Weekly Roundup: The Deadliness of Caucasian Replacement Theory (CRT)
Brad and Dan begin by discussing the various dimensions of the Buffalo massacre and the shooter's understanding of Caucasian Replacement Theory (CRT). Dan demonstrates that this ideology is farm from fringe in today's American Right. Instead, it is a mainstream position touted by the likes of senators, congresspeople, and Fox News talking heads.
Brad dives into the Christian nationalist elements of the shooter's identity, pointing to how he equates Whiteness with Christianity and uses both as the grounds for his violence against those who don't share both those characteristics.
Talia Lavin at Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/buffalo-shooter-white-supremacist-great-replacement-donald-trump-1353509/
Greg Sargent at WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/18/doug-mastriano-insurrectionist/
They both argue that it is not enough to be neutral on these matters. Anti-racism and anti-Christian supremacy stances demand active engagement to thwart and prevent both from cultivating in one's community.
To get involved: startguide.org
In the final segment, they analyze the results of various primary elections across the country. The main thesis is that these elections in PA, NC, and KY highlight the stark contrast in the visions the two parties have for the USA. Across the board, the GOP elected election-deniers and Christian nationalists.
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Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, faculty at the University of San Francisco.
Our show is hosted in partnership with the Kapp Center at UCSB, here today with my co-host.
Dan Miller, Associate Professor of Religion and Social Thought at Landmark College.
It's good to see you, Brad, even if it's been another kind of rough week, as we'll discuss here in a few minutes.
Yeah, a lot going on in the wake of what happened in Buffalo last weekend, and we have some pretty big primary election stuff to talk about from all over the country.
We'll get to all of that.
We'll say though, Dan, we have a couple of announcements at the top here.
You have an amazing series going at the moment on Wednesdays, and that's It's in the Code, basically decoding American Christianity for people.
Last episode was amazing, Cool Kid Church.
And so anyway, friends, if you haven't checked all that out, I would highly recommend it.
Whether or not you're somebody emerging from one of those communities or traditions, or if you've just never been part of one and you need a decoder ring, well, Dan Miller's got it for you.
We've re-released the Orange Wave, which is a docuseries I made a couple years ago.
It's 10 parts.
And I interview folks like Kristin Kobes-Dumais and Sarah Posner and Randall Balmer and Chrissy Stroop and basically provide a kind of window into the history of the religious right from the 1960s all the way to Maga Nation.
You can check our show notes to get access to that in terms of either Patreon or through an outside provider.
And finally, we have a seminar coming up next week or next week, next month, and that is Christian Nationalism and Identity Politics.
So, Dan, you want to give us just a little little explainer on what that's going to look like since you'll be leading it?
Yeah.
So in terms of the format for folks who might have done a seminar before, maybe if you haven't, we'll meet four times.
It's virtual, but we'll be meeting live.
You'll also get some videos we put together with some of the materials, some readings, different things like that.
But in terms of themes, it's themes that we talk about a lot.
We talk a lot about Christian nationalism and identity politics.
I just did a series on identity politics.
I know some folks wanted to know what the difference is going to be.
Basically, the good fun thing about doing a series is you just kind of say stuff, right?
And there's nobody there to pause and say, wait, can you tell me why you said that?
Or can you say more about that?
Or If I'm talking to my Uncle Ron at the cookout and I want to be better prepared than just hearing Dan Miller's opinion on this, where do I look?
That's what we do.
We spend time talking about that and looking at some of why we talk about identity the way that we do and all that kind of stuff.
And then relating that specifically to Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalism as a kind of identity politics How understanding identity politics can help us to understand Christian nationalism, and how understanding Christian nationalism shows us that it is a form of identity politics.
And so those are the kind of things we'll be talking about.
It is sadly and tragically relevant, as we'll talk about here in the next few minutes, because so much of what happened in Buffalo is And expression of a kind of Christian nationalist identity politics, at least that's my take on it.
So a lot of that, a lot of that going on on a lighter note, I will say, since folks can't see Brad Onishi, whenever he talks about the series and cool kid church, he gets this kind of grin because the part of and I say this in the series, the part of California where he lives is like a cool kid search central.
So yeah, so I think it's struck a note with him.
Well, what's funny is, so I'm in Northern California now.
I grew up in Southern California.
So I worked at a megachurch.
I converted at a megachurch.
But our megachurch was never actually the cool megachurch.
So don't get me wrong.
We had a rock band.
We had lattes.
Uh, but there was always these other churches like five and ten miles away that we thought of as like the really cool kids, like they were better looking than us.
The rock band was there was more lasers, a lot more deep v-neck shirts, probably tattoos.
So anyway, that maybe the lattes used organic milk or almond.
I don't know.
Anyway.
So it's interesting to think about the scale of cool kid church, because we were I was probably at what some would consider a cool kid church, but we always felt like we were pretty, pretty middling on the cool kid church scale.
So just just just to map American Christianity, right.
All people have to think of is like the middle school lunchroom, basically.
And you've got like the table with the really cool kids.
Yeah.
And then Brad's at the table that's like cool kid adjacent.
Yeah.
Maybe talks to a couple of the cool kids, you know, whatever, but doesn't actually get to sit at the table.
Yeah.
But he's at the table that lots of other people would be happy to sit at if they could just get cool kid adjacent.
And that's very much how parts of American Christianity work.
And we yeah, once the cool kid saw like the cool kid kind of looks you up and down is like, huh?
Haircut?
Not that great.
Clothes?
Yeah, not not that bad.
Like once the cool kid from the actual cool kid megachurch checks you out a little bit, they're like, yeah, I don't think this is going to cut it.
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