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Dismantling Racism Resource Book

white nationalist movement.” (White nationalism is a social movement whose members believe
the U.S. is a white nation but that whites have lost control of the state. While some are members
of white supremacist groups, the majority are not.)

The Coalition has built a network of local human rights groups that: provide support to hate
crime victims; pressure local school boards to adopt culturally relevant curricula; maneuver to
block white nationalist efforts at mainstreaming themselves; and work on issues ranging from
attacks on abortion clinics to anti-immigrant organizing. “While people of color are ultimately
affected most by the growth of the white nationalist movement, it’s middle class whites who are
being recruited. We’re out here competing for this same constituency,” said Ward.

Since its founding in 1987, the Coalition has evolved into something uncommon: a people-of-
color-run group that organizes rural whites. Ward and other racial justice organizers note the
importance of whites learning to take leadership from people of color, particularly on issues of
race. Challenging anywhere, this work takes on a particular character in rural towns in states like
Wyoming and Idaho. “We’re often interacting with people who have never dealt with a person of
color in a leadership position,” Ward says. “Some have never met a person of color. We deal
with what I’d call common, normalized racism and stereotypes all the time.” But, says Ward, the
real challenge comes from, “larger, well-resourced organizations that are simply not as
supportive of people of color leading a large white constituency as they are of white people
leading large people-of-color constituencies.”

Ward concedes that people of color in this country are more likely to die as a result of
institutionalized racism than at the hands of violent bigots. “So, as people of color organizers, we
tend to believe that it’s not a priority to fight white nationalism and we tend to let white people
off the hook for this work, as well.”

But in dismissing the movement as marginal “extremists” we overlook its influence on
mainstreamed, institutionalized racism. After all, it’s a short walk from David Duke’s 1980s
attacks on affirmative action as “reverse discrimination” to the current mainstream attacks. He
asks, “If we believe that our progressive social movements can fundamentally restructure
society, why would we think that reactionary social movements cannot?”

Enlarging Indian Country

This whole region was once Indian Country. Five hundred years after colonization began, Native
Americans struggle to shed an invisibility that aids and abets continuing genocide. “It’s a little
bit better in Montana,” says Indian People’s Action director Janet Robideau, “because the Indian
vote is significant.” Montana’s population is about 8% Native American and there are seven
reservations spread across the state. Tribal governments have won a certain level of political
clout, but the half of Montana’s Indians who live off-reservation have had no organized voice for
their communities.

“Everyone assumed that our issues were on sovereignty and fishing and water,” explains
Robideau, who organizes urban Indians in Montana. “It’s not that we don’t care about those

Dismantling Racism Project 82 Western States Center