Policing White Supremacy: The Enemy Within

(Hardback)

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A former FBI agents urgent call for law enforcement to prioritize far-right violence and end tolerance for police racism

As a long-serving FBI agent, Mike German worked undercover in white supremacist and militia groups, developing a deep understanding of their mindsets and strategies. In Policing White Supremacy, German issues a wake-up call about law enforcements dangerously lax approach to far-right violence.

Because the FBI refuses to prioritize violence by white supremacists, it can continue to use its domestic terrorism powers to target much less violent groups, such as Black Lives Matter and environmental activists. By contrast, far-right militants have committed over one hundred deadly acts just since the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and attempted to obstruct transfer of power to a duly elected U.S. president.

Noting that the FBI does not even compile accurate national data on white supremacist violence, German exposes tolerance of overt racism in law enforcement and police membership in white supremacist organizations. The threat these officers pose became clear when at least nineteen current and former law enforcement officials participated in the January 6 breach of the Capitol.

A book with profound relevance as we head into what is sure to be a contentious presidential election, Policing White Supremacy urges us to recognize and address a serious threat to democracy.

Author Bio

Mike German is a fellow with the Liberty and National Security program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School. He has worked at the ACLU and served sixteen years as an FBI special agent. He is the author of Thinking Like a Terrorist and Disrupt, Discredit, and Divide: How the New FBI Damages Our Democracy (The New Press).

Beth Zasloff is the author of Hold Fast to Dreams: A College Guidance Counselor, His Students, and the Vision of a Life Beyond Poverty, written in collaboration with her husband, Joshua Steckel (The New Press). Beth has taught writing at New York University, Johns Hopkins, and in New York City public schools. She is director of the Midtown Workmens Circle School, a progressive Jewish community, and co-author, with Edgar M. Bronfman, of Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance. She is a graduate of Yale University and the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and lives in Brooklyn.