College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Separate groups

Betty Dobratz's book explores America's white separatist movement.
Some research is conducted in laboratories. Other may involve field study. For her book, White Power, White Pride!, Betty Dobratz, associate professor of sociology, ventured into the rallies and camps of the white separatist movement.

Along with a former graduate assistant, Stephanie L. Shanks-Weile, Dobratz interviewed leaders and rank-and-file members in the white separatist movement. They attended dozens of rallies, congresses and other gatherings, amassed scores of movement-generated documents, and inspected audio- and videotapes from both movement and media sources.

The result is a compelling volume that chronicles the history, ideology and strategies of the white separatist movement.

When Dobratz and Shanks-Weile first started their research back in the late '80s, they focused their interest on the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and Skinheads. They soon realized the overall white separatist movement was more complex than they thought.

"I didn't realize how important the Christian identity believers were in the movement," Dobratz said. "Those beliefs emerged a lot more when started to talk to members of the movement.

"For many Christian identity and race are so closely tied that it's very important to consider in any study."

So important that Dobratz will focus on that aspect for her next book. The current book is out in a hardback version and will be published this fall by Johns Hopkins Press as a paperback.

Race is also an important factor in a white separatist's beliefs. While a white supremacist advocates the superiority of the white race, militant white separatists have called for a separate, white nation. White Power, White Pride! concludes with a consideration of the white separatist movement within the larger context of U.S. political and economic conditions.

Dobratz and Shanks-Weile reached that conclusion after 125 interviews at rallies and even during a visit to an Aryan Nation camp. Typically, the two researchers dealt mainly with men in the movement, although some interviews were conducted with women.

"It was harder to get women to talk, especially in public," Dobratz said. "They would almost always defer to the men although some of the younger women were more than willing to talk to us."

However it was the fact that both researchers were women that Dobratz feels enabled them to obtain so much information for their study.

"The men in the movement typically open up more to women," she said. "We probably weren't seen as threatening as a white man. Most were quite helpful to us. I think because we were women, that really played in our favor."

White Power, White Pride! also explored areas of agreement and disagreement among the various white separatist groups.

"There is so much bickering and dissention in this movement that it's hard to see them ever coming together to be a real political force," Dobratz said. "While the Christian identity and race is prevelant throughout many of these groups, they don't share a common ground which will unite them."