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Constructing whiteness:the intersections ofrace and gender inUS white supremacistdiscourseAbby L. FerberPublished online: 02 Dec 2010.

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Constructing whiteness: theintersections of race and gender inUS white supremacist discourse

Abby L. Ferber

Abstract

This research explores the intertwined construction of race and gender in awide variety of white supremacist newsletters and periodicals publishedbetween 1969 and 1993. While traditional accounts of the whitesupremacist movement treat it as a movement concerned with racerelations, I read this discourse as a site of the construction of race.Additionally, I argue that race and gender are inextricably linked.Exploring how meaning works in white supremacist discourse, thisresearch provides an analysis of the construction of racial and genderdifference within the framework of the equality versus differencedichotomy. Within this framework, difference requires hierarchy, so thatany effort to redress inequality is posited as a threat to difference. Theprimary project of the white supremacist movement is the construction ofwhite racial and gender identities as naturalized and hierarchizeddifferences.

Keywords: Deconstruction; gender; race; racism; white supremacist movement;whiteness.

In Playing in the Dark, Toni Morrison observes that historically, there isa

pattern of thinking about racialism in terms of its consequences on thevictim – of always de�ning it asymmetrically from the perspective ofits impact on the object of racist policy and attitudes . . . But that well-established study should be joined with another, equally importantone: the impact of racism on those who perpetuate it. It seems bothpoignant and striking how avoided and unanalyzed is the effect ofracist in�ection on the subject (Morrison 1992, p. 11).

Scholars of race have too long neglected the study of ‘whiteness’. Overthe past decade, however, sociologists and historians have begun to

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explore more systematically the construction of white racial identity(Saxton 1987; Roediger 1991; Frankenberg 1993; Harper 1993; Ignatievand Garvey 1996).

This article contributes to this growing body of research. I explore theproject of constructing white racial identity which is central to the con-temporary white supremacist movement. This research contributes notonly to our understanding of the white supremacist movement, but to theprocess of the construction of racialized identities, as well as to the inter-connections between the construction of race and gender.

The white supremacist movement has largely been studied as an issueof race relations, and most research has failed to address issues of genderwithin the movement (Ferber 1995b). The work of Kathleen Blee (1991a;1991b) represents the only attempt to document the role and activities ofwomen in the US white supremacist movement, focusing on women’sinvolvement in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Blee also provides ananalysis of gender in the ideology of the Klan at that time. The recentwork of Suzanne Harper (1993) further contributes to a feminist analy-sis of the movement, exploring the intersections of race and gender indepictions of white men and women, black men and women, and Jewishmen and women in contemporary white supremacist discourse.

Rather than reading white supremacist discourse as one which isdescriptive of race, I am reading it as the construction of race. Researchon white supremacist movement traditionally de�nes the movement asone which attempts to represent white interests while espousing hatredtowards blacks, Jews, and other non-white racialized groups, taking thegiven reality of race for granted. Instead, I read this movement as activelyproducing racialized and gendered subjects.

Contemporary racial theory, moving beyond earlier biological andassimilationist conceptualizations of race, refuses to take racial cat-egorizations for granted, exploring instead the social construction of race(Omi and Winant 1986; Balibar and Wallerstein 1991; Goldberg 1993;Ferber 1995a). While it is popular today in academia to study racial‘diversity’, this approach often ends up reifying racial categorizations(Carby 1992; Webster 1992). Alternatively, a social constructionistapproach emphasizes the critical need for researchers to ‘read the pro-cesses of differentiation, not look for differences’ (Crosby 1993, p. 140).As Omi and Winant suggest, the meaning of race and racialized mean-ings are politically contested, and it is this contested terrain which needsto be explored .

Contemporary feminist theory has followed a parallel trajectory,asserting the social construction of gender and refuting essentialist, bio-logically-based explanations (Butler 1990; Hubbard 1992). A growingbody of feminist research is documenting the historical and culturalconstruction of gender (Riley 1988; Higginbotham 1992; Ware 1992;Frankenberg 1993).

