Five ways to know you’re speaking to white supremacists
There was a simpler time in America, a time when racists wore white hoods and carried torches, when Nazis wore swastikas and a skinhead could shave his scalp without being mistaken for a metrosexual. But those days are long behind us. Now, apparently, white supremacists hold conferences with guest speakers and video hookups to their colleagues overseas, kind of like a Davos for the intellectually vacant.
This is tricky terrain for a politician, as Steve Scalise, the third highest-ranking Republican in the House, found out this week. Back in 2002, Scalise apparently spoke to a conference in New Orleans hosted by the European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO, for short), which is kind of like a lobby for neo-Nazis and other white extremists.
Scalise said he couldn’t recall the speech and had no idea who these people were. And really, how are you supposed to know these days if you’re talking to the Klu Klux Klan or, say, a “Star Trek” convention with an unusual number of Jean-Luc Picards?
There are no hard and fast rules, of course, but let’s consider a few useful guidelines for knowing when you’ve got a problem, just in case you’re thinking about a career in national politics.
1. The group was founded by David Duke. ...