Negotiating White Power Activist Stigma

Abstract

This article uses extensive ethnographic data on the U.S. white power movement (WPM) to describe the interactional aspects of managing activist stigma in everyday settings. We describe their stigma management as a form of everyday resistance. In the face of strong cultural codes against extreme racism, they conceal their Aryan identity to avoid the constant ire, indignation, and conflict they face from others. But, concealing their activist identity creates dissonance, which they work out by exploiting opportunities to selectively disclose features of their racist self. Disclosing aspects of their Aryan self while covering the more extreme aspects creates some expressive balance, which activists experience as resistance to social constraints on identity and self-expression that they perceive. We explain variances in the degree to which WPM members conceal and disclose their identity by focusing on structural differences in the common, everyday settings of family, work, school, and other public contexts.

white power movement, hate group, stigma management, everyday activism, right-wing extremism