Racial Purity and the Aryan Nations

“When God Almighty established the Adamic race in the earth to build His Kingdom, He had ordained from the beginning were not to mingle with the ‘tree of knowledge, of good and evill’ with the races that had already fallen and had gone under the influence of satanic ideas we must preserve our racial purity.” -Reverend Wesley Swift from the article Preserving Our Racial Self Respect

The "ideal" Christian soldier protecting his race.

Swift, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian (the source of inspiration for the Aryan Nations), uses biblical references in this article as a way to justify the need for racial purity among White Christians. Further along, Swift mentions how Jews do not use the book of Hebrews (the reference for the above quote) because Hebrews was written to White Christians who constitute a Christian civilization, something that cannot be established without the removal of the Jews. Additionally, he points out that other races having "already fallen...under the influence of satanic ideas" (according to Swift, the Jews) are racially impure and will thus, infect the White Christian race.

Purity is the first and foremost goal of the Aryan Nations. One of their website aryan-nations.org, flaunts the slogan "Racial Purity is Our Nation's Security." With this goal of racial purity, the idea of racial segregation and genocide also come into play.

On the Welcome page of the Aryan Nations website, the page states "we must use this rare genetic advantage" [racial purity] via "unilateral across-the-board cooperation" to prevent the "sharing of an UNcommon bloodline" [racial segregation] to prevent "our death as a race" [racial genocide].  What this means is the Aryan Nations believe that without segregation, the purity of the white race is threatened by other cultures through disease and miscegenation.

 In her book White Man Falling, Abby Ferber sites articles in which white nationalists attempt to use science and evolution to explain how they believe other races to be inferior to the pure white race because "evolution [is] a clear path of increasing racial differentiation" (71) and "according to Christian Identity theology,...difference is destiny-it is God-given. Nonwhites are not simply biologically or genetically different from whites, they are not considered God's children" (71).  Again, tying this back to what Swift said about preserving racial purity by not mingling with people who have fallen victim to satanic ideas or, as Ferber puts it, not God's children.

Additionally, Ferber talks about how white nationalists, like the Aryan Nations, believe that the key to preserving our race is racial segregation and without said segregation, or race will go into genocide. The allowance of the "Other" races into our country is what leads to race-mixing. And this race-mixing is "equated with ill health, disease and degeneration" (80) of the white race and will be the ultimate demise of the purity of the white race. White supremacists believe that the health of a pure white race is equated with racial segregation and that race-mixing throws off the harmony of the biological community. Genocide of the pure white race will occur unless segregation and miscegenation is outlawed.

A Local Discussion on the Aryan Nations

Richard Butler spreading the word of the Aryan Nations on the streets of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Residents of Hayden Lake, Idaho no doubt rejoiced about the news that the Aryan Nations would be evicted, the compound would be surrendered and the white nationalists would be forced to move their ideologies far away from the Idaho Panhandle. One long-time resident stated, Tony Stewart said, “We feel stereotyped in a way that is unjust” (source) referring to the fact that the Aryan Nations instilled a negative reputation to the residents of Hayden Lake as being racist and white nationalists. Coeur d'Alene attorney Ken Howard states in this article that the only reason the Aryan Nations stayed in the North Idaho area for so long is to 'embarrass and define this beautiful North Idaho homeland of ours as a place inhospitable to all of those who were not of the white Christian race.'

The ghost of the Aryan Nations’ past permanently haunts those living in close proximity to the previous site of the Aryan World Congress. However, community members are having a hard time shaking the negative image of the area due to the fact that many white nationalists, specifically from California, move to the Hayden Lake area because of the abundance of mostly white residents. Additional recent talk (as of 2010), indicates the group may attempt to move their headquarters into Oregon, which brings relief to many Coeur d’Alene residents saying, “Let them go do their own thing somewhere else.” Its easy to see residents of Idaho welcome the idea of living in a community where they are not stereotyped as being racists.

In celebration of the removal of the Aryan Nations from Idaho, members of Kootenai County unveiled a black marble monument. The monument serves as a way for the community to remember they no longer need to live in fear of the Aryan Nations and all members of the community can live freely (source).

Artist Julie Wood embraces a Coeur d'Alene police officer at the unveiling of her monument.

The scar of the Aryan Nations will forever blemish Northern Idaho. Residents look to recreate a new image of the area now that the dark cloud of the Aryan Nations has passed. Like any scar that remains, the people of the area will continue to talk about the Aryan Nation's use of fear and intimidation to create a menacing reputation for the people of North Idaho. Like any group being stereotyped, the community wants to establish the fact that they are not tied in any way to the Aryan Nations (or any white nationalist group) and instead look to embrace a new image of acceptance within their community.