Editing Belew 2018 (section)

==Chapter 7: "Race War and White Women"==



'''Main Argument:'''

Women were central to the white power movement. White women played a crucial symbolic and practical role in the white power movement of the 1980s. This was exemplified during the 1988 Fort Smith sedition trial of movement leaders.    


'''Background'''

*In the 1980s, the white power movement emphasized the symbolic importance of white women's reproduction and the creation of a white homeland in the Pacific Northwest.
*Symbolically, the white power movement invoked the purity and vulnerability of white women to justify its ideology and violence. Leaders portrayed the movement as necessary for the defense of white women from the threats of interracial relationships, non-white birth rates, and government/Zionist betrayals.
*White women were instrumental to the movement's operation and growth. They created important social ties through marriage, supported paramilitary activities, and spread propaganda. They framed their roles as wives and mothers of the white race. Mothers of future Aryan warriors. 


'''White Women as Symbols'''

White power propaganda and rhetoric emphasized the purity, chastity, and vulnerability of white women. 
*White women were portrayed as "the mothers of future Aryan warriors" who needed to be protected.
*White power iconography showed white women at the center of unified Klan and neo-Nazi groups and included depiction of the Virgin Mary.
*The protection of white women, white children and domestic spaces was used as a justification for racial violence throughout U.S. history.
*The movement connected the symbolism around white women to broader societal debates of the 1980s related to women's changing roles, reproduction, and the family. Issues like the ERA, abortion, contraception, welfare, and immigration were framed as threats to white women's fertility and the white birth rate.
*The movement placed importance on white women as reproductive vessels for the race.
*The white power movement strategically leveraged existing cultural ideas about protecting white female purity and fertility as a call to action and as a way to widen its appeal. The symbolic white woman helped to unify and motivate the movement.


'''Women's Activism and Support Roles'''

White women were active participants in the white power movement of the 1980s, even though their roles were restrained and controlled by the male-dominated structure.

*Women attended and even co-owned paramilitary training camps. While the men focused on weapons and combat training, women learned survivalist skills like canning food, making supplies, and preparing for nuclear war.
*Women provided support behind the scenes to enable the men's violent activities. This included disguising male activists, driving getaway cars, destroying evidence, transporting people and weapons, designing group medallions, and proofreading major movement writings.
*Women helped unify the movement by forging social connections between factions through Marriages and romantic relationships.
*Some women produced propaganda aimed at other women in the movement. 
*During the 1988 sedition trial of white power leaders, the presence of supportive wives and sisters in the courtroom helped create sympathy for the male defendants and made the movement seem less threatening to the American public. 


'''The Fort Smith Trial and Sheila Beam'''

The wife of white power leader Louis Beam played a significant role in the 1988 sedition trial of movement leaders who were charged with conspiring to overthrow the govement. Beam and others were ultimately acquitted. 

*Sheila and Louis had initially fled to Mexico to avoid trial. Mexico cooperated with US law enforcement and arrested them. After they were extradited back to the US, Sheila became the face of the movement while her husband was held in jail. 
*During the trail, Sheila was portrayed as an innocent victim of government persecution. She performed the narrative of vulnerable white womanhood who was a devoted wife, devout Christian, and pure Sunday school teacher.
*During the arrest in Mexico, Sheila had shot and injured a Mexican police officer. After she was extradited, she claimed she had been sexually assaulted in Mexico and abused by the police. Her perceived purity and image of a victim conferred an innocence-by-association to her husband and the other defendants.
*American  mainstream media coverage portrayed Sheila and the movement sympathetically.
*After the trial, the white power movement used the Beams' story as vindication. Their story was used to mobilize new recruits. Sheila's experience fit neatly into the central narrative of white women as victims in need of protection from the tyrannical government.


'''Summary'''

*Sheila Beam’s narrative of “endangered white womanhood” resonated with the mainstream.
*Journalists repeated Sheila Beam's account of mistreatment without much critique. Instead they focused on her injuries and fragility rather than the charges against her husband.
*Louis Beam's defense was centered on his role as a protective husband and father and a traumatized Vietnam veteran.
*Anti-miscegenation ideology and the trope of black male threats to white women persisted in 1980s culture.
*To appeal to broader anti-government sentiments of the time, Beam invoked his duty to defend the Constitution and popular sovereignty over the federal government.
*The prosecution faced major challenges:
** Jury selection was rushed by a sympathetic judge which resulted in a jury that was also sympathetic to the defendants.
**The prosecution's case was weakened by the exclusion of evidence by the judge.
**Two jurors became romantically involved with defendants after the trial which suggested bias in the jury’s decision.
*The white power movement used the victory to mobilize recruits and push its message further into the mainstream.
**Leaders of the movement pushed the verdict as a triumph of popular will over government persecution.
**The movement united with new neo-Nazi skinheads and militia members in the early 1990s.
**Activists made use of stories of victimized white women like Sheila Beam to justify violence against the government.