Kathleen Belew | |
---|---|
Born | November 11, 1981 |
Occupation(s) | Historian, professor, writer |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Northwestern University |
Website | www |
Kathleen Belew (born November 11,1981) is an American tenured associate professor of history at Northwestern University,and an international authority on the white power movement. [1]
She is the author of Bring the War Home (2019),co-edited A Field Guide to White Supremacy (2021) with Ramón A. Gutiérrez,and contributed essays to The Presidency of Donald J. Trump:A First Historical Assessment (2022) and the New York Times bestseller Myth America:Historians Take on the Biggest Lies and Legends about Our Past (2023). Her forthcoming book,to be published by Random House,is titled Home at the End of the World. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Beast, CNN.com,and Dissent ,and was a CNN contributor. [2] [3] [4]
In 2005,Belew graduated with a bachelor's degree (B.A.) in the Comparative History of Ideas from University of Washington,where she was named Dean's Medalist in the Humanities. She obtained a master's degree (M.Phil.) in 2008, [5] and then a doctoral degree (Ph.D.) in 2011,both in American Studies from Yale University. [6] [7] She was a professor of U.S. History at the University of Chicago,where she received tenure in 2021,until leaving for Northwestern University in 2022. [5] Her research received the support of several organizations,such as the Chauncey and Marion Deering McCormick Foundation,the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,and the Jacob K. Javits Foundation. [8] She held postdoctoral fellowships from the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University,Rutgers University,and Stanford University. Some of Belew's most popular courses include The American Apocalypse,History of the Present,The American Vigilante,and Histories of Violence. Her research and teaching focuses on the themes of history of the present,American conservatism,race,gender,violence,and the meaning of war,as well as racism,the white power movement,and militarism in the 21st-century United States. [5]
Belew spent ten years of research to write her first book, Bring the War Home:The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America . Her research has been featured in several documentaries,such as Homegrown Hate:The War Among Us by ABC News and Documenting Hate:New American Nazis by PBS's Frontline ,and she has appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show , The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell , Anderson Cooper 360° ,Frontline,and NPR's Fresh Air and All Things Considered ,among others. Between 2011 and 2019,there were 16 high-profile attacks linked to white nationalism around the world;175 people were killed in these attacks. [9] She commented:"Too many people still think of these attacks as single events,rather than interconnected actions carried out by domestic terrorists. We spend too much ink dividing them into anti-immigrant,racist,anti-Muslim or antisemitic attacks. True,they are these things. But they are also connected with one another through a broader white power ideology." [9] [10]
In September 2019,Belew was a witness at a congressional hearing on confronting white nationalism. [11] In her witness statement,Belew described what she terms "the white power movement" as a "threat to our democracy",said that it was "transnational",and "connected neo-Nazis,Klansmen,skinheads,radical tax protestors,militia members,and others." [12] She advocated forming something like the 2005 Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a step towards a solution to the problem. [12] Congressman Jim Jordan and other members of the Republican Party criticized Belew after she argued with the conservative witness Candace Owens. [11] [13]
The Ku Klux Klan, commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is the name of several historical and current American white supremacist, far-right terrorist organizations and hate groups. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, the Klan was "the first organized terror movement in American history." Their primary targets, at various times and places, have been African Americans, Jews, and Catholics.
White supremacy is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and was a key justification for European colonialism.
Black supremacy or black supremacism is a racial supremacist belief which maintains that black people are inherently superior to people of other races.
Northwestern University (NU) is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest chartered university in Illinois. The university has its main campus along the shores of Lake Michigan in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Ella Josephine Baker was an African-American civil rights and human rights activist. She was a largely behind-the-scenes organizer whose career spanned more than five decades. In New York City and the South, she worked alongside some of the most noted civil rights leaders of the 20th century, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Thurgood Marshall, A. Philip Randolph, and Martin Luther King Jr. She also mentored many emerging activists, such as Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael, and Bob Moses, as leaders in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
White pride and white power are expressions primarily used by white separatist, white nationalist, fascist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints. It is also a slogan used by the prominent post-Ku Klux Klan group Stormfront and a term used to make racist/racialist viewpoints more palatable to the general public who may associate historical abuses with the terms white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist.
