I imagine this will be a very unpopular anecdote.

Living in Vancouver, I've seen numerous white supremacists while riding public transit or drinking coffee in cafes in run down neighbourhoods. You can spot them by their tattoos, their attitude towards minorities and the little stickers (always poorly photoshopped with a Canadian flag) on their backpacks and helmets that say something like "Canada for Canadians" or "Fuck Immigrants".

I'm not white. I'm Chinese-Canadian, more or less a model minority in Canada. Every now and then, I meet a white supremacist, and we either have a nice chit chat about the state of affairs, or I'm told to go the fuck back to China, usually more of the latter.

But the few times I have actually been able to sit down with them, I always seem to get a half-decent conversation going on talking about things like the Fort McMurray Fires, Saudi Arabian economic tactics in the oil market and Elbowgate. It's certainly true many of them are stubborn, and have effectively been marginalized in society. Many are, in the sense, castaways of society, coming from poor working class families, more rural areas, raised in Foster care or having been abandoned by their family by the age of 16. They seem to get involved with white supremacy for numerous reasons, from not being able to maintain stable employment to interpersonal relationship problems.

Many of these folks are genuinely disenfranchised, working in low level trades, construction or retail. They've been caught at the cornerstone of a housing bubble and strong economic downturn without being given the capacity to restructure. While it's hard to sympathize with their views, I think I can sympathize with their situations from a human level, they are caught in a cycle of poverty without any immediate way out. And unlike minorities (not going to name any specific programs because I'm not trying to single out a certain group), they don't necessarily have privileged access to social welfare programs, or they retain just enough employment that they are effectively ineligible. They tend to desperately want to seek out answers, from government, from society, from their social circles. Society's ideal answer would be: let's get them back on their feet! But it rarely works out that way. When your demands and questions are ignored for years, at some point, those answers are generally going to lie in religion or white supremacy.

I have never ever met a white supremacist who was part of the middle class (although I imagine they do exist), and generally they have little post-secondary education, usually at a technical institute like BCIT or a for-profit college like Sprott Shaw. I do think that people are pushed into organizations like Soldiers of Odin because they need a scapegoat for their poor economic welfare, which usually turns out to be immigrants, despite research consistently showing that more immigrants tend to equivocate to more long-term job growth. None of them seem to have cars, except a select few (that I have yet to encounter) who make their living off organizing white supremacists, which is why they're so common on buses these days.

I think in the broad sense of the form, we have focused too much on initiatives like affirmative action which in my opinion, are bandaids more than anything, (it's also something that white supremacists heavily resent), and radical left wing groups tend to speak louder these days than the progressive society that is Canada. The radical left wing is well known for spouting nonsense about how White people can't suffer through poverty or oppression and how prevalent white privilege is, which is a load of horseshit that tries to dehumanize fellow members of Canadian Society. I honestly think it's incredibly depressing how a growing number of people seem to have this notion that white people are the oppressors of society (and therefore, cannot suffer through oppression), when they're just like the rest of us: people working to contribute to society and build a better nation, all under the maple leaf. People seem to misconstrue the idea why people become white supremacists. It isn't necessarily a case of an oppressor trying to maintain a status quo, it's almost always the case of the marginalized trying to set a new status quo (see the contrast with radical leftyism?) in response to their own marginalization.

We've forgotten about the broad reaching safety net for all Canadians, and the diversification of the Canadian economy. If we reduced unemployment, diversified the economy, re-evaluated where social welfare is needed most, made housing far more affordable and broadened our student aid programmes, white supremacist groups would be at a far lesser level than they are now in Vancouver. In no way am I saying that white supremacist groups are large at the moment, but they do have a worrying membership growth that is terrifying to think about. Most people are driven to white supremacy or radical leftyism through long-term marginalization, not necessarily because they grew up with the idea that white people are inherently superior to minorities. In addition, membership in these groups tend to be self-reinforcing, as one burrows deeper into the rabbit hole that is radicalism.

On the other hand, people who are white supremacists because they make money off being broadcasters catering to these tastes and organizing can go fuck themselves.

That's also, in a sense, why people are so happy to jump to vote for Trump in the United States.

EDIT: Thank you all (or at least most of you) for engaging in productive discussion rather than mercilessly trying to kill eachother with the English language. It's a rather sobering thought that people aren't out to just disagree, but choose to agree or disagree based on their own deduction.

EDIT 2: Thank you for the gold kind redditor!