White Nationalists & Invisible Borders

In the video "Why white nationalists hear a political ally in Donald Trump" I found it incredibly startling that when the reporter asked Matthew Heimbach if he thinks he and the other members of his group are racist he avoided answering the question. But in his answer it is clear that what he is doing is completely driven by racist intentions as he and other members of this Traditionalist Worker Party want what's best for themselves as white people as they strive to create a community where members of their party will live. I also found it shocking that he clearly doesn't understand what he's doing is not in any way progressive but instead this movement, along with many other groups similar to his, are making this country take quite a few steps back. These people are living in such a small community and have probably grown up very closed minded so their views are reflecting their upbringing and the people they are surrounding themselves with. It makes no sense to me to blame the fact that there are shops and businesses closing in your small town because off "the global Jewish economic and banking interests".

Carol Anderson made a great point that the racism that is fueling these people is based on the fear that America is becoming more diverse and these people from this small town don't know how to handle this. When one man from the party said very confidently that this country belongs to him I couldn't help but laugh. This country only "belongs" to him because his ancestors, who weren't even from this country, came over and forcefully took this land where his house is built and where he attends his white supremacy rallies from those that this land actually belonged to. If someone did this to him he would cause an uproar but he sees nothing wrong with what he is doing because this land belongs to him.

One of the quotes from the graduate student roundtable in chapter 2 resonated with me as I was watching this video. “The relationship between American literature and geography, so far from being something that can be taken as natural, involves contested terrain, terrain which has been subject over the centuries to many different kinds of mutation and controversy” (Giles 39). To me this meant,in terms of this video, that over the life of this nation the land has been claimed by many people who think it belongs to them. The borders of this country have changed and are still continuing to change, maybe not physically but as we divide ourselves based on religion and race and sexuality we are putting up invisible borders and between "us" and "them" and this is affecting our country daily. I think it can be hard to discover where we belong these days because of these ever evolving invisible borders.