Nostalgia and the Protection of White Supremacy at a Public Farmers’ Market

Abstract

In 2019, an organic produce vendor in a Bloomington, Indiana, farmers’ market was exposed as an active member of the violent white supremacist organization Identity Evropa, sparking national conversation about the whiteness of local food and local controversy over the vendor’s continued inclusion in the market. Activist groups and community members argued for the vendor’s removal from the market at public meetings and protested the vendor’s stand throughout the remainder of the season. Remarkably, official policy and much of public sentiment resolved on the side of the white supremacist vendor, while activists were arrested and silenced. Drawing on discourse analysis and participant observation, this article addresses three related dynamics. First, we highlight the resonances between the nostalgic rhetoric of local food and aspects of white nationalist ideology to explain why white supremacists in general might see farmers’ markets as an appropriate site to further their racial project. Second, we illustrate how overlapping themes including motherhood, community membership, and organic links between people and land operated to shield the white supremacist vendor from public scrutiny. Finally, we show how parallel rhetoric was deployed against activists who objected to the presence of white supremacists in the market, so the activists became the identified source of disruption and exclusionary violence.