There is a fear among alt-right groups of white men being wiped out, and this has led to the rise of fringe groups using online platforms to garner support for their radical views.
This is the premise of white supremacist movements mushrooming around the world, Dr Gavin Evans argued at the launch of his book White Supremacy — A Brief History of Hatred.
The book launch, hosted by The Herald and Nelson Mandela University’s Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (Canrad) as part of their community dialogues series, was held at the South End Museum with Prof Janet Cherry of NMU as respondent.
Asiphe Mxalisa, gender activist and lecturer at Rhodes University, facilitated the discussion.
In his book, Evans, who was born in London but grew up mainly in Cape Town, explores the roots of the white supremacist ideology, tracing back to the 19th century to Charles Darwin and Francis Galton’s race-based theories.
He examines the spread of eugenics and the rise of Nazism and apartheid.
At the book launch, he pointed out how there were fears among some about the rise of Arabs and Hispanics and how this could lead to white men being in the minority.
This has led to alt-right groups banding together in a bid to protect themselves and their genes.
Evans hopes the book can play a role in challenging notions of white supremacy in their current form which is being promoted by several key people.
“White supremacy is based on spurious grounds; there is no basis for it but it’s a kind of scientific racism that [catches on],” Evans said.
“The [book] title is very direct and that’s the reason for it.
“Young white men in America are still extraordinarily privileged relative to black and Hispanic men but there’s been a loss of status, power and purchase,” Evans said.
Cherry said she had a love-hate relationship with Evans’s book because it was difficult to read such brutal accounts of racism.
“I found it very difficult to accept that, in 2025, we have to read this very detailed revolution of the pseudo-science on which these racist theories of white supremacy are based.
“I actually resent it that at my age and after so many decades... we still have to engage with this. It’s absolutely infuriating.
“Why do we have to read this book about race science?” Cherry asked, adding that her father, who was a scientist, refuted any notion of racial superiority.
Peter Vale, a retired academic, said there had been a war on people of colour that predated slavery.
It was embedded in different cultural tropes and also carried in different forms such as capitalism and Christianism, which had been major carriers of racism, he said.
“Is racism not carried in the English language? The power of imperialism; imperial capitalism — we see it every day and it’s enormous power.”
Michael Barry, a trustee of the museum, said he was trying to understand the deeper motivation for the rise in white supremacy.
Evans said technology had played a big role in amplifying such alt-right views: “The way social media has developed and the way algorithms have been used to drive people to view their interests or perceived interests”.
“Young men and women are driven in different ways,” Evans said.
“Now with the economy — the factories making the goods are not in the West, so the jobs [and] status people get, and the idea of young white men being the dominant force, is over and they see this.”
Canrad director Prof Bheki Mngomezulu said the book launch came at a time when the country awaited the return of SA’s ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, who was given the boot for his utterances about the Trump administration, saying the US president was leading a white supremacist movement.
“What he said, by the way, was correct, totally correct, but in his position he should not have said that,” Mngomezulu said.
“We launch this book at a time when the country is still struggling to deal with racial intolerance.
“That is the reality we are dealing with,” he said, citing several examples of racially charged events in SA.
Mxalisa said: “Even though white people are the minority, the wealth [and] the politics are controlled by them, which is a systematic issue.
“If you run away from the conversations about white supremacy, we will actually narrow racism into slang, which can make us miss the need to dismantle the system.”
The Herald