The Time I Talked with Alex Linder

In 2007, I had a 30-minute conversation with Alex Linder the founder of the VNN network and one of the original white supremacists.

Back in 2007, I was 19 years old and I was working on trying to land some stories to get my journalism career underway. I was writing for my college newspaper and I was looking for interesting people to interview for other stories. At the time, I was writing for a defunct website called Associated Content which was later Yahoo voices which is now also defunct. Unfortunately, I did not save a hard copy of the original article and the link is long gone. I’m ok with that because the writing was not up to par. I wish AC had survived into the modern era because we did some pretty great work over there. Medium has filled its spot in the market very well.

I came across the heinous killing of Christian and Christopher Newsom. Check out the link to read the gory details. It was truly gruesome. A group of 5 African-Americans had committed the killing and the motive was not obvious at the time. However, this story was immediately picked up by fringe white supremacist groups. VNN was the first big site to pick it up in those circles and so I decided to contact Alex Linder who was writing about this and holding rallies to call for a greater investigation into the crime.

We skyped (he didn’t wish to reveal his phone number for obvious reasons) and we had a very civilized 30-minute conversation. He was kind and knew how to handle more mainstream media. He talked about things we’ve become very familiar with in 2019. He talked about the lower IQs of black people and how most black people aren’t “pure” and have some white genetics. About 20 minutes in I revealed my own race and I even got him to admit that I seemed smart and articulate. He even seemed to enjoy the conversation and for a little bit, we even stayed in touch. I kept an eye on the story. I tried to interview other leaders of the white power movement but I didn’t have much success. I did talk to another gentleman involved in the movement who seemed very nice except for the fact he was a white supremacist!

Why Am I Telling You This Story?

I’m confident that I’ve written about this before. However, I wanted to relate this story again at this time because the kind of people I dug into back in 2007 has been dominating news headlines. Alex Linder is on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of extremists. Domestic terrorism is on the rise, and I wanted to relive this moment with you to tell you a few things. One of those things is that this movement is not new. Timothy McVeigh, who committed the Oklahoma City bombing, aligned with these organizations back in the early 1990s after his military service. White nationalist groups have been something our society has had to deal with since Reconstruction. The mainstream media often makes it seem like it’s a “new thing” that “no one knew about” however, anyone who has studied terrorism (like I have) knows that domestic terror is something that has been a part of the discussion for decades. However, these groups have grown bolder in the last few years partly in thanks to President Trump and the space he has allowed for these groups to grow. One of the goals of VNN in 2007 was to recruit more people to their cause. I dare say they have fulfilled that goal in the intervening years. They are a premier website for those views and others have also grown in their place.

I don’t know how we can exist in a society where some people would like all black people to either move to a part of a country they can separate from or to simply go back to Africa. It’s even harder to imagine trying to negotiate with people willing to resort to violence likes mass shootings and bombings to make their distaste of a pluralistic society known. This is closely tied to my past article, The Death of the White, Christian, Heteronormative Narrative. America is changing and people like Alex Linder are leading the resistance and for right now, they are in the lead.