If many people were shocked by Trump’s 2016 election, many more were stunned when, months later, white power extremists took to the streets of  Charlottesville chanting “Blood and Soil” and “Jews will not replace us!” Like Trump, the Charlottesville marchers were dismissed as aberrations -- the  momentary appearance of “racists” and “haters” who did not represent the real United States. Rather than being exceptional, these events are symptoms of the country’s long history of racism and systemic white supremacy, genocide, and atrocity crimes. And, as underscored by the Capitol riot that ended  Trump’s term, there is a likelihood that such violence will occur here again. This reality, the author argues in a recently published book, It Can Happen  Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the US, is a key lesson we learned from the Trump presidency. It is also a lesson that is connected  to the white power frame of white genocide, or the feared extinction of the white race that legitimates race war and even the genocide of non-whites in  response. This talk discusses the origins of this idea and its connection to the pre– and post–civil rights history of white power extremism—ranging from  the systemic white supremacy that informed settler colonial genocide and slavery to the ideology of contemporary groups like the alt-right. The talk  concludes by noting how the idea of white genocide was directly mobilized not just by groups like the alt-right, but mainstream media and the Trump  administration -- and what some of these lessons learned suggest about the 2024 election. 

Featured Speaker
Alexander Hinton, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, Rutgers University, UNESCO Chair on Genocide Prevention 

Refreshments provided by Chartwells. 

This event is sponsored by Jewish Studies using The Lois and Frank Lautenberg Jewish Lecture Fund and Co-Sponsored by Peace and Conflict Studies.