The Endgame of White Supremacy Is Always Death

At least 49 people were killed on Friday in an attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a man whose name — by his own admission — is irrelevant. It is irrelevant, according to a 74-page manifesto he allegedly wrote, because fame and recognition did not motivate his actions. He was driven and sought to have his attack remembered by its role in advancing a larger cause. That cause is white supremacy.

White supremacy comes in various forms, and few result in mass murder. Its most accepted manifestations thrive due to official legitimization, not 8chan-prowling killers. It can be observed in unexpected places. It finds subtle purchase in national magazine cover stories that argue for more restricted immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America, by reasoning that “too much” immigration is “destabilizing” and “politically stressful” for its host countries in Europe and North America. “Politically stressful,” in this case, means that it drives native-born white citizens to embrace demagogues and fascists. That this is as an impulse considered worth bowing to by so many suggests that immigrants are not actually the problem.

White supremacy also comes shrouded in the garb of official sanction. The bodies were still warm in Christchurch on Friday when Senator Fraser Anning of Queensland, in Australia, issued a statement claiming that “the real cause of bloodshed [at the two mosques] … is the immigration program which allowed Muslim fanatics to migrate to New Zealand in the first place.” “[Just] because the followers of this savage belief [Islam] were not the killers in this instance does not make them blameless,” Anning said, referring to the dozens of men, women, and children who were shot dead while praying.