The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration Book

Identifying a salient threat to racial harmony in contemporary America, award-winning political scientist Carol Swain addresses a principal one that is often difficult to recognize and is rarely reported on in a national context. Over the past ten years, she argues, a new white consciousness movement has gained strength in America, bringing with it the significant potential for disrupting the already fragile race relations. Calling this new group "White Nationalism," Swain shows how it has become a movement largely of discourse and ideas. Eschewing violence, its leaders seek to expand its influence through argument and persuasion directed at its target audience of white Americans aggrieved over racial double standards, race-based affirmative action policies, high black-on-white crime rates, and liberal immigration policies. "White Nationalism" has been energized, Swain contends, by the growth of multiculturalism. Due to its emphasis on group pride and group self-determination, multiculturalism has provided white nationalists with a justification for advocating a parallel form of white solidarity which seeks the protection of competing white interests. Technological advances such as the Internet have made it easier than ever before for white nationalists, like any other group, to reach a more mainstream audience. The New White Nationalism in America is a wake-up call to all Americans who cherish the Civil Rights Era vision of an integrated America. Carol M. Swain is Professor of Poltical Science and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Black Faces, Black Interests, (Harvard, 1993) which won the Woodrow Wilson Prize, the D.B. Hardeman Prize, and the U. O'Key Award. She has published numerous articles including op-eds in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Chronicle of Higher Education. She lectures widely across the country, on issues ranging from congressional redistricting to the future of affirmative action programs. Swain was one of twelve children born into rural poverty, is a high school dropout and a first generation college student who started her education at a community college. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.