One theme through all readings that has been incredibly prevailent is the meeting of social justice movements with violence. In previous lessons, we have covered many situations where in response to a group of people attempting to get their rights with a push in violence at that community. As mentioned in this week’s article by Powell, in the 60’s with the civil rights push, the South pushed back. It was expected because it has been shown time and time again that this is the response. There is a genuine resentment in the sort of person that falls into these white national and alt right movements. It is so known a thing that the Southern Strategy relied on this truth when switching the majority of the south to the republican party. It is such a strong pattern that other agendas were tied to it, marrying conservative politics to this resentment of black people, lgbtq, and women. This was a problem with both the Democratic and Republican party. There is a promise from Republicans to return America to this past glorious version of it (Allosso). The, “Make America Great Again,” slogan is not new to this regime, and this general idea is something that conservative politicians have promoted. There is also a framing of these civil rights as taking away from this American Dream, and that somehow this equality is somehow taking away from the white male rights. Generally, it seems the religious communities are also led to believe there is a divine right to white superiority. Things that happen to other communities are not because of the intentional and active discrimination, violence, and neglect. This can be seen during the AIDS crisis, and the religious message that this was punishment. At the same time, the government ignored the issue because of who it seemed to be effecting. This intentional lack of action caused the death of a devastating amount of the gay population.
Powell, John A. The New Southern Strategy. Berkley. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/new-southern-strategy
Allosso, Dan. The New Right. Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project. https://web.archive.org/web/20240613081100/https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/ushistory2/chapter/the-new-right/
Powell, John A. The New Southern Strategy. Berkley. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/new-southern-strategy
Allosso, Dan. The New Right. Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project. https://web.archive.org/web/20240613081100/https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/ushistory2/chapter/the-new-right/