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Because race and gender are social constructs, they are not constructedin isolation, but often intertwine with other categories of identity. Femin-ists of colour have criticized single-axis theories which try to separaterace and gender, and emphasize the need for theories which account forboth race and gender to explain adequately the lives of women of colour.Single-axis theories have assumed that the experiences of white womenshow us the meanings of gender, distinct from race. This approach,however, has reinforced the notion that race only shapes the lives ofvictims of racial oppression. My research, however, argues that we mustalso explore the interaction of race and gender in the construction ofwhite identity and privilege.

This analysis provides a deconstructive textual analysis, revealing thediscursive production of race and gender. Deconstructing rigid categoriesof race and gender in white supremacist discourse can contribute to ourunderstanding of the construction of race and gender more generally, aswell as the intersections between race and gender.

The contemporary white supremacist movement in the US

Throughout this article, I examine white supremacist publications fromthe Keith Stimely collection, in the special collections of the Universityof Oregon’s Knight Library (for a complete list of publications, seeAppendix) . This collection was the private collection of Stimely, whodonated his holdings to the library. The collection contains the news-letters of a wide variety of white supremacist organizations in the US, aswell as miscellaneous paraphernal ia, including �yers, lea�ets andmembership materials of various organizations. The material I examinedwas published between 1969 and 1993. I examined all the publicationscontained within the collection in order to ensure that I covered a widerange of organizations, with differing ideological frameworks and aimedat different audiences.

While there are signi�cant differences between the various whitesupremacist organizations, there are also sustained efforts to forgeshared objectives. As Raphael S. Ezekiel found in his study of membersof the movement, ‘the agreement on basic ideas is the glue that holds themovement together, . . . the ideas are important to the members. Thewhite racist movement is about an idea’ (Ezekiel 1995, p. xxix). Mostwhite supremacist organizations share a number of unquestioned beliefs.They believe that races are essentially and eternally different, not onlyin terms of visible characteristics, but also behaviourally and culturally,and that races are ranked hierarchically based on these innate differ-ences. They believe that the white race is superior and responsible for allthe advances of Western civilization. While these are the core beliefs ofthe movement, they also mobilize against a common threat: they believethat the white race faces the threat of genocide, orchestrated by Jews,

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and carried out by blacks and other non-whites. White supremacist dis-course asserts that this genocidal plan is being carried out through forcedrace-mixing, which will result in the mongrelization and therefore theannihilation of the white race. Interracial sexuality is de�ned as the ‘ulti-mate abomination’ and images of white women stolen away by black menare the ever present symbol of that threat (Ridgeway 1990, p. 19). Theprotection of white womanhood comes to symbolize the protection of therace, thus gender relations occupy a central place in the discourse.

Because of the similarities and shared concerns of these organizations,there is a great deal of overlap among their memberships (Anti-Defama-tion League 1988b, p. 1; Langer 1990; Harper 1993). As Harper observes,divisions within the white supremacist movement often have more to dowith personality differences and clashes than with divergences in beliefand ideology (Harper 1993, p. 56).

The contemporary US white supremacist movement is part of abroader backlash against the perceived gains of equality-based socialmovements. As Michael Omi explains, the Civil Rights movement andthe subsequent shift in racial politics

ushered in a period of desegregation efforts, “equal opportunity” man-dates, and other state reforms. By the early seventies, however, a“backlash” could be discerned to the institutionalization of thesereforms and to the political realignments set in motion in the 1960s(Omi 1991, p. 78).

The contemporary white supremacist movement depicts these shifts asan attack on whites and has been able to attract a large number of disil-lusioned white people, primarily male, who now believe that their inter-ests are not being represented. As Ezekiel suggests, ‘white rule inAmerica has ended, members feel. A new world they do not like haspushed aside the traditional one they think they remember’ (Ezekiel1995, p. xxv). As an article in White Patriot asserts, ‘the White people ofAmerica have become an oppressed majority. Our people suffer fromdiscrimination in the awarding of employment, promotions, scholarships,and college entrances’ (White Patriot no. 56, p. 6).

