So for some time I've been compiling research on how racist groups communicate their messages in the public sphere. I've spent a lot of time on the
SPLC website, on the
ADL site, and even a few hate groups I have tracked down. My assumption - valid until this election cycle - was that publicly displaying one's racism was a risk to these people, and that the symbols they used to telegraph their views was an essential adaptation to a world with which they are out of step.
Boy. Am I an idiot.
This has been driven home as candidates on the right have
abandoned the dogwhistle for the megaphone. There are a thousand regrettable examples, but I want to just looks at this one for a minute. I don't know journalist Tom Cahill's work at all, or follow usuncut.com, but I appreciate his eye. In a
story that ran on March 17, 2016, (picked up by
Gawker...I know, I'm still in the depths here, but that's where this stuff happens some times) Cahill pointed out that PBS Newshour ran a
story on Trump's popularity in the south on March 15 in which they spoke to (and photographed) a person named Grace Tilly and members of her family. Cahill (and others) observed that Tilly had some prominent tattoos - one of a Celtic cross and another of the number 88. In certain contexts these signs are associated with white supremacist groups. Tilly, according to PBS, denies any white supremacist or Neo-Nazi allegiances and claims, "are connected to her family’s Celtic religious beliefs".
Is this some form of plausible deniability? I think it's hard to imagine - based on the data in the story - that the Tilly family represents a model for racial tolerance in 21st century America. Another member of the Tilly family interviewed in the piece, Pete, complains about, "all these protesters and all this stuff, and people saying [Trump is] racist" and specifically goes on to mention Black Lives Matter, before performing the signature move of racists everywhere and denying the value of race as a subject. Ms. Tilly's claim about her Celtic ancestry may or may not be true, but it tracks terribly close to the going mantra of '
heritage not hate' behind which hate now tends to hid.
So what we have here is someone who waves the (coded) flag and, when confronted on it, refuses to take responsibility for the message that's being sent. (I have considered the possibility that Ms. Tilly went to get tattoos that would
celebrate her cultural identity that she thought had no meaning other than the one she intended. That is a very remote possibility given the popularity of number codes like 88...which, so far as my research has gone, has nothing to do with Celtic myth and are widely known among tattoo artists).
And this is a parent who kept her 11 year old home from school, "so that he can see democracy in action."
Grace, for the love of God, let your kid go to school. Don't do us any more favors. Please.
