This provocative heading on a flyer distributed by Aryan Nations is meant to capture viewers' attention and entice them to read on. Beneath the prominent heading is a photograph of a white woman with her arms wrapped around the neck of a black man with the caption "The Ultimate Abomination." Throughout white supremacist discourse, interracial sexual relationships are defined as the greatest threat, the worst thing imaginable. At the root of white supremacist anxiety and fear interracial sexuality is the convenient threat deployed to guard against intrusions upon white male political and economic dominance.

There has been a great deal of white supremacist violence aimed at interracial couples and mixed-race families. On September 8, 1992, in Spokane, Washington, "a man walked into the downtown Greyhound bus station, pulled a .38 caliber handgun from his belt and fired five shots without warning" at a young couple. They were shot and wounded because the man was black and the woman was white. As the assailant explained, "I just knew they should die because of what they had done. I think he put his arm around her or something." [Ferber p 99]

Interracial sexuality [throughout white supremacist literature] is depicted as polluting whiteness. [Ferber p 101]

It is the white female and the black male, then, who are seen as polluting persons in white supremacist discourse. [Ferber p 102]

The image of a white woman with a black man is relied upon throughout the [white supremacist] discourse and serves as a powerful metaphor for the danger of interracial sexuality. ..... [T]he image of the lustful, dangerous black male is firmly rooted in, and reiterated throughout, American history. [Ferber p 103]

This narrative, which defines black males as animalistic and savage, is central to white American identity, and, as Houston A. Baker reminds us, "this scene plays itself out . . . with infinite variation in American history."

Even the mainstream media have exploited events of interracial violence in a sensationalistic manner.

Ferber refers to Valerie Smith who [citing cases like the Tawana Brawley case, the Central Park rape, the Willie Horton case, etc] argues that the mainstream media rearticulated and invigorated "myths of black male animalism and of the black male rapist. . . . In terms that recalled lynch law at the turn of the century." [Ferber p 104]

Valerie Smith "Split affinities: The case of interracial rape." In Theorizing geminism: Parallel trends in the humanities and social sciences, edited by Anne C. Herrmann and Abigail J. Stewart. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.

This narrative that positions the black man as a constant sexual threat is reiterated and manipulated in contemporary white supremacist discourse. The fact that discussion of interracial sexuality in this discourse pivots almost exclusively on this image reveals the staying power of this narrative and fear. [Ferber p 104]

The image of interracial sexuality between black men and white women is so powerful that it serves as a metaphjor throughout the discourse for not just all interracial sexuality, but all threats to the racial and gender order constructed and supported in the discourse . . . . This image is manipulated to not only rationalize violence against people of color but to justify white supremacy as natural and necessary. [Ferber p 104-5]

For white supremacists, interracial sexual relations between white women and black men are the ultimate affront to white male power.

Black males are defined as a threat to white women and therefore to white masculinity and the unrestricted access of white males to white women. White women are defined as innocent, frail, and passive, always in need of white male protection. It is white women who are at risk of being seduced into interracial sexual relationships. For example, a Thunderbolt article proclaims, "Let us warn our young White women of the great danger inherent in socializing with black males." There are no similar warnings for white men.

In white supremacist discourse, the battle over racial identity is fought over the bodies of white women. [Ferber p 106]

An Angry white preacher: Herbert W. Armstrong

More on angry white males: Gordon Allport

The New Martyrs

Malcolm X pinpointed, probably accurately, "white man's two major dreads .... The first one was his own private belief that God wrathfully is going to destroy this civilization. And the white man's second most pervading dread was his image of the black man entering the body of the white woman." [p 306, Autobiography]

White man's rabid fear of black man (A 'DEFINITION' of Negro) "Negroes are the possessors of the darkest pigmentation of all mankind." Most are dark-brown or brownish-black in skin color. Negro hair is prevailingly coarse, and wiry, and tightly curled, kinky or woolly. Negro skulls are with few exceptions long and narrow. The occipital regions juts out, as does the lower portion of the face, rendering the Negro skull prognathous. This distinctive aspect of facial appearance is accentuated by the thick, everted mucous membrane that forms the lips. The Negro nose is broad, with flaring alae and a broad, deeply depressed bridge. The hair on the head, though thick, is short in length, while the male facial hair is sparse and the body skin smooth and virtually hairless. Musculature and genitalia. Facial prognathism marked.

Abby L. Ferber. White Man Falling: Race, Gender, and White Supremacy, 1998.