While the contemporary white supremacist movement is concernedwith re-articulating a white identity in response to the challenges of racialand ethnic social movements, this white identity is most certainly a gen-dered identity. The contemporary white supremacist movement is also aresponse to the second wave of the feminist movement and the chal-lenges it has presented to traditional gender identities. Responding towhat is perceived as a threat to both racial and gendered certainties, thecontemporary white supremacist movement is primarily concerned withre-articulating white, male identity and privilege. In stark contrast to theimages of active, sexually independent women put forth by the women’s

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movement, white supremacist discourse depicts white women as passivevictims at the hands of Jews and blacks, and in dire need of white men’sprotection.

Despite commonly held assumptions that white supremacists are un-educated, or especially hard hit victims of economic upheaval, researchcon�rms that, like earlier incarnations of the Klan, contemporary whitesupremacist group members are similar to the US population in general,in terms of education, income and occupation (Aho 1990; Harper 1993;Ezekiel 1995). Additionally, there are white supremacist periodicalswhich target highly educated audiences (including Instauration , reviewedhere).

Since the early 1970s a wide range of radical white supremacistorganizations have been founded. In 1994 Klanwatch identi�ed 329 whitesupremacist groups in existence throughout the US (Woods 1994, p. 5D).It is dif�cult to estimate the membership of these groups, which is oftenconcealed. Harper suggests that the general membership in whitesupremacist organizations is conservatively estimated to be around40,000, while Ezekiel reports that hard-core members number 23,000 to25,000, another 150,000 purchase movement literature and take part inactivities, and an additional 450,000 actually read the movement litera-ture, even though they do not purchase it themselves (Harper 1993, p. 43;Ezekiel 1995). The Anti-Defamation League [ADL] estimates that �ftywhite supremacist periodicals continue to publish (Anti-DefamationLeague 1988b, p. 1).

Since the early 1980s the movement has become increasingly violent.Numerous organizations have established camps for paramilitary train-ing, preparing members for the coming ‘race war’. Tracking organiz-ations like the ADL have provided documentation of many murders andattempted murders committed by white supremacists, culminating in the1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (Anti-Defamation League 1988b, pp. 11–15). While certain arms of the move-ment have become increasingly violent, other white supremacists,including the well-publicized case of David Duke, have moved furtherinto the mainstream, entering traditional American politics.

White men make up the bulk of the membership of the movement, andserve as the writers, publishers, and editors of white supremacist dis-course. Ezekiel notes that the organizations he observed remain almostexclusively male, and tasks within the organizations are strictly segre-gated by gender. He notes, ‘a few women are around, never as speakersor leaders; usually they are wives, who cook and listen. Highly traditionalideas of sex roles, and fears of losing male dominance, � ll the conversa-tion and speeches’ (Ezekiel 1995, p. xxvii). Kathleen Blee’s recent workon the contemporary movement, however, documents the efforts ofmany organizations to recruit women into their ranks. ‘As a result,’ Bleesuggests, ‘women now play a highly visible and signi�cant role in the

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racist movement, constituting about 25% of the membership (and nearly50% of the new recruits) in some Klan and neo-Nazi groups’ (Blee 1995,p. 1). I suspect that these divergent accounts suggest that women’s move-ment into the movement is uneven, and largely dependent upon therecruitment efforts of speci�c organizations. Women have been targetedfor recruitment by various organizations as a strategy to increasemembership and help stabilize the membership by bringing entirefamilies into the fold. The discourse of the white supremacist movementremains highly gendered and patriarchal, and it will be important andinteresting for future analyses to explore if and how the discoursechanges in response to the growing numbers of women in these organiz-ations.

