Here’s the thing: Would police have found anything had Clark’s relatives not spoken up? You’d want to think Gab would be cooperative in helping authorities find people who might be using the platform to plan violent criminal acts, but the fact that the site exists at all shows at least passive acceptance of its ability to empower and incite white nationalists.

I shouldn’t have to note how scary it is to think we have to rely on white nationalists’ family members to out them before they commit violence— given that from the personal to the political level, white people have a terrifying predilection for protecting their own, even in the face of undeniable and indefensible acts of savagery. We know that many white people’s sense of protecting their own is protecting their power with irrational and extreme acts of violence. And we know there are people with a vested interest in turning a blind eye to these things, including police officers who have racist ties to a self-identified nationalist-who-happens-to-be-white Donald Trump.

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