Let's see if there is any advocacy of belief #1 on David Duke's website. Explore it for yourself. I don't see any. What I see, on the contrary, is all very defensive, from the point of view of belief #2. For example, at the time of this writing the featured article at the top of the website is titled, "Harvard professor argues for 'abolishing' white race." Is it "racist" for a person who considers him/herself to be white to be alarmed at somebody calling for the abolition of his/her race? I don't think so.
Now, it turns out that I know this "Harvard professor"--Noel Ignatiev. Duke calls Ignatiev a "Harvard professor" but I believe he really was only a Harvard graduate student and lecturer. Ignatiev does indeed say that the "white race should be abolished"; Ignatiev happens to be a person who--for some reason--loves to be misunderstood, which is why he expresses his ideas the way he does. But if one takes the time to actually read Ignatiev's writings one will discover that by "abolishing the white race" he means that people who refer to themselves as "white" should stop doing that. I don't know if Duke took the time to find out what Ignatiev meant, or not; probably not. Duke no doubt seized upon this strange person, Igantiev, in order to fuel white people's fears that Harvard, i.e., academia, i.e., the Establishment, is out to abolish the white race--kill them or make them starve to death or something like that. (Interestingly, near the bottom of this article there is a Washington Times article appended that provides Ignatiev's sort-of clarification, but how many people read all the way to the bottom?)
Another big theme on Duke's website is anti-Zionism. But anti-Zionism is not racism. I am an anti-Zionist because Zionism is racism.
If you know that a person is a fan of David Duke, what does that actually tell you? I claim that all it tells you is that the person holds belief #2.
What about KKK.com ?
I think that the uncritical use of, and identification with, "KKK" on a website implies, at best, a friendly relationship with belief #1, i.e., a refusal to condemn racism. But the editors of KKK.com clearly are attempting to avoid any explicit advocacy of belief #1 in order to attract people solely on the basis of belief #2. The website, as you can tell by exploring it for yourself, is all about making things better for whites (including ending perceived discrimination against whites), not making things worse for blacks.
If you look at the far left side of the site and scroll down to the fourth item, you'll see (or would have seen at the time I last looked) a link to its store, titled "Heritage, Not Hate."
One of the featured (linked) articles is titled, "State Police Boosted Academy Diversity by Ignoring Background Checks, Suit Says"; it reports that a person responsible for doing background checks on people applying for jobs as police officers was told to ignore "troubled legal histories and criminal backgrounds" of minority applicants in order to "increase racial diversity." Well, is it "racist" to think this is wrong? Of course it remains to be known whether the article's claim is true or not. But really, are you absolutely positive the claim is false?
If a white person who believes belief #2 but not #1 happens to like KKK.com because of such articles, and thinks that its editors are looking out for people like him/her, does that mean this person cannot be won to supporting egalitarian revolution? Of course not! But the way to win this person over is NOT to declare that he/she is an evil racist. If it were I, I would investigate whether the article was telling the truth or not. And if it was telling the truth, I would agree with the person that it's wrong to use different criteria for different races in job hiring: the criteria should be about competence and willingness to do the job or learn how to do the job. (Please see "We Need THIS, Not Affirmative Action" about this point.) And then I would discuss the racist history of the KKK and how it attacked poor whites (such as those in the racially integrated, 1930s-era Cotton Belt, Southern Tenant Farmers Union), as well as blacks, in order to keep the rich rich and the poor poor.
It is quite possible--even likely--that the editors of websites such as David Duke's and KKK.com are genuine and dangerous racists, who are trying to attract people who only hold belief #2, and who are intending to guide them somehow into supporting belief #1 as well. The question is, how do egalitarian revolutionaries deal with this problem? The wrong--but much easier--way, in my view, would be to write off anybody who is attracted to these kinds of websites as an evil racist. That will guarantee that the genuine evil racists have a free hand to recruit followers. The right way, I believe, is to find out (by respectful communication) if a person attracted to one of these kinds of websites believes only belief #2 or if they also believe #1. If they don't believe #1, then treat them as a potential member of the egalitarian revolutionary movement, because egalitarians ALSO oppose racial discrimination of any kind.
Can KKK Members Be Persuaded (By a Black Man!) to Quit the KKK?
Answer: YES! Watch these videos here and here (start at time 1:01) and here (watch the full 6 minutes) and you'll see that this did in fact happen.
The experiences of Daryl Davis (recounted in the videos above) show that some members of organizations such as the KKK can be persuaded to leave these organizations due to their disagreement with the organization's acting on the basis of belief #1.
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