Commentary: Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America by Vegas Tenold
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Vegas Tenold's journalism in Everything You Love Will Burn explores the rebirth of white nationalism in America through the lens of a young, up-and-coming alt-right leader, Matthew Heimbach. Tenold floats in and out of Heimbach's life, attending rallies, events, and protests with alt-right groups like NSM, the Hammerskins, and the White Knights of the Klan, leading up to the 2016 election and afterward, into the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, all to try to understand this movement and where it's headed in the age of the internet.
I must be honest with each of you today: This was the hardest book I have ever read.
Over the last year, I've been studying White Nationalism and White Supremacy in order to fight against them. In an urgent, desperate search for a way to fight back, I turned to books, articles, and personal stories from activists I know from around the Pacific Northwest, where white nationalist and far-right activities are visible and growing. The tangle of fact and fiction, intentionally vague and confusing, makes WN and WS seem impossible to defeat. But people are beginning to fight back, utilizing their unique circumstances, skills, and cultures to cultivate community-based defenses. I have found that the first step towards those defenses is learning from people like Vegas Tenold-- uncovering weaknesses and soft-spots in a dangerous movement.
One thing I've learned from Tenold's book is that this movement evolves in sinister ways and we must all be educated in the coded language these groups use if we are to defeat them. Some newer, younger groups that have formed on college campuses, focusing on "western civilization", are deliberately moving away from overtly violent language, claiming that they aren't racist; they are just proud to be white. If we aren't careful, these groups may just convince America that they aren't hate groups-- but indeed they still are.
Tenold puts it perfectly. He writes,
"The problem with white pride is the same as with All Lives Matter. It implies that there isn't a gap between races, that the long history of state-sanctioned white supremacy in America hadn't created a radically uneven playing field. Saying white pride is offensive not because there is anything inherently wrong with being white but because it demonstrates a profound lack of respect for the struggles that minorities had fought and are still fighting. There is massive suffering in poor and predominantly white parts of the country, but using this as proof that the struggles of whites are the same as those of African Americans is like saying that global warming is a fallacy because it's snowing outside."
I struggled to read this book not just because of the harmful content, but also because I'm trying to wrap my mind around a movement that isn't based in a logical, truth-centered reality. Trying to find ways to fight this movement is like trying to hold water in your hands without spilling it. The movement morphs and spills in ways that are both ridiculous and strategic. The changes are chaotic and also incredibly smart. It seemed like every time I considered a tool to fight back with, the next page revealed that such a tool won't work.
But today, as I write this, I am realizing that our fight can't be rooted in a broad, sweeping, cure-all tool. Instead, I'm rooting my fight in the tools my identity provides me. I came to this realization after unpacking my experience of reading this book.
In my work, I read many texts that are extremely unpleasant to read, and yet this one was different-- unique. Though written in an easy-to-read structure and voice, I found myself experiencing a sensation I've never experienced before. The horrible sensation I felt is not just one thing alone. It isn't just discomfort with reading about fellow white people that find homes in these groups. It isn't just disgust while reading about the violence against Black and Brown folks, Jews, Muslims, and queer people. It isn't just terror or anger or hopelessness. When I first began, though I knew what to expect, I found myself frequently stopping, closing my eyes, and breathing deeply to keep the nausea at bay. As I continued, the sick feeling lessened its grip on me, but my hands still shook holding the book in front of my face. To combat the sinister depression, the anger, the grief that I felt, I called people. Just to talk. Just to not feel alone in that moment. Just for a brief reprieve. But it never felt like enough. Once the phone calls ended, this book was still in my lap, staring at me, waiting to swallow me up again. WN was still out there, still growing, still changing, still violent and terrifying.
The phone calls were a momentary relief, but not a solution. But do you know what was? My Jewishness. The one thing that kept me going through this story and the one thing that keeps me working was and is my Jewishness.
Suddenly, the three daily prayers weren't just a thing I am supposed to do; they offered a space for grief and mourning. Suddenly celebrating Shabbat wasn't just a moment for rest; it was a radical space for healing. Lighting the Shabbat candles wasn't just a beautiful, touching moment of celebration-- to welcome the Sabbath Bride; it was reaching for light, feeling it glow, warming the parts of myself that this work makes cold.
There is a principle, a philosophy in Jewish thought that guides my work in writing, reading, and community organizing: Tikkun Olam-- acts of kindness that repair our world. In the beginning, there was a light that shattered into pieces. Those pieces were flung across the universe. It is our job in life to put those pieces of light back together-- to assist G-d in the act of creation through repair and making whole.
I may not have all the tools or the answers about how to defeat WN and WS. But what I do have is the knowledge to seek out the broken pieces of light. What I do have is a search for wholeness. What I do have are all the Jews before me; I experience creation as the tapestry of their work before my own. And, for me, that's a remarkable step forward. I feel braver and surer in this work than before and that's a gift in itself.