Racists Ruin Everything

This post may get whiny real quick. But, it is something I've been thinking about for a while, and watching unfold in real time. White Nationalism/Supremacy and Neo-Nazis are co-opting whatever cultural heritage I have, and it sucks.

Growing up, for lack of better information, I thought I was half German, and equal remaining parts Irish, Scottish and English. Turns out, I'm mostly German, maybe a bit Polish, and also smaller equal bits Irish, Scottish and English. So, really, from the start, this confrontation with the bad sides of my cultural make-up should have been foreseen.

seems like a natural friendship

What exactly am I talking about? White Supremacy, obviously, and specifically, all the crazy propaganda and symbolism. Hate groups, specifically white racist hate groups, love symbolism. They fly them on flags, and get them tattooed. Most of the iconography these groups use are linked directly to the Third Reich, or are specific to the Klan, which can easily be avoided. But they also like to co-opt a narrow set of culturally specific iconography, most of which just happens to also be mine.

Pretty obviously, anything German, or Germanic related has already been discovered, and reimagined by supremacy groups, mostly by Hitler's Nazis. White Supremacists are fond of Norse and Germanic runic symbols, and Crusader-era crosses. I am not Scandinavian, but a lot of the Norse imagery used by these groups is shared by Germanic people. Anyone would be hard-pressed to find anything Germanic that hasn't been used or utilized in one way or another by one or more hate groups. Even the part of me that may be Polish isn't immune. There are Polish Nationalist groups out there, and Poles and Germans do share ancient history, and a fascination with eagle logos. The Anti-Defamation League has a long annotated list of Hate Symbols here.

even this unofficial football logo is suspect

Speaking of Germanic/Norse imagery, there is nothing White Supremacy loves to do more than pine for the good old days when Europeans lived like kings in "racially pure" times. The times when waging wars against the evil Muslims in the Holy Land was a cultural past time, and everyone north  and west of the Mediterranean needed lots of sunblock. The Middle Ages is right in the white supremacy wheelhouse. There are plenty of articles out there about the struggles Medieval Studies is having with white supremacy, like this one from The Chronicle of Higher Education. But, they also like to go even further back... before Christianity gobbled up Europe and consolidated the cultures. Before Christians and Crusades, before the Romans even, there were Celts.

The Celts, if you hadn't ever taken a European history class, are this Iron Age (800-450 BC) cultural group that spanned Europe from the Urals (Russia) to the Iberian Pennisula (Spain). By the first century AD, the Celts were absorbed by, or pushed further west by Romans and Germanic tribes. The last remnants of this culture that used to span Europe exist within Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Brittanic culture groups, and even then it barely lives on through language.

However, White Supremacy groups view the Celts as the mythical Aryan master race, which was a theory highly prized by Hitler's Nazi party, and therefore by all descendant Neo-Nazi ideologues. Aryan, a word used for other culture groups from the Indian sub-continent, had been used by Freidrich Max Muller, and later Arthur Gobineau, and Charles Morris. But this "Aryan" race probably never existed, and are early terms created to explain ancient culture shifts. Modern and contemporary Archaeology names early proto-cultures very differently.

Regardless of historical truth, these racist groups use Celtic imagery also. In addition to all of the other stuff, Celtic knots and Irish crosses also have been taken by the White Supremacists.
Sierra Lumota at the University of Pennsylvania wrote about her experiences with the National Policy Institute here, which includes a bit about a tattoo artist specializing in Celtic imagery.

So... here I am, a white dude in the United States, a country with its own history of racist icons, Nazi sympathizers, and White Nationalist fervor, unable to enjoy, or display any cool cultural symbolism without worrying that I may be confused for these other hate groups.

I just want to be Knotty

I have no desire to belong to or be associated with these die hard ideologues that believe in half-truths, mythologized histories, and hate-filled rhetoric. I wish they'd picked someone else's cultural groups when cherry picking their iconography.

One by One, Change will Come

Up until recently, the State of Maine had one remaining high school with an American Indian mascot. Skohegan is the county seat of Somerset County, the Skowhegan Regional school district services 5 other neighboring communities. The Press Herald published the following story earlier this week about a press release from Maine's Department of Education. The link is below.

The history of Maine and tribal relations revolves around a series of wars with the Wabanaki Confederacy. By 1725, the 4th Anglo-Abenaki War ended with the native population of the Somerset area either pushed out or massacred. This history, like most American relationships with local tribes, makes using the mascot far more uncomfortable.

Later in the week, Skowhegan held a meeting to discuss the mascot. Apparently, the meeting concluded with a resolution to discontinue the name. The story is below, reported by the local ABC affiliate. The State of Maine no longer has American Indian mascots in their schools.