Inside Organized Racism: Women in the Hate Movement - Hardcover

Blee, Kathleen M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520221745 ISBN 13: 9780520221741

Publisher: University of California Press, 2002

Synopsis

Kathleen M. Blee's disturbing and provocative look at the hidden world of organized racism focuses on women, the newest recruiting targets of racist groups and crucial to their campaign for racial supremacy. Through personal interviews with women active in the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups, Christian Identity sects, and white power skinhead gangs across the United States, Blee dispels many misconceptions of organized racism. Women are seldom pushed into the racist movement by any compelling interest, belief, or need, she finds. Most are educated. Only the rare woman grew up poor. Most were not raised in abusive families. Most women did not follow men into the world of organized racism.

Inside Organized Racism offers a fascinating examination of the submerged social relations and the variety of racist identities that lie behind the apparent homogeneity of the movement. Following up her highly praised study of the women in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan, Blee discovers that many of today's racist women combine dangerous racist and anti-Semitic agendas with otherwise mainstream lives. Few of the women she interviews had strong racist or anti-Semitic views before becoming associated with racist groups. Rather, they learned a virulent hatred of racial minorities and anti-Semitic conspiratorial beliefs by being in racist groups. The only national sample of a broad spectrum of racist activists and the only major work on women racists, this well-written and important book also sheds light on how gender relationships shape participation in the movement as a whole.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

"An insightful view of organized racism focusing on women in the Movement. Thoroughly researched and well written. An important contribution to our understanding hate in America."—Morris Dees, Founder and President, Southern Poverty Law Center

"Combining observations of racist group events, examinations of published and distributed racist documents, and in-depth, unstructured life history interviews of a representative sample of women members of a variety of U.S. racist groups, Blee offers an innovative and superb probe into organized racism. Her findings are both significant and alarming. These women do not fit the common stereotypes. Their backgrounds are more normal than we may want to believe."—William Brustein, author of The Logic of Evil: The Social Origins of the Nazi Party, 1925-1933

"Kathleen Blee has produced a fascinating account of women in extreme racist movements. She analyses the place of women in the racist culture of violence, and in so doing she challenges many preconceptions. Inside Organized Racism is a courageous, thoughtful and important book."—Michael Billig, author of Rock'n'Roll Jews

"Chock-full of insights about racist movements and the women drawn to them, this book effectively demonstrates the contradictions and tensions within and among these women. Blee does a wonderful job of showing how these extremist groups not only depart from mainstream assumptions and actions but are also connected to mainstream ideas and organizations. Given the physical danger and personal horror Blee encountered in carrying out this research, her work is admirable in its depth and its attempt to balance understanding with criticism of people she found abhorrent. A chilling account of the banality of organized racism."—Rebecca Klatch, author of A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right, and the 1960s

"This is an extraordinary book. It exposes and illuminates the inner world of organized racism in the U.S. today, exploring not only what racists say, but also how they are formed. Focusing on the often ignored voices of women in the movement, Blee succeeds in giving us the widest, most nuances and current view of the organized racist underground in the U.S. Her analysis of issues of gender, culture and racism are both penetrating and vital for all who care about the present and future direction of American society."—Mark Weitzman, Director of the National Task Force Against Hate, Simon Wiesenthal Center

From the Back Cover

"Chock-full of insights about racist movements and the women drawn to them, this book effectively demonstrates the contradictions and tensions within and among these women. Blee does a wonderful job of showing how these extremist groups not only depart from mainstream assumptions and actions but are also connected to mainstream ideas and organizations. Given the physical danger and personal horror Blee encountered in carrying out this research, her work is admirable in its depth and its attempt to balance understanding with criticism of people she found abhorrent. A chilling account of the banality of organized racism."ÑRebecca Klatch, author of A Generation Divided: The New Left, the New Right, and the 1960s

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0520221745
• ISBN 13: 9780520221741
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 297