One Sheaf, One Vine

This book is made up of personal statements about race from seventeen racially conscious white Americans.  By racially conscious I mean that, for them, the fact that they are white--other terms, European American, Euro--is more than an incidental, insignificant, or peripheral aspect of their being.  Their racial identity is central to how they view themselves and conduct their lives.  The people you will meet come from virtually every part of the country.  None of them knew any of the others when this project began (I introduced several to one or two of the others after I had gathered the material for the book).

What you will read is drawn from an audiotape-recorded conversation I had with each of these individuals separately (in one case it was a couple).  Conversation is a more accurate term than interview for what went on between them and me.  I didn’t have an interview protocol that I used with everyone. There was nothing so formal as that.  Instead, I was guided by a list of topics and themes I wanted to explore with each person.  I edited myself out of the transcription of each tape so that it was just a statement, or personal account, from the person I talked with.  I gave each statement a title and wrote a brief preface to introduce the speaker.  After transcribing nine of the tapes myself, I suddenly lost virtually all my hearing and could no longer hear the voices on the tapes.  I am appreciative of Katrina Gibson’s excellent work transcribing the last seven tapes, as well as for her editorial assistance.

The words in this book are the speakers’.  I did some editing for length and to avoid repetition and maintain continuity, but I was careful not to alter, soften, or censor anything someone said.  As much as possible, I want you to experience these individuals as I did, and reading back over the statements, I think you will.

This book grows out of another book I authored, The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds: An Up-Close Portrait of White Nationalist William Pierce, which was published in 2000.  William Pierce, who died in July of 2002, was a prominent figure in the white nationalist (another term, white racialist) movement.  He was the founder and chairman of the National Alliance, which has around two thousand members and is headquartered on Pierce’s 340-acre property in rural West Virginia.  Pierce is best known as the author of the widely read--a half million readers--underground novel, The Turner Diaries, which describes the racially motivated terrorist acts of a band of white American revolutionaries against a corrupt federal government and its supporters.

In the process of researching the Pierce book in the late 1990s, I met a number of white racialists, some followers of Pierce and some not.  After the book was published, other racially aware whites contacted me, and I met still others at various meetings and through the Internet.  What has struck me about the three hundred or more people I have encountered over the past five years, and I include the leaders of the movement in this characterization, is how invisible and silent they are in the public arena.  To be sure, we have a generalized image of people of this sort and what they believe: ignorant, violence-prone KKK members, menacing skinheads, and low-life or deranged thugs doing their “perp walks” after committing a heinous hate crime against minorities.  The vast majority of the white nationalists I have met do not fit these stereotypes, but how would average Americans know that?  These people aren’t on the television news shows speaking for themselves.  They don’t make movies.  They don’t publish books and articles.  Politicians don’t articulate their perspective and advocate their positions.  Journalists and intellectuals don’t write about them unless it is to belittle them.  They aren’t on university and college faculties, and schools make no attempt to consider them objectively.

What has also struck me about the people I have met is that, at least in my view, they have something to say that would contribute to the public dialogue and debate.  I believe this society and culture would benefit from hearing what they think about race.  Which is not to say that I consider them to be right about everything.  I do offer, however, that, in the main, white racialists are serious and thoughtful and sincere, and they are trying to live just and honorable lives.  If you find this to be true of the people in this book, know that they aren’t exceptional.  They are typical.