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Want to Meet America’s Worst Racists? Come to the Northwest

Confederate sympathizers have nothing on the ‘Northwest Front.’

By CASEY MICHEL 
July 07, 2015

Much of the national debate over racism in the aftermath of last month’s mass murder in Charleston, S.C., has focused on the South and its strange and sometimes jarring nostalgia for the Confederacy. And yet tucked away in the Pacific Northwest of the United States is a vicious group that most people have never heard of but the nation’s most virulent online racists know well (among them, accused South Carolina murderer Dylann Roof, who wrote about the group in his now-infamous “manifesto”).
The group is called the Northwest Front and its final solution to the race "problem," if you will, is to expel non-white people from the Pacific Northwest and to establish a mono-racial republic there.Racism knows no region, it’s safe to say.
While the Pacific Northwest can abstain from the debate on the removal of traitorous colors from the Capitol grounds—Oregon was the last state in the Union before the Civil War’s outbreak, after all—the region bears a racial legacy tinted by an ignorance, a decades-old vision of minority-free lands, as stark as any in the United States.
To be sure, the Northwest Front represents a fringe campaign, a minority of a minority seeking to expunge the Pacific Northwest of any color but white. According to Harold Covington, the group’s leader, the union of Washington State, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana would be “kind of like the white version of Israel. I don’t see why the Jews are the only people on Earth that get their own country and everyone else has to be diverse.”
Covington knows precisely what he’s gone in for: “Of course it’s racism. What’s wrong with racism? It’s the purist form of patriotism.”Numbers on the Northwest Front are hard to come by—the group does without formal membership—but the Southern Poverty Law Center maintains Northwest Front as one of the foremost white nationalist groups in the region. The group’s reach has as much to do with its push as it does with its leader, Covington. While no direct connection between Roof and Covington has yet emerged, aside from Roof’s broadsides about Northwest Front, circumstance and parallel motivations twin the two.
In 1972, while a member of the U.S. Army, Covington wormed his way into his first neo-Nazi organization. He soon found himself in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (a nation whose colors Roof, coincidentally, didn’t hesitate to sport). While there, Covington managed to start both the Rhodesian White People’s Party and the South African Friends of the Movement. But Covington quickly outstayed his welcome, and his screeching anti-Semitism soon saw him deported from one of the most racist regimes extant.

Not long thereafter, however, Covington set his sights more domestically—and tapped into a vein of racial stratification long overlooked within the U.S. For Covington, the Pacific Northwest could prove the well-spring for the white supremacists’ dreams. An independent ethnie. A Rhodesia regained.
But don’t think Covington’s claims—that he can flip the vertiginous Northwest into an autarkic ethno-state—are novel. Rather, Covington tapped into a racist longing that has long festered in this part of the country, a tide of American history that’s never been properly addressed. From its earliest American outset, the Pacific Northwest was long meant to be a land for the white caste. “Whites Only” writ large.Look at Oregon, for instance. As Walidah Imarisha of Portland State University’s Black Studies Department told me, “Oregon was founded as a state, as a territory, as a white homeland. Folks who answered that call wanted to build their perfect white society.” And not in the same vein of a three-fifths-clause South, where black Americans would be tolerated, if in servitude. Oregon would be different.
While the state remained in the Union—and actually proved pivotal to Abraham Lincoln’s nomination on the Republican ticket—Oregon’s founders mentioned racial unity in the state's original documents. To wit, the 1850 Oregon Donation Land Act allowed free land to whites alone. And during an 1857 vote on the constitution’s formulation, some 83 percent of participants voted to prohibit “free negroes” from living or working in the state. Chief Justice George Williams, who later served as attorney general for President Ulysses Grant, summed the sentiment, lobbying voters to “consecrate Oregon to the use of the white man, and exclude the negro, Chinaman, and every race of that character.”
According to one researcher, Oregon was “the only state ever admitted with a black exclusion clause in its constitution.” There’s a reason, growing up in Portland, that my seventh-grade teacher informed us Oregon was often considered the most racist state west of the Mississippi.

Chizzang wrote:The author has admittedly never set foot in Oregon or Washington...
and is writing about a half dozen guys with a website who claim to be an "organization"

travelinman67 wrote:

Chizzang wrote:The author has admittedly never set foot in Oregon or Washington...
and is writing about a half dozen guys with a website who claim to be an "organization"

Hey! Don't be diss'n a Columbia grad and former Slate contributor.

