You Can’t Understand White Supremacists Without Looking at Masculinity

“These guys believe something has been taken from them that they were entitled to.”

Mother Jones illustration; Vintervarg/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Nearly all right-wing extremists have something in common: They’re men. Without addressing this fact, it is impossible to make sense of hate groups or try to eradicate them, argues Michael Kimmel, a sociologist at Stony Brook University who has written several books about masculinity and gender. For his most recent, Healing From Hate, he interviewed former extremists about the psychological and economic factors that drew them into violent white supremacist groups.

Mother Jones: You write that “American white national­ism offers American men the restoration of their masculinity.” How does it fulfill that promise?

Michael Kimmel: These guys believe something has been taken from them that they were entitled to, that they deserved, and it was given to people who don’t deserve it, like immigrants and gay people and women. Joining up is a way to get it back, to restore your masculinity. The white nationalist organizations are fairly explicit in this: “Join us and you feel like a real man. Join your brothers, your comrades. We have a sacred mission to preserve the white race.” All this stuff is designed to say, “I’m retrieving what’s rightfully mine.” The feeling of being emasculated comes from a feeling of entitlement. Entitlement is what fuels the anger and desire to restore what’s “rightfully ours.”

MJWhite supremacy in the United States is nothing new. Is the feeling of emasculation and victimhood that drives men into white supremacist groups unique to this moment?

MK: Almost every one of the guys I talked to was downwardly mobile, lower-middle class. They made a bargain, the bargain of the 1950s: “I will work hard, I will pay my taxes, I will be a good citizen, and in return for that, I—the man, the breadwinner—I alone should be able to support my family and buy a house.” There are economic forces that are depriving these guys of the bargain that their fathers and grandfathers made. Global­ization and neoliberal economics have meant that Walmart has moved in, the mom-and-pop place has closed. All those heavy manufacturing jobs have disappeared—no matter what President Trump promises, it’s a done deal. Now at the same moment that these economic changes are happening, you have all these other groups shouting out for their rights, and these guys feel like, “Well, wait. What about us?”

MJ: What makes one white man become a pissed-off Trump voter and another join a hate group?

MK: Two things turn guys to this movement. First, there’s a conscious and deliberate manipulation of the emotions of despair and confusion by those on the right, who basically massage these emotions into a politicized anger. The second thing is, it has to be experienced as something you’re moving toward. You feel isolated and alone and despairing. You feel like you’re failing your family. Then these guys come along and say, “No, you’re great, you’re awesome. You’re one of us. We are your brothers.” You get community, camaraderie; you get people who are validating your masculinity. Then, of course, the sacred mission of preserving the white race.

MJ: You write that it’s this feeling of belonging that’s the primary appeal, not necessarily the racism or the ideology.

MK: The recruitment process is really about emotion. In order to get these guys out, you have to understand the emotional and visceral draw that pulls them in the first place. It’s not the ideology. But I do think one of the big drivers is this economic displacement.

MJ: So to get these guys out of these groups, you have to replace this sense of belonging and masculinity with a different sense of belonging and masculinity?

MK: Of course. I’m not gonna be able to persuade a guy to leave the movement because I say to him, “You know, I think your interpretation of page 156 of Mein Kampf is wrong.” I’m gonna help him by saying, “You have a place to land, you have a place to stand, you have family, you have kids, you have a partner, you have a job.” You become a stakeholder in the system rather than an outsider in opposition to it. You have to give people a place to land.

MJ: What do you think about “Nazi punching”? Does that serve a purpose if your ultimate goal is to have fewer people in hate groups?

MK: I don’t think it’s particularly effective as a way to get guys out. Nazi punching is expressive but not instrumental. It’s expressive of your own frustration and anger and rage at these guys, their ideas, their visibility and newfound legitimacy in this administration. But it doesn’t shut them down, and it doesn’t get them out.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate