A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America |
|
|
|
| Title: | A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America |
| Author: | Elinor Langer |
| Publisher: | Picador |
| Type: | Book / Paperback |
| Publication Date: | 01 November, 2004 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0312423632 / 9780312423636 |
| List Price: | $19.00 |
| You Save: | $4.18 |
| Amazon Price: | $14.82 |
|
This book is also available, brand-new, from 3rd-party marketplace sellers at Amazon.com, from $1.48.
|
The HTML code below can be pasted onto your web-site, your MySpace page, or blog - or any number of similar places - to create a link to this page:
If, instead of a text link, you'd like to create a link to this page which will display the book cover, if it's available, then the code below will do exactly that:
Check for the same book at these other US book sites:
• [ Abebooks ]
• [ Alibris ]
• [ Barnes & Noble ]
• [ Half.com ]
• [ Powells ]
… or check UK bookstores
|
Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
On November 12, 1988, a group of Portland, Oregon, skinheads known as East Side White Pride encountered three Ethiopians in a street fight, resulting in the brutal death of Mulugeta Seraw.
For award-winning journalist Elinor Langer, the Seraw case is the launchpad for a thorough investigation of the Nazi-inspired racist movement in the United States. She vividly reconstructs the world of the skinheads: their origins in the punk scene, their basement shrines to Nazi power, their moments of glory on Oprah and Geraldo. She examines the long-standing radical groups that encouraged the movement, tracking the progress of such powerful figures as White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger through key bastions of the Far Right. In gripping detail, she follows civil-rights lawyer Morris Dees's efforts to prove Metzger responsible for the Portland killing-a sensational campaign to curb the growth of neo-Nazism.
Compelling, disturbing, and important, A Hundred Little Hitlers is both an epic account of racism and justice and a close examination of social forces that loom ever more dangerously today.
Elinor Langer has written for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and The Nation, among other publications. She lives in Portland and is currently on the faculty of the Mountain Writers Pacific MFA Program.
Finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Research Nonfiction
Finalist for the Ron Ridenhour Book Prize from the Nation Institute
A Book of the Month Club Finalist for Best Nonfiction of 2003
A Book Sense 76 Pick
On Saturday, November 12, 1988, a group of Portland, Oregon, skinheads known as East Side White Pride met for an afternoon of beer and racist banter. That night, they handed out white supremacist newspapers, swung by a party, and got thrown out of a friend's apartment. A short while later, three of the skinheads encountered three Ethiopians; a street fight broke out and Kenneth Mieske brutally beat Mulugeta Seraw with a bat. In the early morning hours, Seraw died.
Drawing on more than ten years of interviews and research, award-winning journalist Elinor Langer takes the Seraw case as the occasion for a thorough exploration of the Nazi-inspired racialist movement in the United States. She vividly reconstructs the world of the skinheads, both in Portland and nationally: their origins in the punk scene, their basement shrines to Nazi power, their moments of glory on Oprah and Geraldo. She delves into the long-standing radical groups with which the skinheads became allied, tracking the progress of such powerful figures as California White Aryan Resistance leader Tom Metzger through the stations of the far right, from the Birch Society to the Wallace campaign, from Christian Identity to David Duke's Klan. In gripping detail, she follows ambitious Alabama civil rights lawyer Morris Dees's campaign to prove Tom Metzger responsible for the Portland killingβa sensational but ultimately empty effort to curb the growth of neo-Nazism.
Compelling, disturbing, and important, A Hundred Little Hitlers is at once an epic story of American racism and justice, and a taut investigation into powerful social forces that loom ever more dangerous
dn0 today.