Candace Wheeler, traditionally credited as the mother of interior design, was one of America's first woman interior and textile designers. She helped open the field of interior design to women, supported craftswomen, and promoted American design reform. A committed feminist, she intentionally employed women and encouraged their education, especially in the fine and applied arts, and fostered home industries for rural women. She also did editorial work and wrote several books and many articles, encompassing fiction, semi-fiction and non-fiction, for adults and children. She used her exceptional organizational skills to co-found both the Society of Decorative Art in New York City (1877) and the New York Exchange for Women's Work (1878); and she partnered with Louis Comfort Tiffany and others in designing interiors, specializing in textiles (1879-1883), then founded her own firm, The Associated Artists (1883-1907).
Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer is an Argentinian sociologist and the Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. She is an economic sociologist who focuses on the attribution of cultural and moral meaning to the economy. A constant theme in her work is the economic valuation of the sacred, as found in such contexts as life insurance settlements and economic transactions between sexual intimates. In 2006, she was elected to the PEN American Center, and in 2007 she was elected to both the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Louis Ray Beam, Jr. is an American white supremacist, conspiracy theorist and neo-fascist.
Christian nationalism is a type of religious nationalism that is affiliated with Christianity. It primarily focuses on the internal politics of society, such as legislating civil and criminal laws that reflect their view of Christianity and the role of religion/s in political and social life.
Kathleen Neal Cleaver is an American law professor and activist, known for her involvement with the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party, a political and revolutionary.
Dorothy E. Roberts is an American sociologist, law professor, and social justice advocate. She is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor, George A. Weiss University Professor, and inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. She writes and lectures on gender, race, and class in legal issues. Her focuses include reproductive health, child welfare, and bioethics. In 2023, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. She has published over 80 articles and essays in books and scholarly journals, including Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, and Stanford Law Review.
Stormfront is a neo-Nazi Internet forum, and the Web's first major racial hate site. The site is focused on propagating white nationalism, Nazism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as anti-feminism, homophobia, transphobia, Holocaust denial, and white supremacy.
Black nationalism is a nationalist movement which seeks representation for black people as a distinct national identity, especially in racialized, colonial and postcolonial societies. Its earliest proponents saw it as a way to advocate for democratic representation in culturally plural societies or to establish self-governing independent nation-states for black people. Modern black nationalism often aims for the social, political, and economic empowerment of black communities within white majority societies, either as an alternative to assimilation or as a way to ensure greater representation and equality within predominantly Eurocentric or white cultures.
Kevin Michael Kruse is an American historian and a professor of history at Princeton University. His research interests include the political, social, and urban/suburban history of 20th-century America, with a particular focus on the making of modern conservatism. Outside of academia, Kruse has attracted substantial attention and following for his Twitter threads where he provides historical context for and applies historical research to current political events.
The Candace Award is an award that was given from 1982 to 1992 by the National Coalition of 100 Black Women (NCBW) to "Black role models of uncommon distinction who have set a standard of excellence for young people of all races". Candace was the ancient Ethiopian title for queen or empress. "Candace, queen of the Ethiopians" is mentioned in the Bible: Philip meets "a eunuch of great authority" under her reign and converts him to Christianity. The awards ceremony was held each year at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
Elle Moxley is an American transgender rights activist. She co-founded the Black Lives Matter Global Network, where she served as a strategic partner and organizing coordinator, and founded The Marsha P. Johnson Institute, where she serves as executive director.
Candace Amber Owens Farmer is an American conservative political commentator, author, activist, and television presenter.
Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America is a book written by Kathleen Belew.
Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past is a book of essays by 20 leading historians and other academics debunking popular beliefs regarding events in American history, as well as more contemporary issues. The book was published by Basic Books in early 2023.