I'll even bet his shit smells like snickerdoodles.

Chizzang wrote:The author has admittedly never set foot in Oregon or Washington...
and is writing about a half dozen guys with a website who claim to be an "organization"

CID1990 wrote:

Chizzang wrote:The author has admittedly never set foot in Oregon or Washington...
and is writing about a half dozen guys with a website who claim to be an "organization"

Clitzoris I don't doubt for a second that what you said is true-

But it goes both ways and the ignorance is STRONG on this topic

Recently the national news media and others - even in this board - have referenced a national KKK organization based in Pelham, NC and make it sound like they command legions of klukkers

Pelham is in my home county. It is a little crossroads, not really a town, and if 50 people live there is be surprised. Hell I know 15 of them.

Nobody has been to Pelham to check, and if they did, they'd find a couple dudes with a website most likely. A couple years ago they went through a neighborhood IN PELHAM ITSELF and left flyers on a few houses asking people to join. The residents there- in the very same community of about 50 people- did not know anything about the organization.

People like to pull out these hate groups and point to them as if they hold any power or numbers. They are this country's (and the media's) ultimate boogeyman. They're rats in a cellar, nothing more - definitely not a movement that's for sure

kalm wrote:I saw two black people yesterday. Two! On the same day!!!

CID1990 wrote:

Chizzang wrote:The author has admittedly never set foot in Oregon or Washington...
and is writing about a half dozen guys with a website who claim to be an "organization"

Clitzoris I don't doubt for a second that what you said is true-

But it goes both ways and the ignorance is STRONG on this topic

Recently the national news media and others - even in this board - have referenced a national KKK organization based in Pelham, NC and make it sound like they command legions of klukkers

Pelham is in my home county. It is a little crossroads, not really a town, and if 50 people live there is be surprised. Hell I know 15 of them.

Nobody has been to Pelham to check, and if they did, they'd find a couple dudes with a website most likely. A couple years ago they went through a neighborhood IN PELHAM ITSELF and left flyers on a few houses asking people to join. The residents there- in the very same community of about 50 people- did not know anything about the organization.

People like to pull out these hate groups and point to them as if they hold any power or numbers. They are this country's (and the media's) ultimate boogeyman. They're rats in a cellar, nothing more - definitely not a movement that's for sure

Chizzang wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
Clitzoris I don't doubt for a second that what you said is true-

But it goes both ways and the ignorance is STRONG on this topic

Recently the national news media and others - even in this board - have referenced a national KKK organization based in Pelham, NC and make it sound like they command legions of klukkers

Pelham is in my home county. It is a little crossroads, not really a town, and if 50 people live there is be surprised. Hell I know 15 of them.

Nobody has been to Pelham to check, and if they did, they'd find a couple dudes with a website most likely. A couple years ago they went through a neighborhood IN PELHAM ITSELF and left flyers on a few houses asking people to join. The residents there- in the very same community of about 50 people- did not know anything about the organization.

People like to pull out these hate groups and point to them as if they hold any power or numbers. They are this country's (and the media's) ultimate boogeyman. They're rats in a cellar, nothing more - definitely not a movement that's for sure

I'm the first guy to tell you
Racism - or whatever you might want to call it today - is pretty evenly distributed
I don't believe the South has a lock on it

andy7171 wrote:Where is The Palouse?

kalm wrote:I saw two black people yesterday. Two! On the same day!!!

Fuck it...I'm outta here.

CID1990 wrote:

Chizzang wrote:
I'm the first guy to tell you
Racism - or whatever you might want to call it today - is pretty evenly distributed
I don't believe the South has a lock on it

i think it is evenly distributed as well

primarily in urban centers (why i see so many Confederate flags in the Pittsburgh area confounds me ... we dont have a lot of respect for those people in the South because they are obviously flying it to piss people off)

but there's a lot of things that get the popular racist title these days that are not racist. Tasteless maybe, rude ... but not racist

good old fashioned "blacks are an inferior race" racism is much rarer than people who like to hang that title on others would care to admit

travelinman67 wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
i think it is evenly distributed as well

primarily in urban centers (why i see so many Confederate flags in the Pittsburgh area confounds me ... we dont have a lot of respect for those people in the South because they are obviously flying it to piss people off)

but there's a lot of things that get the popular racist title these days that are not racist. Tasteless maybe, rude ... but not racist

good old fashioned "blacks are an inferior race" racism is much rarer than people who like to hang that title on others would care to admit

I'm not entirely in agreement.

