A new report by the Anti-Defamation League showed that Indiana saw an 80% increase in public displays of white supremacy in 2022.
The report showed the majority of white supremacist activities are happening in Indianapolis.
“Deeply concerning,” said Dr. Darrell Heller, director of the Civil Rights Heritage Center at IU South Bend.
Heller said this is concerning because of how quickly public displays of white supremacy have increased.
The ADL report showed a 1,500% increase in Indiana since 2016. “There seems to have been a new kind of agreement that things that weren’t said before can be said publicly,” Heller said.
Last September, the white supremacy group Patriot Front marched through downtown Indianapolis.
“Their goal is to illicit fear and intimidate a community and create this idea that there’s more of them than there are of us,” said David Goldenberg, with the ADL, added that propaganda is the most common form of white supremacy they’re seeing.
“It comes across as very populist, right, and it’s not until you go to the website that’s usually on that literature that you realize the hate that’s behind this propaganda,” Goldenberg said.
Goldenberg says the white supremacy groups choose propaganda because it’s low cost, low risk, and potentially has a high impact.
“While we might say, ‘oh its the spread of a flier, or a sticker’ it’s often an entry point and we know that when that increases the, shall we say, real life incidents where people can get hurt or even worse increase as well,” he said.
Heller told I-Team 8 that everyone in the community should do their best to fight against these ideologies.
“It should be called out when it’s happening. Silence I think is almost always complicity,” he said.
At the same time, Heller says it’s important to try and have conversations with white supremacists to try and break through and change their beliefs.
“Try to speak across differences and to find the space where we can have legitimate conversations to really try to find out where are those points of tension and where are the points of commonality,” he said.
The ADL told I-Team 8 It’s tough to know if more people are joining white supremacy groups, or if a small number of people are more vocal than they used to be.
5 comments
Ahhh, the constant search for the “White Boogeyman” that is the cause for all of society’s ills….so sayeth the radicalized and victimized left. Amazing how the Victicrats find all kinds of evil whiteness when they can only see through their racial lens instead of peering into their own mirrors or backyards. Are there racist idiots out there that stir the cultural pot of stupidity? Absolutely, and on all sides of the fences. It’s not a one-way street as the left wants us all to believe. But this “rise” couldn’t have anything to do with their own defining of “white supremacy” could it?……….naaahh. What a lazy crock of an article! No insight as to the destructive effects of Antifa, BLM and the ilk. The ADL has always been a far left-wing lap dog of Progressives and their propaganda is typically farcical.
You nailed it: the increase was entirely because the ADL has been instrumental in expanding the definition of “white supremacy”. Actual white supremacy as people think of it has been declining year on year since forever.
Remember, it wasn’t too long ago that a poll came out where 47% of black respondents would not agree with the statement “it is OK to be White”. Seeing those results, a popular comic strip creator pointed out that it’s best to avoid being around any group when half of them disagree with your right to exist, and HE was labeled a racist by the ADL… even as the ADL totally ignored the overtly racist viewpoints exposed in the poll.
Last September, the white supremacy group Patriot Front marched through downtown Indianapolis. But ,when blm does the same it’s OK. Just what do some people consider “white supremacy”? Ask 10 people, 10 different answers. Everyone now is so thin skinned, that everything is offensive if they disagree. You will never please everyone.
The anti defamation league is all bulls**t , it’s about division
Soooo, what is “White Supremacy” exactly? Asking for a friend.