The Racist Mind - Portraits of American Neo-Nazis and Klansmen, by Raphael S. Ezekiel (Viking Press, 330 pages) is a book which attempts to answer the difficult questions surrounding racism in our country by seeking to gain "an idea of the beliefs at the core of the movement today, the emotions in which those beliefs are drenched, and the life histories that lead to membership." Ezekiel, a social psychologist, was a member of the University of Michigan faculty for thirty-one years, and also served as a member of Ann Arbor's city council.
Ezekiel's well developed profile resulted from extensive research in which he actively search out admitted racists. He did not attempt to coonceal either his identity or his intentions. He simply got them to openly express their feelings and beliefs. He attended several gathering of the Klu Klux Klan in the South in order to get a general sense of that movement. Ezekiel's discussion includes a description of what he calls the "Nazification of the Klan," the disturbing growth of anti- Semitism in the KKK. He goes on to explain that images of the Third Reich "speak more loudly to potential recruits than do older legends of the Confederacy's Lost Cause." In speaking with national leaders such as Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance, Dave Holland of the Southern White Knights, and Richard Butler of Aryan Nations, he was able to overtly infiltrate the inner circle of the movement. Finally, his study concludes with profiles of several neo-Nazis in the Detroit area. Ezekiel, who is Jewish, simply tried to determine how these people justified their views. He did not attempt to confront them; he was simply looking for their own explanations of their ideas. He treats these people with respect even while they continue to proclaim their hatred towards him.
The flawed logic of the movement is painfully clear, and Ezekiel is able to convey many of the book's main points in his powerful introduction. He stresses that, above all, racists can only "identify themselves in terms of race." Furthermore, he states that "only challenge or crisis makes this categorization relevant. The militant white racist movement is composed of people who permanently feel in crisis." They believe that the majority of the population is "numb and passive, seduced and tranquilized by the enemy." Ezekiel's profile of the KKK members is chilling. One certainly has to admire his courage as he describes how he walked among the Klansmen at the rally at Stone Mountain, Georgia. The narrative nature of these descriptions really captures the tension of these situations, serving as an important commentary on the state of our nation, but more importantly, also the state of the human race.