Deconstructing racial and gender difference

Deconstruction emphasizes that while binary oppositions present twoterms as oppositional, they are, instead, interdependent; each side of thedichotomy derives its meaning from the contrast, its relationship with theother side (Derrida 1974; Weedon 1987; Scott 1988a). A number ofbinary oppositions are central to white supremacist discourse, includingmale/female and white/black. According to Derrida, the binary relation-ship in Western thought is always hierarchical: the �rst terms are alwaysaccorded greater value and worth, the second terms subordinate andderivative (Derrida 1974; Scott 1988, p. 37; Hekman 1990).

The central binary opposition, however, which grounds all these othersin white supremacist discourse is the difference/equality dichotomy.Throughout white supremacist discourse, race and gender are con-structed as innate differences, and because binary oppositions are alwayshierarchized, difference in white supremacist discourse is equated withinequality. The other side of the opposition, then, is equality, which sub-sumes sameness. The difference/equality dichotomy recasts equality asnecessarily requiring sameness, whereas difference necessarily requireshierarchy.

As Scott (1988) suggests, the difference/equality dichotomy makescertain meanings possible, and others incomprehensible. Within thisdiscursive framework, racial and gender differences in contemporarywhite supremacist discourse are constructed as necessarily hierarchical,so that any attempt to question inequality is represented as a threat todifference itself. All arguments in support of equality are de�ned asattempts to erase difference and make everyone the same. An equalitythat recognizes differences is impossible within this framework. Thedifference/equality opposition is central to white supremacist discourse,and an analysis of how this dichotomy works to construct meaning willallow us to both understand and call into question this system ofmeaning.

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Producing racial essence

While white supremacist discourse adamantly supports the notion thatrace is a biological and/or god-given essence, a review of the discoursereveals the social construction of that essence. As Diana Fuss points out,‘there is no essence to essentialism . . . essence as irreducible has beenconstructed to be irreducible’ (Fuss 1989, p. 4). Exploring contemporarywhite supremacist discourse reveals the construction of race and genderas an inner essence rooted in nature and immutable.

Throughout white supremacist discourse, whiteness is constructed interms of visible, physical differences in appearance. According to onearticle, true whites are Nordics, ‘the thin, fair and symmetric race origi-nating in Northern Europe’ (Instauration , February 1980, p. 13). Inanother article, Nordics are described as:

the only cleanly chiselled faces around. And there are other ways theystand out. The world’s �nest hair and �nest skin texture are in Scandi-navia. Some of the world’s tallest statures, largest body size and mostmassive heads are also found in Northern European regions (Instau-ration, January 1980, p. 15).

Jews are also constructed as a race in this discourse, made identi�able byphysical markers such as ‘long kinky curls and typical hooked nose, thick�eshy lips, slant eyes and other typical Jew features’ (Thunderbolt , no.301, p. 6).

A great deal of effort is put into physically distinguishing races fromone another. Both the book and �lm entitled Blood in the Face take theirname from some white supremacists’ supposition that Jews cannot blush,and only true whites show ‘blood in the face’ (Ridgeway 1990). Ratherthan revealing race as a biological essence, this discourse reveals the con-tinued effort required to construct racial differences. Judith Butler sug-gests that identities are constructed through ‘the reiterative andcitational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names’(Butler 1993, p. 2). The construction of identity is not a singular act orgesture but, rather, a process or performance as Butler calls it, whichmust be continually repeated. The construction of racial and genderdifference must ‘repeat itself in order to establish the illusion of its ownuniformity and identity’ (Butler 1991, p. 24).

The process of repetition and reiteration which constructs race andgender also reveals the construction of these identities, thereby puttingthis

identity permanently at risk . . . That there is a need for repetition atall is a sign that identity is not self-identical. It requires to be institutedagain and again, which is to say that it runs the risk of becoming de-instituted at every interval (Butler 1991, p. 24).

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As we �nd in white supremacist discourse, even though racial identity isposited as a biological or god-given fact of nature, the de�nition of white-ness is in constant �ux, and there is disagreement among groups and indi-viduals over who is or is not white, and what characteristics de�newhiteness.