"An important, controversial, and well-written account of a watershed event in recent Portland history."βThe Oregonian (Portland)
"Haunting . . . A book that looks deep below the surface to reveal confounding information from many sides . . . A riveting work that avoids easy answers in its examination of the forces of hate, the aftermath of violence, and the imposition of justice."βSeattle Post Intelligencer
"In November 1988, a skinhead in Portland, Oregon, clubbed to death an Ethiopian immigrant named Mulugeta Seraw. The incident illuminated the rise of clusters of vicious, disaffected, working-class white men who thrived on hatred and random violence perpetrated against Jews, Hispanics, immigrants, and people of color. Elinor Langer, the biographer of Josephine Herbst, delves not only into the background of the bat-wielding Kenneth Mieske and his accomplices but also into the California-based White Aryan Resistance movement led by Tom Metzger and his son, John. Langer managed to obtain interviews and often the confidence of many of the members of Portland's East Side White Pride group and the Metzger clan . . . A Hundred Little Hitlers delves into their backgrounds and upbringing."βKarla Jay, The New York Times Book Review
"Langer has a vivid story to tell, and she tells it vividly . . . deftly [drawing] a cast of characters."βThe Washington Post Book World
"Remarkable . . . The work of a cool intelligence, one that neutralizes the element of sensationalism through a rigorous suspicion of our desire to see evil as simple . . . With its nuanced handling of a story that lends itself to screeds and hysteria, A Hundred Little Hitlers is a belated antidote to the symbiotic relationship between media exploitation and racist thuggery."βNewsday
"[An] intimate, up-close look at the pasty face of evil . . . The book then moves from [detailed and personal accounts] to examine the entire history of American white supremacism. In sharp sketches of David Duke, U.S. Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, and Gregory Withrow of the Aryan Youth Movement, Langer consistently finds the zone where human interest and political issues intersect."βJoy Press, The Village Voice
"An extraordinary book, written with passion, grace, and wisdom. The murder at its center is a reflection not just of racism in the United States, but of something much more widespread. Langer has taken one act of violence, looked at it carefully and courageously, and illuminated a whole moral universe."βAdam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost
"Langer is one of our most eloquent and astute social critics. Telling this troubling story of murder and racism in an American town, she compels us to think beyond that, to wonder about the future of justice in our country."βHoward Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States
"Brilliant and provocative, a book that will deeply trouble readers who sense the current anomie and absence of ideas that characterizes politics in America . . . A Hundred Little Hitlers is a complicated [and] subtle work, laden with insight into individuals, group dynamics, and societal trends. I found myself taking stock of the world around me while reading it."βThe New York Sun
"Langer writes beautifully, compellingly, and insightfully about an ugly slice of American life. Though defending civil liberties required me to deal directly with some American Nazis and their fellow racialists, I feel that I learned far more about them and understand them far better after reading [this] book than ever previously. Langer tells the story of a murder they committed in Oregon so well that I literally could not put down her book."βAryeh Neier, President of the Open Society Institute
"Langer brings the investigative skill of a journalist, the literary touch of a novelist, and the sensitivity of a historian to her latest work. A Hundred Little Hitlers shines the light of public scrutiny into the dark corner of a disturbing American subculture. The Mulugeta Seraw story is a troubling but important episode that reminds us all that ideas and words have consequences. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a better understanding of the American neo-
|
Other Items You May Enjoy:
Browse Books From These Related Subjects:
Customer Reviews:
• Stockholm Syndrome?
02 February, 2007
While I'm sure that Angela Langer was not kidnapped by the skinheads of Portland, Oregon, some conclusions she offers in her book A HUNDRED LITTLE HITLERS seem to show the influence of this syndrome. Certainly, her title choice of LITTLE Hitlers gives away her point of view immediately that these dangerous skinheads and racists are "little" and therefore not dangerous.
For some reason, she has taken the side of the skinheads in the trial of the beating death of Ethiopian Mulegeta Seraw. Perhaps she spent too much time with the racists. Perhaps she was too enamored with racist propagandist Tom Metzger. Maybe she didn't like the SPLC's Morris Dees because he had been married four times before he brought charges against Metzger's American Nazi diatribes.
Who knows for sure? We do find out soon, however, that we are left with the flavor of Langer's sympathy for the racists who would, and did, attack any person of color, any immigrant, any Jew, at any time. She argues that these racists were not programmed by Tom Metzger and his propaganda, and that Dees was wrong and possibly evil in bringing Metzger to court.
Her anger is misdirected against the victim, the courts, the police, the legal system and the concerned citizens of Portland who combined to bring justice in this case.
Perhaps she now needs to be de-programmed.
by Larry Rochelle, author of HOME SCHOOLED
- Amazon Customer Review
• The Author Needs To Take A Writing Course!