Yeah, racism exists everywhere, but the degree varies greatly as well as the extent to which it is discussed (concealed).
More than a few times, I've walked into small businesses in the South, with a handful of black only patrons, and the moment I walked in, all the patrons stopped talking, looked down, and all including the employees/cashier refuse to make eye contact.
While I won't discuss details, again, in the South only, I had Owner/Clients make statements regarding hiring practices or existing minority employees, so egregiously racist I almost walked out. The frank openness with which people spoke about their racial hate, in particular the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, is not normally found in other regions in the U.S.
Again, I'm not saying racism doesn't exist everywhere, but the degree absolutely varies.

And, BTW, regarding the northwest, one of the most integrated, cosmopolitan communities I ever visited was Bellingham,WA. Back in the mid-'80s, it had a large cross-section of Indian, Asian, African, European, and LGBT all living in non-segregated neighborhoods.

What’s wrong with racism? It’s the purist form of patriotism

travelinman67 wrote:

CID1990 wrote:
i think it is evenly distributed as well

primarily in urban centers (why i see so many Confederate flags in the Pittsburgh area confounds me ... we dont have a lot of respect for those people in the South because they are obviously flying it to piss people off)

but there's a lot of things that get the popular racist title these days that are not racist. Tasteless maybe, rude ... but not racist

good old fashioned "blacks are an inferior race" racism is much rarer than people who like to hang that title on others would care to admit

I'm not entirely in agreement.

Yeah, racism exists everywhere, but the degree varies greatly as well as the extent to which it is discussed (concealed).
More than a few times, I've walked into small businesses in the South, with a handful of black only patrons, and the moment I walked in, all the patrons stopped talking, looked down, and all including the employees/cashier refuse to make eye contact.
While I won't discuss details, again, in the South only, I had Owner/Clients make statements regarding hiring practices or existing minority employees, so egregiously racist I almost walked out. The frank openness with which people spoke about their racial hate, in particular the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, is not normally found in other regions in the U.S.
Again, I'm not saying racism doesn't exist everywhere, but the degree absolutely varies.

And, BTW, regarding the northwest, one of the most integrated, cosmopolitan communities I ever visited was Bellingham,WA. Back in the mid-'80s, it had a large cross-section of Indian, Asian, African, European, and LGBT all living in non-segregated neighborhoods.

Ibanez wrote:

travelinman67 wrote:
I'm not entirely in agreement.

Yeah, racism exists everywhere, but the degree varies greatly as well as the extent to which it is discussed (concealed).
More than a few times, I've walked into small businesses in the South, with a handful of black only patrons, and the moment I walked in, all the patrons stopped talking, looked down, and all including the employees/cashier refuse to make eye contact.
While I won't discuss details, again, in the South only, I had Owner/Clients make statements regarding hiring practices or existing minority employees, so egregiously racist I almost walked out. The frank openness with which people spoke about their racial hate, in particular the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, is not normally found in other regions in the U.S.
Again, I'm not saying racism doesn't exist everywhere, but the degree absolutely varies.

And, BTW, regarding the northwest, one of the most integrated, cosmopolitan communities I ever visited was Bellingham,WA. Back in the mid-'80s, it had a large cross-section of Indian, Asian, African, European, and LGBT all living in non-segregated neighborhoods.

Living in the south and have been to and frequent many small towns, I've never experienced that. It may have been fake, but I've always been treated better by black business owners that many whites.

a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.

JohnStOnge wrote:Racism is not hate. Do not fall into the liberal/progressive trap of thinking that anything that is contrary to liberal/progressive philosophy is "hate." Sure, racism CAN involve hate. But racism, in and of itself, is not hate.

This thing of labeling things liberals/progressives disagree with as "hate" is a tactic. You need to avoid being taken in by it.

mrklean wrote:

Ibanez wrote:
Living in the south and have been to and frequent many small towns, I've never experienced that. It may have been fake, but I've always been treated better by black business owners that many whites.

I Man, what is the BBQ joint that is across the street from EL Cid? This guy who works there is funny as hell. The last time I was there was in 2005.