As Harper observes, ‘What it means to be white and who quali�es aswhite, is forged within the discourse of the publications’ (Harper 1993,p. 69). In some of the discourse white skin and European heritage are theonly requirements to be included in the category white (Harper 1993),while elsewhere Aryans are de�ned as strictly Northern Europeans, andthere is much debate on where exactly to draw the line in Europe. Asone white supremacist claims in the �lm Blood in the Face, ‘We’re moreNazi than the Nazis were!’

Because the visible characteristics constructed as markers of race arenot always evident, discerning the race of individuals is of the utmostimportance. Articles such as ‘Racial Tagging’ in Instauration reveal sur-prises in the racial identity of public �gures. As this article explains :

Racial identi�cation is a tricky game. As we keep our eyes open, westumble across the most surprising information. Recently we havebeen looking into the Portuguese origins of public �gures consideredto have been solidly Northern European in racial makeup (Instaura-tion, October 1976, p. 10).

As these periodicals construct racialized subjects, they construct race asexisting in nature prior to their discourse. Racial identity is constructedas an essence within each person which merely needs to be discovered.The discovery of race, however, is the production of the racializedsubject.

White supremacist discourse gains the authority to construct race as anorigin and essence partly through citational practices which invoke theauthority of science. Steven Seidman suggests that the power of discourseto create normative conceptions of race derives from the extent to whichit can invoke ‘the intellectual and social authority of science. A discoursethat bears the stamp of scienti�c knowledge gives its normative conceptsof identity and order an authority’ (Seidman 1991, p. 135). Just as eugenicpolicies in the early twentieth century drew upon the supposedly scien-ti�c racial studies of anthropologists and ethnologists, contemporarywhite supremacist discourse invokes the authority of science to supportits political ends. Discussion of racial difference almost always includesreferences to named scientists and doctors. For example, a typical articlereports that

Dr. Audrey Shuey of Northern Illinois University states that theaverage negro has an I.Q. 15 to 20 points lower than that of an average

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White individual . . . Dr. Robert Gayre has conducted many studieswhich show that the negro brain is on the average 100 milligramslighter than the White brain . . . Dr. Carlton Putnam . . . says that theconvolutions and thickness of the suprannual layer of the negro braincortex is 14% thinner than the Whites . . . Professor Donald Swan ofHattiesburg University states that the difference between the races isup to 75% caused by heredity (The Thunderbolt, August 1979, p. 8).

Exploring white supremacist discourse raises dif�cult questions regard-ing just where to draw the line between white supremacist extremism andthe ‘mainstream’. Scienti�c studies of racial and sexual difference, includ-ing the work of contemporary sociobiologists, are often cited as justi�-cation for white supremacist goals within the discourse.

While a great amount of effort and written space is devoted to delin-eating physical racial differences, these physical differences are alwaysinterpreted as signi�ers of deeper, underlying differences. In this dis-course, physical characteristics and culture are linked, both determinedby race and unchanging. For example, The Thunderbolt proclaims that

The White Race has created and developed most of the world’s presentand past civilizations . . . responsible for almost all of the scienti�c,engineering and productive know-how that has raised the world’s stan-dard of living . . . the only race which has been able to maintain a freedemocratic government. Liberty, justice and freedom only exist inWhite nations . . . culture, art, humanities . . . The charity and good-ness of the White Race have time and again saved the non-Whitepeoples of the world from famine and plague. The White Race in thepast has established moral codes, rules and laws, and educationalsystems for the advancement of society that have been unsurpassed byany other race in the world (The Thunderbolt, 30 May 1975, p. 8).

Additionally, this racial essence is represented as immutable. As an NSVReport article about Jews claims,

We �ght for things that they cannot understand because of theirnature; and because of their nature, they can never understandbecause they are aliens. Even if they changed their religion, they willnot be a part of our Folk. They can never be a part of our Folk for theyare aliens. They might as well be from another planet because they arenot of our world (NSV Report, October/December 1987, p. 1).