19 February, 2007
This is undoubtably the most poorly-written book I have read in years. Paragraphs go on for pages, sentences are so long they lose their point, and punctuation has very little to do with standard English. I made myself finish this book because I wanted to understand the events, but I had to force myself through the writing itself. In addition, the author seems to blame everyone for this crime except for the ones who committed it. Perhaps she is trying to defend her hometown, or--as another reviewer speculated--she fell under the spell of the skinhead propaganda. In any case, I would never recommend this book to anyone. If you want to know what happened in Portland, look up old newspaper articles. It would be easier and more enjoyable reading.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Compelling And Frightening Read
04 September, 2004
Murder happens all the time in this country. A brutal murder that's movitated simply by racism and committed by a Nazi skinhead in the United States, though, is quite another matter. In 1988 a Nazi skinhead by the name of Kenneth Mieske beat the head in of a Ethiopian immigrant by the name of Mulugeta Seraw over a minor disagreement that gets out of hand. Elinor Langer's fine book provides the background, the pathology if you like, of this disease that allows violence against people of other races to continue in our country.
Langer begins with the murder and then traces the roots of the movement in Portland that gave rise to the neo-Nazi skinhead movement in her state. She also looks at the poverty, submerged anger, drug use and philosphy that feeds the anger that leads to events like this. In many respects, Langer's book (which began as a series of ongoing articles about the case) provides a glimpse into America's darker side. We discover how the movement began, how it spreads and how it takes root in communities outside her own as well.
While it isn't necessarily the easiest book to read, it's compelling and thoughtful. It's not lite reading for the beach but it's the type of book for those interested in how society makes a wrong turn as it grows and matures. Her coverage of the trial, the evidence and the feelings of those involved gives a borad perspective into what fans the flames of monsterous acts in our world. A Hundred Little Hitlers frightens me worse than any Stephen King novel or the latest "Resident Evil" movie could because it's about the world around us.
- Amazon Customer Review
• A Disturbing Book
08 February, 2006
This is an interesting and disturbing book that is well worth the reading time. The book is disturbing on many levels, for the story it tells and, at times, for the author's own attitudes.
The initial story is a simple one, albeit the author is sometimes very insightful in her telling of it. Racists skinheads, egged on by their equally racist girl friends, have a chance encounter with not entirely sober Ethiopian immigrants, beat the heck out of some of them and kill another. This ultimately results in the usual round of plea bargains in which the defendant skinheads receive sentences that are probably lighter than what they were due, but in which justice is nominally served. These crimes also eventually result in what was probably a mostly politically motivated trial in which the Southern Poverty Law Center [acting on behalf of a relative of the murdered victim] squares off against two of America's leading propagandists for racism, Tom Metzger and son, and obtains a financially ruinous civil judgment against the Metzgers.
The author spends a reasonable amount of time giving us some background on the victims of this crime - people who were or are remarkably like most of our forbearers of several generations back. She also spends what is, IMHO, an excessive amount of time on the backgrounds of the perpetrators of the crime and their close associates. The theme in the latter set of minibiographies is how most of these thugs have had deprived childhoods resulting in total social disorientation.
The objectives of the book are three fold: (1) the author wants to illustrate for us the racist background of a part of the Western United States and how that historical background lapped over into the recent late 20th century; (2) she wants to illustrate how quickly neoNazism can take hold of a given subculture; and (2) she wants to deplore the civil trial against the Metzgers as a travesty of justice and an abuse of the judicial system. She is successful in making out a case for her first objective. She wholly fails in her second objective. And she is, unfortunately, partially successful in her third objective, while contradicting herself at numerous points along the way.
The author's concerns over the threat of neoNazism springs from a confusion of symbols with reality and, consequently, misses what should be a real concern. The skinheads in her story were unquestionably racists and clearly immersed themselves in Nazi and American racist [Klan] symbols and slogans. The point of that immersion was, however, to simply give their disgustingly violent and drug laden lives some magic signs to hang onto and to throw in the face of the world. They could have easily, and with the same degree of understanding and commitment, latched onto Satanists or Revolutionary Maoists or whatever other in-your-face symbolisms came their way. The real Nazis, the ideological Nazis, whose objective were well focused and executed were the Metzgers and their ilk. Yet it is exactly those people with whom the author seems most sympathetic.
