I had been in the US for five years before I encountered my first white supremacist. It happened outside a gas station on a rural back road in Texas, next to a used tire lot that I suspected was a front for skullduggery. We didn’t exchange any words; we just walked past each other, scowling. How did I know he was a white supremacist if we didn’t talk? The “White Power” tattoo on his gut was a dead giveaway.
Yup, I thought. Dude’s a racist.
Up until that point, white power freaks had been almost mythical creatures for me, like unicorns, only less appealing to preteen girls. Of course, I knew that they existed, but overexposure to British TV documentaries about American weirdos in the 1990s, not to mention Russian anti-Americanism in the 2000s, had bred weariness in me, and I had rejected the characterization of America as a land teeming with survivalists, apocalyptic believers, Hitler fans and serial killers long before I moved here. I mean, come on: No place could…
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Daniel Kalder [4]
Latest posts by Daniel Kalder (Posts [5])
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