Heathen Racism, Guilt by Association, and White Responsibility

Yesterday I was reading about how a Heathen band was accused of racism by an anti-fascist group and pulled from a Pagan Pride Day musical lineup.

I'm not going to go into this specific event a whole lot because I'm not that intimately familiar with this specific subject.  In fact, everything I've heard about Antifa brings to mind extremely reactionary, short-fused "revolutionary" groups that are steeped in serious problems.  Rather, I'd like to talk a little about the mouth-lathering hatred white people (and in fact any other majority group) have with "guilt by association."  The premise is that if a white person does, wears, or says something that is most typically associated with racists--even if the thing itself is not inherently racist--then people will often erroneously associate that person themself with racism, which is "bad."

In this case, the band Norsewind has been charged with racism for a few specific things:

• Repeatedly playing events put on by a vividly obvious white supremacist group.
• Being Facebook friends with vividly obvious white supremacists.
• Use of a "black sun" graphic on an album.

Of course, there are now Pagans coming out in droves to decry that these things would cause somebody to be viewed as a legitimate white nationalist.  I'd like to respond to some of the sentiments in these comments here.

There was no anti-fascist violence in this case. Simply that a band-- who wants to be in both worlds-- was canceled.

 As well as the band's lead singer's comment that they are "apolitical:"

I’m not a White Supremacist; I’m not for that at all. I don’t share those views. I don’t judge people on their politics. I don’t hate anyone. I have no hate in me. I have love for all people. Why can’t people just be people and love each other?

There seems to be the idea that it's possible for somebody to be non-racist and yet still apolitical or "partaking in both worlds."  The problem is that with racism and white supremacy so firmly ingrained in our society, it just isn't possible to be "apolitical," or to try co-existing in "both worlds," or to never judge people on their politics, without also supporting white supremacy.  If you never explicitly speak out against white supremacist beliefs, you are supporting the status quo, and the status quo is white supremacy.

Something that looks like it may complicate things--but doesn't really--is the fact that racist groups have so thoroughly appropriated a lot of symbolism that long predates their concept of race.  The swastika for instance has been historically used by ancient Northern Europeans, various groups of Native Americans, Buddhists, and several others and has been long before the Nazis got to it.  Norse reconstructionists, Heathens, and other similar practitioners therefore wind up using multiple symbols that are also used by neo-Nazis, and that gets in peoples' gourd a lot:

There's a problem with people jumping at everything that even smells like white supremacism...unfortunately lots of Germanic symbolism has been appropriated by them. There needs to be more nuance and research before people jump to [conclusions]. 

Here's why it's not really, complicated, though:  In today's world, where these symbols are very strongly associated with white supremacy for very damn good reasons, it is irresponsible to knowingly continue using them without really understanding how you're making other people feel and really having the tools and willingness to use them to really justify that use.

Some of the Native American groups above abandoned the use of the swastika completely.  This is something they didn't have to do.  Any reasonable person would have understood why their use of the swastika was entirely different in less than five minutes of explanation.  They abandoned that symbol because they were standing in solidarity with the people who have been seriously harmed under it.  And these are people who had a well-documented lineage and upbringing supporting the use of that symbol, not a bunch of white people who decided to reconstruct something, knowing damn well how it would make people feel and expecting to get away with it with only minimal explanation or justification, and most importantly, with no interest whatsoever in actually derailing white supremacy.

This group's issue isn't a swastika.  It's a black sun.  The same principle applies, though.  You can't knowingly use a symbol that's been thoroughly adopted by white supremacists, stick it on an album cover, play repeatedly for known white supremacist groups, call yourself "apolitical," and then insist that people shouldn't think you're a white supremacist.

I think people need to understand the difference between "white separatists/nationalists" and "supremacists". There is a difference; I have friends in the former movement. While I don't share their views, they are not hateful people per se. But if people continue to drive them into a corner and lump them in with hate groups, they will surely swing that way eventually.

I'm going to say something here that might shock and amaze you:  There is no difference.  No matter how many times some white supremacist tells you there is.

I'll tell you a quick story.  One time, before I understood a lot of what I now consider almost "racist Pagan keywords," I met a woman who identified herself as an Odinist and had a big tattoo on her arm of a symbol widely used by racists.  I friended her on Facebook and was immediately met by post after post whining and moaning that just because she wants to preserve white people culture doesn't mean she's racist.  She is a white separatist.  She believes that people of color have no business worshiping her Gods and is not afraid to maintain that in the most direct way possible.  She--and many others like her--rationalizes this by maintaining that the Gods are our literal ancestors, and that without said blood connection the Gods will not listen to you.  People who maintain this are heavily likely to gauge this validity entirely based on skin color.

Most black people and many other people of color in the United States have recent white ancestry, and the most common white ancestry in the United States is Germanic.  So this justification for white separatism in Germanic Pagan religions is not just imaginary, it's biologically inaccurate for the vast majority of United States blacks and many other people of color.  This hasn't stopped them from throwing fits at the idea of people of color have any right in their spaces.  There is no white separatism without white supremacy.

But let's go back to this idea of being "apolitical."

I was at a Pagan Pride Day celebration I believe a year ago, where a couple of friends of mine put together a discussion about social justice issues.  This wound up being attended by mostly unknowledgeable white Pagans, with a few open white supremacists (who don't call themselves white supremacists, but absolutely are).  This discussion very quickly was badly derailed by people until it devolved into a ridiculous and irrelevant bickering back-and-forth about how we shouldn't dwell on black criminals being black but if you're describing one black person in a group of white people like... why shouldn't you use that as a descriptor?

This group of people diehardedly maintained that talking about racism was somehow making it worse because in talking about racism we are forced to acknowledge race.  Unfortunately, most people today have been taught through "tolerance" workshops as children that the most important way to fight racism is to be "colorblind," or avoid acknowledging race at all.  The fact that so many white people have been taught this and have wholeheartedly accepted it as 100% fact has led to such bewildering phenomena as liberal white people who think affirmative action is racist against them.

And these were average white Pagans.  Most of them are not white separatists.  Their problem isn't that they don't want people of color showing up, but that they're so unknowledgeable about the subject that they didn't even notice there weren't any there to begin with.  When the subject is brought up, they rely on the fiction that they can be apolitical about it, relying on the assumption that if they just don't mention race at all, they aren't racist.  They are also upholding white supremacy by their silence.  But even these people--with the exception of the obvious white supremacists--would probably not have associated with an obvious hate group.  That said, why are people continuing to defend Norse Wind?  They didn't just not act.  They contributed to normalizing racism by just treating it like any old gig.

The only way to actually work toward eradicating racism is to say something and actually work through your actions.  That said, the Pagan Pride Day event that decided to cut a band from performing upon learning this stuff about them--even if the group that originally pointed this out is somewhat objectionable--was totally in the right.  They did something.  They sent a message that white supremacy and white separatism in Paganism is not OK and they will not promote it.  That is their responsibility, and it is all our responsibility.