Copyright Date:
2023
Edition Date:
2023
Release Date:
07/04/23
Pages:
xv, 350 pages
ISBN:
1-7282-7662-4
ISBN 13:
978-1-7282-7662-5
Dewey:
320.56
LCCN:
2022055921
Dimensions:
24 cm.
Language:
English
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews
A White police detective chronicles his time undercover with organized White supremacy groups.Matson Browning's firsthand experience working with White supremacists at local, national, and international levels makes for a largely gripping read, akin to watching your favorite cop show on TV. In the introduction, Matson, writing with his wife, Tawni, states that the book is a history of groups like White nationalists, neo-Nazis, Christian identitarians, and other less recognizable supporters of an ideal Aryan nation, but the text reads more as a memoir mixed with organizational ethnography, touching on the histories of the groups but not the underlying causes of their creation and popularity. Matson saw the danger of organized White supremacy groups before it was considered a true threat, and through his foresight, he has managed to create a knowledge base that is likely unmatched. This includes the building of personal relationships with high-level members of influential hate groups, which he has leveraged into the Skinhead Intelligence Network. The scope of the book is ambitious. While there is a clear focus on Matson's experience with specific groups and their major players, dwelling in equal measure on his successes and his regrets, there are also discussions of police push back, infiltration of White supremacists in law enforcement, and the failure of those systems to recognize and respond to the threats in their communities and within their ranks. In between chapter breaks are news stories, distilled and reframed, of the violence that has been perpetrated in the name of White supremacy. The authors speak less to current movements and groups, but they touch lightly on a post-Trump America and its implications. They conclude with a guide to rehabilitating White supremacists, a glossary of hate terms and symbols to recognize, a "Where Are They Now" of racist organizers, and a reading group guide.Knowledgeable, propulsive, and a bit terrifying, though a deeper analysis of hate in the U.S. would have been appreciated.
Bibliography Index/Note:
Includes bibliographical references.
The changing face of hate is on your doorstep... Matt Browning, an undercover detective in Arizona, thought he knew what hate looked like; that is, until he got a front row seat to White supremacy. What followed was a career of hardship and danger, and what he uncovered can no longer go left untold. For more than twenty-five years, Browning has been infiltrating, documenting, and disrupting white supremacy movements from the inside, gaining an intimate vantage point to the KKK, skinheads, border militias, Proud Boys, and other White Power groups, as they organized and grew, their ranks alarmingly including police force and military veterans. Together with his intrepid wife, Tawni, he adopted fake IDs and ideologies, seeking the arrest of its participants--none more so than J.T. Ready, a neo-Nazi who took "hunting trips" for border migrants while gaining mainstream acceptance as a political candidate--and terrorizing Browning's family. What others dismissed as fringe groups, Browning quickly recognized as large and interconnecting organizations permeating into every facet of American society, effectively spreading their dangerous and repugnant rhetoric at unprecedented speeds. Today, after the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6th, the threat posed by these toxic organizations can no longer be ignored by the public at large. In this imperative and gripping narrative, Browning gives readers the inside story of modern-day White supremacy in America in all of its ugly variation. Following his dramatic, high-stakes attempts to take down powerful White supremacists, the torment he faced whilst working undercover, and his eventual creation of the international Skinhead Intelligence Network, The Hate Next Door is a riveting, enlightening, and essential look at the what, where, when, and why of white supremacist groups, how to identify them, and why we must all do everything in our power to fight against them.