to legislate those views. Voter suppression, Laws that target people based on race, cutting of aid to groups that cater to minorities, etc. The only way to stop this, is to call it out when you see it. It’s time to embarrass the White Supremacists back to their dark holes where they had been hiding since the 1960’s. Otherwise, they will unite and this country will lose what little humanity it has left.