White Supremacists Try to Make Racist Lemonade Out of Lemons

Posted by David Neiwert, Orcinus at 11:05 AM on July 30, 2008.

White supremacists are nothing if not a deluded bunch. Even facing the prospect of the election of a black man to the presidency -- marking, in so many ways, another major defeat for their ideology -- they continue to believe his imminent election is a good thing for them:

Tom Prater, Florida spokesman for the white power group Euro and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, says the Illinois senator's success is a boon for his cause.

"I've gotten more calls in the last two months about interest in our organizations than I got in all the years in the past," said Prater, who lives in Jacksonville.

August Kreis, national director of Aryan Nations, another white supremacist and anti-Semitic organization, agrees.

"Obama's done my group a lot of good," said Kreis, who lives in South Carolina and says he keeps a Nazi flag over his mantel. "He's polarizing Americans, black and white.

"Especially in Florida, affiliates have increased recently," Kreis said, although he did not produce membership figures.

... [Stormfront leader Don] Black was quoted in The Washington Post last month as being optimistic about the opportunities offered by Obama's candidacy.

"I get nonstop e-mails and private messages from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected," Black said. "White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we've lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it's bringing them over to our side."

Of course, the main people doing the scaring are overt race-baiters like Black, as well as the only slightly more subtle smears spread by the likes of Floyd Brown and Co. and their anonymous army of e-mail forwarders. And no doubt they will all do their damnedest to stir up trouble intended to harm an Obama presidency should it happen.

Ordinarily, we might be able to afford a little smile over their self-delusion and continuing marginalization. But it's always worth remembering that these folks tend to explode in violent rages when their ugly hopes are frustrated -- especially as they see themselves spinning deeper into powerlessness.

Tagged as: racism, white supremacists, national association for