Kathleen Belew - A Field Guide to White Supremacy

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

As the field standard for journalists, the Associated Press Stylebook plays a major role in fixing the parameters of political debate and imagination. Consider that the most recent edition included contextual entries as long as a paragraph for the Islamist terror groups Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and the Muslim Brotherhood, but no entries for the white power terror groups Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazis. White power activists have carried out an overwhelming majority of domestic terror fatalities and attacks in recent years, and the Department of Homeland Security now considers these the largest terrorist threat to the United Statesoutstripping radical Islamist terrorism.

Yet journalists using the AP Stylebook are ill-equipped to describe white power and militia groups. Our aim in this section is to briefly provide journalists with an overview of the terms and understandings agreed upon by most scholarly specialists and to encourage the editors of the Stylebook to reconsider some of the books guidance.

On close reading of the AP Stylebook , we noticed that scholars and journalists often use completely different language to discuss the same social problems. The recommendations here, focused on the terminology and reporting around race, gender, immigration, and political extremism, are meant as a starting point in what we hope will be a longer conversation about how we name and acknowledge white supremacy. In some contexts, we have no recommendations, only questions. In all cases, we welcome feedback from journalists and other scholars in how best to use our shared understanding to achieve clarity and accuracy.

antisemitism

The AP Stylebook currently recommends hyphenating. We disagree, because we understand Semite and Semitism to be invented terms with a long history in pseudoscience.

immigration

We urge consideration and modification of the existing entry. Immigrants are people who move. People who move do so for many reasons: to seek better work opportunities, to reunite with family members, to flee danger or persecution. But the context for immigration involves more than individual choices: inequality, persecution, conflict, war, and exploitation by more powerful countries may frame immigration. Likewise, the United States has policies that draw people; immigration is not something that happens to the United States but is part of a process that has been facilitated by U.S. actors. Often when Americans think about immigration, they are thinking about U.S. policies that manage migration, including both admissions and restrictions. Lawful immigrants outnumber unauthorized immigrants. The United States admits people through a few categories (family, labor, humanitarian). Enforcement and restriction produce the category of undocumented .

We urge the AP Stylebook to discourage the use of immigration metaphors that might inspire fear or disgust or might dehumanize immigrants (flood, stream, wave, tide, swarm, horde, etc).

anti-immigrant (no current entry)

The Stylebook does not currently cover one of the most potent political forces of the moment. Anti-immigrant refers to a group, person, or policy that opposes immigration.

deportation, removal, inadmissibility, and voluntary departure

We urge reporters to use specific terminology around these procedures. For instance, documented immigrants can still be deported.

race

In addition to the current category, Race-related Coverage, we urge the Stylebook to consider defining race itself as a socially constructed category of political identity that has changed over time.

caucasian

This is an outmoded term based on pseudoscience. We urge journalists not to use this term.

Black (capitalized)

Following several prominent media outlets, we agree that Black should be capitalized when it refers to a cultural and racial identity.

Indigenous (capitalized)

Latinx (capitalized)

As the most inclusive and encompassing term, we recommend use of this term, but journalists should defer, when possible, to how people self-identify. Many individuals prefer other terms. Latinx should not be used to refer to people in the past, when the term was not used in self-identification.

reverse discrimination

This term should be used sparingly and in quotation marks. Because racism is a system of power, we see it as incorrect to refer to racism against white people in a white supremacist society. Such arguments often disguise racist policies.

tribe/tribal

These words refer to an Indigenous nation. Do not use tribal to discuss broader political division.

white

The word white refers to a socially constructed and historically fluid category of identity in which people, systems of power, and wealth are invested. This is not a biological or unchangeable category, but neither is it neutral. We struggle with the question of whether to capitalize this word and urge further conversation. We choose not to capitalize white in these pages in keeping with current style guidelines.

white power movement, white supremacist extremist movement

see Terrorism

white supremacist (current entry a subsection of alt-right)