Because racial differences are posited as inherent, immutableessences, attempts to question, modify or change these differences areridiculed and depicted as fruitless. For example, a New Order articleexplains,

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Negroes are best suited for and succeed best in the roles of servantsand entertainers. Remove the White liberal from his traditional posi-tion, that is kissing the negro’s posterior, and what happens to thenegro? [He] clumsily shuf�es off, scratching his wooley head, to searchfor shoebrush and mop. In the �nal debate, an ape will always be anape (New Order, September 1979, p. 14).

Similarly, a White Power article admonishes:

Perhaps the cruelest hoax is the liberal lie of telling the Negro he’s theequal of the White man and expecting to make an instant White manout of him by sending him to college, giving him a federal handout . . .Let’s have the honesty and decency to recognize the Negro for whathe is, and not make impossible demands of him . . . This has nothingto do with “hate” or “bigotry”. I love my dog, for example, but I’m notabout to recognize her as my equal (White Power, March 1973,pp. 3–6).

The recognition of difference, here, is depicted as merely common sense.Within the equality versus difference framework, equality necessarily

entails the denial of difference. The National Vanguard refers to equal-ity as ‘Man’s Most Dangerous Myth’ because it denies ‘the essence of theinner nature’ (National Vanguard, no. 68, p. 3). An Instauration articleentitled ‘The Hoax of all the Centuries’ warns that ‘the real hoax is theequalitarian hoax, the hoax of hoaxes, the universal lie that there are nodifferences in racial intelligence’. In order to counter this hoax, furtherdocumentation of racial differences are then provided. Within the equal-ity versus difference framework, it is impossible to have equality whilealso acknowledging differences. Meaning here is constrained so thatdifference assumes inequality, and any attempt to increase racial equal-ity is recast as a threat to difference.

Producing gender difference

Like racial difference, gender difference is posited as rooted in natureand biology. Throughout this discourse, great effort is made to constantlyreiterate, and thereby produce the ‘reality’ of, sexual difference. It iscommon for many of the periodicals to invent new words in order to dis-tinguish symbolically between males and females and naturalize differ-ence. For example, there are frequent references to Jewesses, Negresses,Mulatresses, WASPesses, Shebrews, etc. (New Order, March 1979, p. 2;Instauration, December 1979, p. 13; Instauration, February 1981).Throughout the periodicals, female versions of words are created,exempli�ed by one article’s reference to ‘proditors and proditresses’(Instauration, December 1979, p. 13). As Cynthia Fuchs Epstein suggests,

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inventing female versions of words serves as a form of symbolic segre-gation, reifying gender difference (1988).

Like racial difference, gender difference is posited as not merely differ-ences in physical and biological characteristics, but differences in char-acter and personality as well. For example, a White Power article explainsthat ‘our ancestors wisely realized that women were different from mennot just biologically, but psychologically and emotionally as well. Theyrecognized that the sexes had distinct but complementary roles to playin society . . . ordained by natural law’ (White Power no. 105, p. 4).

The concept of gender equality, like racial equality, is ridiculed as adenial of innate differences. For example, a typical article entitled ‘TheOne-Hemisphere Sex’ wails:

They never stop beating the nurture drum! A Purdue professorrecently came up with the silly notion . . . that one reason for thesuperior mathematical ability of boys is they “are encouraged from anearly age to do activities which develop spatial performance” . . . So toeliminate the different learning capabilities that separate the boysfrom the girls, Dr. Wheatley tells us the latter must learn to do morecogitating with their right hemispheres. That they don’t do this andhave never done this has nothing to do with genetics, of course. It hasbeen the fault of their teachers – or a residue of Paleolithic prejudice– or male chauvinism (Instauration, September 1979, p. 19).

This article ridicules those who refuse to accept what is posited as thesimple fact that males and females are biologically different, and suggeststhat all other reasons for gender differences are simply excuses.