The more critical error in this volume is the author's love hate relationship with the American justice system. On the one hand she seems to have some vague and sporadic understanding that justice is not a simple thing and that the procedures that in fact protect rights have grown up through trial and error [no pun intended] over centuries. The justice system is a tool well suited to its purpose. But just as a wrench can be correctly used to accurately tighten a screw, it can also be misused as a club when that is the goal of the participants in the process. In the instant case of the civil trial of the Metzgers by the SPLC the goals of all parties, not just the SPLC, were focused on something other than obtaining justice.
The author makes out a convincing case that the goal of the SPLC was to use the court as a political tool to crush those whose views it was ideologically opposed and to raise donations to its own treasury. Yet, one is left with the impression that the author thinks that the general objective of fighting racism is a good one, but that to utilize available tools in that fight is somehow slimy. Further, one should, apparently, never materially benefit from successfully waging such a struggle. There is a certain odor about this argument that reminds one of the "reasoning" of those tracts which denounce "International Jewish Bankers" as sometimes useful, but basically deplorable and dangerous.
While the author mentions, more or less in passing, that the Metzgers also came to their trial as a political stage, and that they elected to run their own case and "defend" themselves largely for that reason, she then seems to entirely miss the boat on the necessary implications of that kind of "I don't want justice, I want publicity" orientation by a defendant. Despite sentences and paragraphs to the contrary, one gets the impression that the author really believes that the case against the Metzer's for conspiracy to commit tort damages should have been transformed, at the initiative of the Court, into a constitutional case principally concerned with free speech. The author apparently feels, without very clear articulation, that defendants, who she herself illustrates to have made a career out of inciting violence, should have been exonerated from paying damage to a victim of such violence, despite their own utter failure to show that such incitements were usually general and nonspecific and were not directed to actually result in any particular violence at a particular time and place. IMHO it is one thing to maintain that the Metzgers case was winnable, had they stuck to and developed the facts illustrating that they had no direct connection to the subject murder. It is entirely a different thing to maintain the naively silly position that the Metzgers should not have been found to be guilty when they ran their case as a political campaign rather than a lawsuit. I am, however, left with the firm impression that the author believes they should have been found "not guilty" on some vague principal of abstract justice, regardless of how, or for what purposes, they conducted their defense.
This is an interesting book, well worth reading, for the factual descriptions it gives of those who pass through its pages. We get a real feel for what the lives of young street punks from the American nihilist underbelly are really like. We get some insights [not insights that many naive "idealists" well welcome, but insights nonetheless] into what ideological political struggle is really like. We get a fairly good, if somewhat too sketchy, look at the "radical right" racists subculture in this society. The strengths of this book are many, it is just the author's conclusions that need some work.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Author Seemed Too Sympathetic To The Skins
21 December, 2005
In my opinion, that is. I found it a bit hard to read because Mrs. Langer's prose wasn't flowing easily, but she did engage my interest and once I finished it, I was grateful to God--not just because I'd managed to read the entire book in less than 2 days but because I don't live in that part of the country!
(It's difficult enough living where I do, in the dirty South. I cannot imagine at all trying to eke out a living in the Pacific Northwest, which is as notorious for racism as is this area of the USA known far and wide as the Confederacy.)
Other than finding Mrs. Langer's prose stumbling at times, my only other problem is her seeming sympathy towards these racists,
in particular Tom Metzger. The man lost nearly everything and I cannot say that I feel sorry for him; he deserved it, I guess,
even though those skinheads clearly acted on their own initiative.
They saw a black man, knocked him to the street, kicked him when he was down--as all cowards do--and beat him to death with that bat.
The act itself doesn't surprise me--at the time it did but I didn't know so much about the pitiful history of lynching in this
so-fair land of ours--but having read all I could on the subject of racism, racist murders, and hate crimes, now nothing surprises
or shocks me in America.
May God have mercy on their souls!
- Amazon Customer Review
|
