What happens when a Black punk-rocker fights White Supremacy

"Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness,” Anne Frank famously ruminated in her diary before being killed in the holocaust.

Eric K. Ward is one who has made a life and found his purpose in rising to the challenges inherent in defying and defining the darkness he has encountered over a lifetime.

As a nationally-recognized expert on the relationship between authoritarian movements, hate violence, and preserving inclusive democracy for over 30 years, Mr. Ward is a Senior Fellow with Southern Poverty Law Center and Race Forward. He currently serves as Executive Director of Western States Center, a national hub for innovative responses to white nationalism, antisemitism, and structural inequality and works nationwide to strengthen inclusive democracy so all people can live, love, worship and work free from fear. Ward also brings a uniquely innovative musical approach to fighting the good fight through punk-rock activism. Taking the stage as “Bulldog Shadow”, he describes his genre as one that “bends folk into a new punk framework and spits out a series of stories we wish we were the ones telling.”

“The shortest bio is that I am Black in America, carrying what our ancestors got us here to do and trying to prepare for those who come after," he shared with Flossin Media CEO and Editor-in-Chief, John Washington.

Ward's formative years deeply influenced his eventual decision to dedicate his life to racial justice. "My family fled Kentucky in the early 1900's after the lynching of Mary Denton Thompson of Shepardsville, and we came to LA," he remembered. "I grew up in that area in the time that desegregation was just happening and it was messy. Many of us who were bussed to other schools found ourselves on the receiving end of racial abuse, not from other students, but from people driving back and forth to work as we were getting off the school bus. These were adults not children," he said sadly.

Finding ways to stay strong and connected to other students, Ward discovered that music provided an escape and an outlet for expression. "Eventually you have to learn to stand up for yourself and these experiences led me to the punk community."

"Kids are always trying to find their way together and we found that way through music," he shared. "The punk community in LA was diverse and in the 80's incorporated hardcore, but it also incorporated reggae, Ska, and it was a moment where segregation began to fall for young people. When that community was attacked by white power skinheads who came in trying to tell us who could be there and who couldn't, that was the point where you had to decide if you were going to leave or were you going to stay and fight for your community. Ultimately we decided to stay and fight in the best way we knew how."

After graduation, a distinct shift in overall culture and social dynamics began to talk hold in LA and Ward was ready for a change. "It was neo-Nazi skinheads, the drug war, and the economy that eventually drove me to come to the Pacific NW with friends. When I landed here, I realized that some of those things hadn't changed. There were still the Aryan nations, the American front, and a rise in neo-Nazism. I realized again, as I did in Jr. High School, that I wasn't going to be bullied or allow my friends to be bullied, so we found folks in the community to build with and find a way to respond."

Building a network to respond effectively to the very real and imminent threats posed by racial hatred involved delving deep beneath the surface to uncover the roots of white supremacy and it's toxic offshoot, white nationalism.

"We have 2 big threats. One is white supremacy. It is that system that was created and predates this country, but it is also how this country was formed," he explained. "White supremacy is based on stolen resources and genocide of native people and 500 years of chattel slavery. Second is white nationalism which I argue is distinctly different from white supremacy in that it is a social movement. Where white supremacy seeks to exploit Black and Indigenous people, white nationalism seeks to get rid of us all together. It's ethnic cleansing and the way they intersect with each other is that they create a critical threat to Black people and other people of color and to white folks themselves."

Of all the regions in the country infected by these twin scourges, Ward goes on to explain how and why the western states have become known to be a hotbed of such activities.

"We live in a State [Oregon] that was created to be an all-white state. It was in the original constitution that Blacks couldn't even reside here because white settlers were afraid they and indigenous people would get together and create some good trouble. The truth is, if we really want to know as a community why white nationalism and paramilitaries have thrived here, we need to pick up the mirror," he mused. "How could they not think they are welcome here when Black people are nearly every category you measure in Oregon society, at the bottom of a well? How could a white nationalist not think this is prime territory?"

Seeking to further illuminate the phenomena and its participants, Ward began devoting time to understanding and addressing the insidious ways that white supremacy feeds white nationalism and how both pervade the fabric of society. His work led him to cross the aisle and into the underground dynamics of those who embraced the lifestyle.

"I wanted to put aside my preconceptions and really understand what this other social movement was about," Ward shared. "I know my own social movement around racial justice and I understand the impact. I understand how King, Baker and X built but I didn't understand white nationalism. I thought it was like white supremacy, so I started attending meetings."

Through the process of discovery, Ward considers himself 'lucky' to have had the experience of meeting people who decided to leave those movements. Despite his concerted efforts to bridge the gap in understanding, he humbly declines to take credit for the exodus.

"I can't take a lot of claim for that," he said. "What I think I presented was a doorway out. The truth is when we break this binary of white supremacy and the white nationalism that is trying to turn it into something new, what we find out is we have a lot of problems in common. We also have a lot of dreams in common."

Finding the common ground led him to witness numerous transformations and awakenings amongst those he got to know. "I count myself lucky to know folks who have renounced white nationalism and gotten their lives back," he continues. “I have watched some of these people engage in restitution and reparations, the ones that most move me are the ones who take no pride in what they were. They don't try to romanticize it or make money on it, what they are trying to do is build back their lives and try to prove that they are worthy to their communities. I see those folks and count myself lucky to have seen this in my lifetime. It gives me hope."

It is that hope that gives him the strength and fortitude necessary to draw critical attention to the COVID 19 pandemic and the ways that systemic racism is predictably and disproportionately impacting Black, Indigenous and people of color.

"It is the unwillingness of the State of Oregon and other states in the region to come clean that perpetuates this problem we find ourselves in now," he grimly stated. "1 in 735 black people has died of COVID in the last 11 months. For native people, it's 1 in 595. COVID has become the 3rd leading cause of death but it's not the only thing that's killing us. It's folks in the medical and health systems operating with unconscious racial bias. It's in the white supremacist infrastructure. The impact is so much more critical on the Black community that it borders on biological ethnic cleansing."

In terms of the arduous work that still lies ahead for Western States Center and other groups, Ward remains cautiously hopeful about the potential for shifts under the new Biden administration.

"Western States Center is evolving. We are realistic about where we are and we are realistic about how we got here," he stated resolutely. "This is an unfolding process. 500 years of white supremacy will not change overnight despite our best dreams but we can make some real changes and we have made real changes. We have to take on white supremacy and we have to figure out how to manage this white nationalist movement which has a big base to recruit from. We can build, be Black centered and Black led, but we have to build a multi-racial movement that is not afraid of white nationalism."

In the end, Ward reminds us that looming challenges still exist, not because we are losing the battle for racial equity and justice, but because we are winning the struggle.

"I tell folks it’s Black History month and if you want to do Black History right, spend the 28 days thanking Black America for making democracy real," he said proudly. "The democracy that has been built largely thanks to Black America is the reason we were able to survive Donald Trump. There used to be these t- shirts that said "Not my Mama's civil rights movement" that we began wearing after Ferguson. And I have to say that is right, because my mama's civil rights movement was bad ass. They had to function under real white supremacy as rule of law. It wasn't a contested terrain, it was the way everything was and we should not waste that sacrifice. We need to think of it this way. We are not losing. What we are facing is a backlash because of how much we have won.``