Book Review: Alt-Right Gangs: A Hazy Shade of White

• Published date: 01 March 2025
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168221121308
• Author: Christian L. Bolden
• Date: 01 March 2025
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Reed, Shannon E., and Valasik, Matthew. (2020).

Alt-Right Gangs: A Hazy Shade of White. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, pp. X–192,

ISBN 978-0520300453.

Reviewed by: Christian L. Bolden ,Loyola University New Orleans

DOI: 10.1177/07340168221121308

Alt-Right Gangs is a text that provides a timely update to research on white and right-wing gangs in

the United States. The conceptual understanding and debate regarding what constituted a gang in the

1990s resulted in a problematic disconnect of white gang-like groups from being included in gang

studies, primarily due to the ideological orientations of such groups. While this debate seemed aca-

demic on the surface, the disassociation of white groups from being considered gangs had the det-

rimental effect of fueling a continued disregard from gang researchers and law enforcement,

ultimately allowing these groups to increase unnoticed.

The initial orientation of the text focuses on the problems of def‌initions and categorizations,

clearly delineating how alt-right groups fall within the operationalized context of the Eurogang def-

inition, which is the most widely used def‌inition of gangs in research, and why the exclusion of these

groups has been a mistake. The authors then break down the complex categorical inf‌luences of alt-

right groups, asserting they are an intersection of conventional gangs, white power groups, and online

trolls. The second chapter continues the def‌initional and conceptual discussion of alt-right gangs by

tackling the myths about such groups, tearing down the notions that they are not really gangs, that

racial and political ideology is their primary focus, and that they are a part of international conglom-

erates or are solely an online phenomenon. The authors further break down the within gang myths

such as adherence to strict racial hierarchies and that only racists join alt-right gangs. The later

myth takes the reader through one of the more insidious aspects of racial radicalization, also

known as the “boiling frog”metaphor, in which people are slowly immersed and indoctrinated

through music, camaraderie, and exposure to lukewarm alt-lite humor and politics. Before the

recruit knows it, they have been “boiled”or radicalized.

The next section of Alt-Right Gangs demonstrates how the risk factors for joining these groups

mirror the risk factors for joining other gangs. These contributors include discord and dysfunction

within families, single-parent households, parental unemployment and absenteeism, neighborhood

disorganization, and the need for safety, protection, or economic support. Despite the activities of

these groups often being identical to that of other gangs, alt-right groups maintain the myth that

they are different from conventional gangs by presenting themselves as benign fraternal organiza-

tions and dispensing fake or pseudoscientif‌ic propaganda online that purportedly proves the superi-

ority of whiteness.

Reid and Valasik go on to make the case that the exclusion of alt-right groups from consideration

as gangs, based solely on the descriptor of ideology, is erroneous. There is no universal ideology

within the white power movement, but many belief systems sometimes overlap. Furthermore,

there is solid evidence that other conventional gangs include racial pride within their gang identity.

Book Reviews

Criminal Justice Review

2025, Vol. 50(1) 101-111

© 2022 Georgia State University

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