zanabism:

the reason why publications like the NYT put out these weird profile pieces on white supremacists and drone on and on about how they are just “regular run of the mill average” people is because it’s actually fascinating to these always-white and always-liberal journalists that these nazis can be so shockingly like them. they’re obsessed with why people who are so similar to them in every way (i.e. middle class, well-educated, typical household-of-america) would choose to promote so much violence against racialized people. 

every one of those articles scream “i’m not like this…so why are you?” because these pretentious, clueless Ivy league brats are so befuddled why white people so identical to them could be so hateful. 

it’s never surprising to anyone living a life of marginalization that the nazi next door likes typical shit like Friends or onion rings but these journalists obsess over it. their assumption is always that nazis and white supremacists and racists are these clear-cut monsters that they have nothing in common with, and their main concern is the ability to feel safe about being different from them. 

no matter how educated they are, white people literally cannot fathom white supremacy as a constant, everlasting component in the organizational fibre of eurocentric societies – it’s always “fringe” or some other distant ideology they have nothing to do with – “those guys over there are the problem” 

so when they’re confronted with this truth that, actually, white supremacists have always been their uncles, husbands, girlfriends and cousins, it feels like a 100% novel discovery to them and that’s why they write those fucking essays about Nate the white supremacist like they’ve just unearthed some new and riveting truth about humankind