Both race and gender are constructed as immutable essences in thisdiscourse, and they are often interdependent. Gender difference isposited as a key component of racial difference. Drawing upon theunfounded claims of nineteenth-century evolutionary theories, a numberof articles point out that: ‘Sexual dimorphism [the difference between thesexes] is greatest in the Caucasoids’ (Instauration, January 1980, pp.14–15; Instauration , March 1981, p. 7). Differentiation is posited as thekey to advancement, and the more pronounced degree of differentiationbetween white men and women is read as a sign of white superiority.Similarly, males are posited as more differentiated than females, estab-lishing white males, then, as superior to white women and to non-whitemen and women. As one article explains, ‘Sexual dimorphism is greatestin the Caucasoids. We know further that women are less varied (smallerstandard deviations) on most physical components, such as height,weight, and intelligence (relative brain size)’ (Instauration, March 1981,p. 7). This matrix of differentiation perches white males �rmly on top.

In addition to the degree of gender difference within each race, thedifferences between white and non-white females is also emphasized as

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a feature distinguishing the white race and signalling its superiority. Thebelief that white women represent the ideal of female beauty is wide-spread and considered common-sense knowledge in this discourse. AnInstauration article credits ‘25,000 years of tough natural selection on theedge of glaciers’ with producing ‘these beauteous products of a veryspecial kind of evolution . . . these magni�cent-looking women’ (Instau-ration, May 1981, p. 36). Further re�ecting this sentiment, another articleclaims

the White woman stands at the apex of beauty . . . But what about theBlack woman? Alas, she is truly a pitiable creature. Whites have neverfound her attractive, and Blacks began to scorn her after they caughta glimpse of a White woman (National Vanguard, May 1979, p. 11).

Attempting to establish the permanence and immutability of these differ-ences, another article claims

Chinese archaeologists unearthed an ancient tomb containing amummy of a female. They describe her as follows: “The shape of herbody was extremely beautiful and she was tall. She had blond, long hairthat �owed to her shoulders. On her comely face was a pair of big eyes.You could still count her long eyelashes. Beneath her high nose wereher tiny, thin lips.” The date of the remains indicated that gentlemenpreferred blondes as early as 4480 B.C. (Instauration, May 1981, p. 23).

Gender is central to white supremacist discourse because the fate of therace is posited as hinging on the sexual behaviour of white women.Harper suggests that images of white women in this discourse depictthem either as breeders of the race, or as traitors. They are de�ned solelyin terms of their reproductive and sexual availability. Throughout thisdiscourse, all discussions of interracial sexuality revolve around imagesof white women and black men, so interracial sexuality also represents athreat to white male authority, usurping his control over both whitewomen and black men.

Interracial sexuality serves as the ultimate threat to racial and genderdifference. Eliminating all racial differences and leading to ‘mulattozombies’, interracial sexuality threatens the existence of the white race.Additionally, however, interracial sexuality is posited as a threat togender differences. For example, an Instauration article depicts a �c-tional white survival demonstration where protestors chant:

“Sweden is going brown.” “No more Ingrid Bergman.” “America isgoing brown.” “No more Cheryl Tiegs.” “France is going brown.” “Nomore Catherine Deneuve.” . . . “What is the solution?” “White sepa-ratism!” (Instauration , ‘White survival’, 1980, p. 18).

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If beauty is what makes white women unique, it is threatened by race-mixing. As another article asserts, ‘As the race goes, so goes beauty’(Instauration , ‘Black Infusions’, 1980, p. 19). Interracial sexuality comesto symbolize the ultimate threat to racial and gender identity in this dis-course.

Conclusion

The production of racial and gender difference is central to the projectof white supremacy and the construction of race and gender are inter-twined. Every white supremacist publication spends a great deal of spaceand effort producing and reiterating racial and gender difference. Thedifference versus equality framework links difference to hierarchy, sothat any threats to difference or hierarchy are posited as leading to same-ness. Interracial sexuality serves as the central metaphor of this threat.Any movements for equality are therefore recast as threats to difference.The civil rights movement, the women’s movement, and all policiesdesigned to redress inequality are ridiculed for ignoring the ‘natural fact’of difference and simultaneously perceived as a threat to white identity.

