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Murderous Violence and the Alt-Right

Richard Collins III, one of the more than 100 victims of alt-right violence. Collins, an Army lieutenant at Bowie State University, was killed by Sean Urbanksi in a "totally unprovoked" attack in May 2017. Urbanksi faces a hate crime charge.
Over the past four years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented a string of violent acts involving the racist “alt-right” which has resulted in 43 people dead and more than 60 injured.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society. Using litigation, education, and other forms of advocacy, the SPLC works toward the day when the ideals of equal justice and equal opportunity will be a reality.

Thus far, SPLC has counted over 100 people killed or injured by alleged perpetrators influenced by the so-called alt-right—a movement that continues to access the mainstream and reach young recruits.

This week, the SPLC released a new report chronicling the history of this movement, and their connection to violence.

The violence that left one dead at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last summer should not be understood as the high-water mark for the movement as some analysts have argued. The alt-right worldview, this rebranding of old hatreds, will remain compelling to disaffected white males and those who claim to speak for them for the foreseeable future.

Worse, as this study suggests, punctuated violence will continue. For the same vision of society that the alt-right promulgates — its externalization of blame that lands on a host of enemies seen to be in the ascendancy — also aligns with the indicators of mass violence. Meanwhile, the alt-right is redoubling its efforts at youth recruitment, intensifying its rhetoric and calling for radical, individual action.

Here's an excerpt from the SPLC report:
According to Dr. Eric Madfis, author of a 2014 paper on the intersectional identities of American mass murderers, young, white, middle class, heterosexual males commit mass murder at a disproportionately high rate relative to their population size in the United States.

 The rate of mass murders spiked in the 1970s and 1990s. Between 1966 and 1999, there were 95 cases of mass public shootings. Between 1976 and 2008, mass murders occurred roughly twice per month, claiming an average of 125 deaths each month. A more recent study published by Mother Jones identifies 95 mass shootings in the United States since 1982. Of those, 55 (59%) were committed by white men.

 FBI crime data suggests that ages 16 to 24 are peak time for violent crime. According to Dr. Pete Simi, Director of the Earl Babbie Research Center at Chapman University, "This is a period of substantial transition in an individual's life, when they're less likely to have significant attachments in their life that deter them from criminal violence."

 Madfis’s 2014 paper from the University of Washington investigates the role of intersectional identities in mass murder incidents and argues that young, white males' unique downward social mobility, relative to his expectations, accounts for their overrepresentation as perpetrators of mass murder.

Read the full report.

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