Why Are Some People Of Color Drawn To White Supremacy?

One Saturday afternoon in early May, 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia opened fire at an outlet mall near Dallas, killing eight people, including children.

Garcia, who was shot and killed by police, had tattoos of Nazi symbols. He kept a diary in which he professed a white-power ideology, and wrote about becoming a “full-blown white supremacist.” He self-identified as Hispanic.

A couple of weeks later, 19-year-old Sai Varshith Kandula crashed a rented U-Haul truck into a White House security barrier. Kandula, who reportedly is Indian American, was carrying a Nazi flag when he was arrested. He allegedly told authorities that he admired Nazis and Adolf Hitler, and was trying to seize control of the U.S. government.

Experts who study extremism say that as counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s not entirely uncommon to see people of color drawn to far-right extremist or white-nationalist ideologies.