"White With Fear" film examines the "white fear industrial complex"
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Eddie Glaude, Steve Bannon, Hillary Clinton and Aasif Mandvi speak in the new documentary, "White With Fear," a film about the U.S. conservative political machine amassing power by exploiting racial fault lines. Photo: Courtesy of So Much Film/Area 23A
A new documentary investigates the long-running efforts by politicians and the media to stoke racial tensions and frame white Americans as victims.
Why it matters: "White With Fear," set to begin streaming on Tuesday (June 3), examines the origins of white grievance in the U.S. and how it contributed to the rollback of decades of civil rights gains.
The big picture: The film uses interviews with scholars, journalists, former Republican operatives, former and current right-wing influencers, Hillary Clinton and Steve Bannon to show how white grievance became a potent weapon.
- From former President Richard Nixon using crime as a racist dog whistle to racist Tea Party attacks on former President Barack Obama, the documentary follows the evolution to today's polarized politics.
Director Andrew Goldberg tells Axios the idea for the film came during the pandemic and the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, when the nation appeared to be ready for a new conversation about race.
- "We set out to think about a film that would explore this concept of whiteness."
- That soon changed as the backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement retooled boiling white grievance that dismisses racial discrimination and was inflamed by conservative media, social media, and later Donald Trump, Goldberg said.
- Goldberg said it became clear with book bans, laws limiting the discussion of slavery in schools and the spreading of misinformation and racist material online that he had another project on hand.
Zoom in: Operatives would use President Obama's middle name, Hussein, in mailers, rare crimes by immigrants would be highlighted and immigration reform would be dubbed as a demographic and economic threats
- CNN media critic Brian Stelter tells Goldberg that the buildup of the "white fear industrial complex" drove up wedges and sparked more racial tension.
- Katie McHugh, a former writer/producer at Breitbart, said she would write racist news stories for the website while getting cheered up by Trump supporters.
- Stuart Stevens, a former Romney 2012 campaign strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project, said the environment now isn't about solving problems but stirring racial animus for election victories.
The intrigue: In the film, former Trump advisor Bannon offers an honest assessment of how he and others flooded the media ecosystem with far-right, conservative articles to influence opinion.
- "We kind of put a network together of people that just continue to put out more information," Bannon said. "If you put out information and you have force multiples that just drive it, people will start to sort it out themselves."
- Bannon said that involved stopping bipartisan immigration reform by publishing articles daily and targeting broadcast networks nonstop.
- The film shows clips of conservative commentators then repeating racist stereotypes about Latino immigrants.
Case in point: McHugh said the film strategy was to take "reactionary, racist feelings" against non-white immigrants and show how the "elites" betrayed the working white man.
- McHugh said that after she wrote such pieces, prominent Trump officials would email her and flatter her as a young 20-something.
State of play: The film comes as the Trump administration reinterprets Civil Rights-era laws to focus on "anti-white racism" rather than discrimination against people of color.
- Trump also has embarked on a systematic effort to unravel President Lyndon B. Johnson's civil rights legacy, rolling back protections that have shaped American life for nearly six decades.
Bottom line: Goldberg concluded that white Americans have been manipulated for short-term electoral gains.
- The film argues that it's a phenomenon that's taking the country backward at a time when it's growing more diverse.