Exploring the construction of race and gender within the frameworkof the difference versus equality opposition reveals how meaning worksin this discourse. The construction of difference within this binary frame-work makes certain meanings possible, while rendering other ideasincomprehensible. Within this system of meaning, equality becomesimpossible to imagine, because it signi�es the denial of difference. Theconstruction of race and gender and the maintenance of inequality arenecessarily linked for white supremacists, and it is therefore increasinglyimportant that researchers explore the construction of race and gender,rather than taking these identities for granted as prediscursive realitiesto be studied. This analysis suggests that we cannot comprehend whitesupremacist racism without exploring the construction of white identity.White identity de�nes itself in opposition to inferior others; racism, then,becomes the maintenance of white identity. The construction of white-ness is maintained through racist and misogynist discourse.

In order to delegitimize and resist white supremacy, we must explorethe construction of race and gender within the white supremacist move-ment as well as within our own disciplines. When researchers fail toexplore the construction of race, they contribute to the reproduction ofrace as a naturally existing category. In representing race as a given foun-dation, we obscure the relations of power which constitute race as a foun-dation. Rather than taking race for granted, we need to begin to explorethe social construction of race, and the centrality of racism and misogynyto this construction.

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Acknowledgements

This research has been supported by grants from the Center for the Studyof Women in Society and the Humanities Center at the University ofOregon, Eugene, Oregon. I wish to thank Linda Fuller, Miriam Johnson,Sandra Morgen, Forrest Pyle, Dorothea Olkowski and the anonymousreviewers for Ethnic and Racial Studies for their insight and critique.

References

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ABBY L. FERBER is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Universityof Colorado at Colorado Springs.ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, University of Colorado at Col-orado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, P.O. Box 7150, ColoradoSprings, CO 80933, USA.

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Appendix. White supremacist publications

CRUSADER no dates 1970s Metairie, LA: Knights of the Ku Klux KlanTHE FIERY CROSS 1979 Robert Shelton (ed.), Swartz, LA: The United Klans of America(UKA)INSTAURATION 1976–1983 Wilmot Robertson (ed.), Cape Canaveral, FL: Howard AllenEnterprises, IncTHE NATIONAL ALLIANCE BULLETIN 1978–1980 William Pierce (ed.), Mill Point,WV: National AllianceTHE NATIONAL SOCIALIST 1982–1983 The World Union of National SocialistsNATIONAL VANGUARD 1978–1984 William Pierce (ed.), Mill Point, WV: NationalAllianceNEW ORDER 1979–1983 Gerhard Lauck (ed.), Lincoln, NE: National Socialist GermanWorkers PartyTHE NORTHLANDER 1978 Neither the Southern Poverty Law Center nor the Anti-Defamation League have information on this publicationN S BULLETIN 1974–1983 Matt Koehl (ed.), Arlington, VA and New Berlin, WI: NationalSocialist White People’s Party (THE NEW ORDER after 1982)N. S. KAMPFRUF/ N. S. Mobilizer 1974–1983 Russel R. Veh (ed.), National SocialistLeagueTHE NSV REPORT 1983–1993 Rick Cooper and Dan Stewart (eds), National SocialistVanguardTHE SPOTLIGHT 1986 Willis A. Carto (ed.), Liberty LobbyTHE THUNDERBOLT 1974–1984 J.B. Stoner and Edward Fields (eds), National StatesRights PartyTHE TORCH 1977–1979 Thomas Robb (ed.), The White People’s Committee to RestoreGod’s Laws, a division of the Church of Jesus ChristVOICE OF GERMAN AMERICANS 1977–1980 editor and publisher unknownTHE WESTERN GUARDIAN 1980 Roanoke, VA: Western Guard AmericaWHITE PATRIOT 1979–1984 Thomas Robb (ed.), Knights of the Ku Klux KlanWHITE POWER 1969–1978 Matt Koehl (ed.), Arlington, VA and New Berlin, WI:National Socialist White People’s Party

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