"The conservative media’s pandering to fears of black violence is a sophisticated effort. The race war must be brought home to predominantly white areas. Places like Iowa and Wisconsin do not have large populations of black people; but in the conservative media, this is no protection from the race war apparently being waged against white Americans. The Daily Caller and other conservative websites repeatedly featured coverage of what was labeled as “beat whitey night” a state fair in Iowa. The conservative media doubled down on their “white folks imperiled even in Red State rural America” meme by giving extensive coverage to how white people were ambushed and beaten at a similar event in Wisconsin. All of these news items are part of an effort to craft a dramatic, exaggerated story that plays on racial fears, and channels many of the themes common to Right-wing identity politics in the aftermath of the Civil Rights era. Crime; black violence; a fear of black young people; and an emphasis on cities and urban areas (and the people who live there) as embodying everything wrong with America, have mobilized Republican voters and right leaning Independents since (at least) Richard Nixon’s appeals to “the silent majority”… In all, the conservative media’s effort to paint a picture where white people are uniquely under threat by black hate crimes and mob action is a gross misrepresentation of the realities of racial violence in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that since the election of Barack Obama, the number of white hate groups in the United States has continued to grow over the last decade. These groups and individuals are not idle. In fact, whites have recently killed people of color in racially motivated shooting sprees; plots such as the planned Martin Luther King Junior Day bombingby a neo-Nazi in Spokane, Washington have been uncovered by federal authorities; other white hate groups have been recently indicted for planning acts of domestic terrorism against people of color. While the conservative media tries to create panic about a race war in which blacks attack whites, history reveals that the opposite dynamic has been the norm."