Anti-Defamation League: White Supremacy Rising
White supremacist groups distributed more propaganda in Texas than in any other state last year, with 534 incidents – or 8% of the national total, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Nationally, ADL’s Center on Extremism reported recording the most propaganda distribution incidents ever in 2022.
The ADL’s data showed a 38% increase in incidents from 2021 to 2022, with 6,751 cases reported in 2022, compared to 4,876 in 2021.
Among the incidents reported last year was one in which a group distributed stickers at SMU that read: “United in blood” and “White Lives Matter.”
Other materials featured a Star of David that read: “Resist Zionism.”
Dallas reported more than 20 similar incidents in 2022.
For the third straight year, though, the ADL reported the number of overall propaganda incidents on campuses nationally dropped from 232 to 219, the lowest since ADL began tracking campus incidents in 2017.
In addition to the overall increase in incidents, 2022 saw antisemitic propaganda more than double nationally, rising from 352 incidents in 2021 to 852 incidents in 2022, the ADL reported.
“It is alarming, and we are seeing a rise in both of these – White supremacist and antisemitic – incidents nationally,” ADL Texoma regional director Stacy Cushing said at a recent Rotary Club of Park Cities meeting. The club’s members come from the Park Cities, Preston Hollow, and beyond.
Cushing added that reports are vetted before the ADL classifies them as incidents.
“People ask, ‘Why? Why Texas? Why is the number of White supremacist propaganda report incidents so high?’ There’s a couple of reasons,” Cushing said. “If you’re familiar with Patriot Front, they were responsible for 79% of the White supremacist propaganda incidents.”
Patriot Front and other similar groups are based in Texas, she said.
“The proximity has a lot to do with it,” Cushing said. “What happens is these groups will go around, and they have a flyer, and they will leave it on people’s doorsteps and their driveways.”
Per The Dallas Morning News, Patriot Front formed in the Dallas suburbs in 2017, and its manifesto calls for the formation of a White ethnostate in the U.S.
In hopes of combating the rise in the spread of hateful rhetoric, the ADL advocates for policies, including codifying into law “the offices within the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, and FBI that would be responsible for identifying, analyzing, investigating, and prosecuting domestic terrorism,” grants to increase security at religious institutions, and other measures.
Cushing said the first national strategy to counter antisemitism came out in May, incorporating many ADL proposals.
Strategy pillars include increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism, improving safety and security for Jewish communities, reversing the normalization of antisemitism, and building coalitions across communities to counter hate.
Visit dallas.adl.org to learn more about the Anti-Defamation League.
