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Whiteness Paper 5. - Why White People Love White Supremacists
Why White People Love White Supremacists:
A psychoanalytic group relations perspective of white anti-racism
by Peter Heinze, Ph.D.
Whiteness Paper No. 5
April 2006
ABSTRACT
White supremacists can be easy targets for intense feelings of anger and rage on the part of anti-racism activists. Indeed, this rage seems quite justified. However, the influence of Cartesian dualism on White Euro-American thinking fuels the tendency to create the artificial distinction of individuals as either racist or non-racist. This false dichotomy contributes to the inaccurate belief that those who are recists are qualitatively different from those who feel they are not. In contrast to this dichotomy, it is suggested that considering racism as existing on a continuum is both more realistic and informative. With such a paradigm, as opposed to being labeled as either racist or non-racist, individuals are conceptualized as possessing greater or lesser degrees of racist thinking, with the acknowledgement that it is misleading to believe that individuals can be totally devoid of any racist thinking. Psychoanalytic group relations theory would suggest that, as objects of such rage, white supremacists are convenient receptacles for split-off and projected feelings of unconscious racism and/or intolerance on the part of whites who perceive themselves as non-racists. Such a perspective supports the idea of racism existing on a continuum and addresses how whites who perceive themselves as "nonracist" might unconsciously use white supremacists in order to maintain this self-perception. After a discussion of how racism is conceptualized, this paper addresses the dynamics which contribute to the unconscious collusion between white anti-racists and white supremacists. Finally, suggestions for how awareness of uncionscious dynamics can help foster productive group processes are discussed.
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