Woe to the poor Aryan soldier! Aryan Nations rally draws less than 20
Report from Balitmore ARA April 2002
Perhaps the decrepit Butler faction of the Aryan Nations thought they could do by themselves what five more vigorous fascist groups combined could not: hold a successful white power rally in York. On January 12, the National Alliance, World Church of the Creator, Hammerskin Nation, National Socialist Movement, and the rebel Aryan Nations faction got themselves swiftly run out of town by a spontaneous union of east coast antifascist militants and York residents from the surrounding neighborhoods.
This time around Butler had promised a force of 350 fascists from Aryan Nations and supporting groups. By pulling such a victory from the jaws of defeat the 84 year old nazi must have hoped he might regain control over what was once thought to be the premier white power organization in the States. In the end around a dozen Aryan Nation?s members behind a police presence of several hundred state and city police, spoke on the York County Courthouse steps for about twenty minutes with no amplification and were escorted out in police vans.
The whole proceedings elicited little more than a yawn from the gathered city folk opposed to the nazi posturing. Small groups of friends and family came mostly it seems to witness what kind of idiots there are to be found in the world. Other youth came to see if a similar response as was given last time would be needed again today. Anti-Racist Action brought 40 people ready to support whatever direction locals wanted to take it. But before long it became clear to everyone there was no where to take it. Who needs to flog dead horses, especially with hundreds of riot cops with no badges milling around? A mild chorus of taunts accompanied the frail Butler and his crew as they made their back alley get away. And a few shouts of "They know they can?t mess with York!" offered a proper summing up of the days events.
Today puts to rest nazi claims of victory on January 12. At least one bonehead crew backed out of the rally due to insufficient police protection! All the other organizations that were offered another free pulpit in York decided the costs were too high. Now no amount of bullshitting can cover their retreat. And the lesson for anti-fascists is just as clear: always shut them down. We all beat them so bad January 12, nobody needed to lift a finger this time around.
The National Alliance looks to be planning big for their May 11 demo outside the Israeli embassy. While walking pickets in the isolated embassy neighborhoods is definitely a far cry from holding a presence in the mean streets of America?s cities, allowing any type of street presence is too much of a concession. In particular we refuse to let the NA cop any type of "anti-imperialist" line or claim any solidarity with the Palestinian struggle which they cynically invoke to build anti-semitism and white power politics in general in the States.
A few willing to back Butler : York man claims others feel the same, but intimidated
By ELIZABETH EVANS York Dispatch/Sunday News Sunday, April 21, 2002 3:07 AM MST
Sitting in a smoky bar with two buddies, John Swartz tapped the ash from his Pall Mall, took a long pull from his 16-ounce can of Old Milwaukee, and held out his arms to display two lightning-bolt "SS" insignias used by the elite Nazi force.
"Nobody means what they say anymore -- that's why I got these tattoos," he said.
After leaving yesterday's lackluster white-power rally in downtown York, the 32-year-old mechanic and his friends were followed by reporters and photographers .
Swartz entertained a few perfunctory questions, giving newspaper and television reporters a fake name: Ralph Johnson.
Eventually, the trio made their way to the Station House bar on George Street, where they expressed disappointment at how few people showed up to support Richard G. Butler, founder and leader of the Aryan Nations.
"I think a lot of people were afraid to go," Swartz said, because of possible attacks by anarchists or, worse, the possibility of being 'outed' in their own community.
"But I'm not going to run away from what I believe in," he said.
Aryan sympathizers: The three men - Swartz, Mark McClain and Heath Kornbau, all of York - wanted to hear Butler's words, but a noisy crowd and hovering helicopter made it difficult.
"I figured it would either be a total riot or a big fizzle," Swartz said of yesterday's rally. "I'm glad it was a big fizzle."
He described himself as a "separatist" who doesn't mind working next to a black man, but who opposes mixed marriages and believes races should live in separate neighborhoods.
"I believe in the preservation of the white race -- the pure white race, the Anglo-Saxons," he said. "Around here, it used to be that people knew to 'hold the line.' They associated with their own."
Still, Swartz agreed that if everyone in the United States were white, people would find some group to hate.
"We're a warring mammal," he said.
Hidden support: Many people who privately agree with him keep their opinions quiet, he said.
"There's more than you know. They just hide under the covers," he said. "We are protected under the Constitution to have these views, yet we're ostracized for them."
Swartz said he is not a member of any white-supremacist group, calling himself an independent.
"There's a lot of people out there who feel like I do who are a-holes," he said. "They have the right idea, but they resort to violence, which compounds the problem."
Swartz said he believes many of the young people in the white-power movement are searching for something.
"These people don't know what they want," he said. "It's an identity that's real for them."
For others, Swartz theorized, "It's fear. They hate and fear what they don't understand."
Human nature: Swartz claimed that for him, it was a decision made as an adult, not one he learned at home. "I made this choice myself," he said, despite the fact that his parents disagree, especially his mother.
"I can see it in her eyes -- it hurts her," he said. "She says, 'I didn't raise you to be like this.'"
Swartz raised his shirt and pointed at a tattoo on his stomach that simply reads, "filth."
"That's how some people perceive me ... for what I believe," he said.
Swartz said he believes people should be judged as individuals.
"I can have respect for a black man, Swartz said. "I can shake his hand on the street."
All he really wants out of life, he said, is to have several kids, own a few acres of wooded land, and have enough privacy.
Mostly, he said, he just doesn't want to be lonely.
Swartz said he understands his beliefs could make it tougher, perhaps impossible, to find a wife.
He admits he couldn't marry a woman who's adopted unless she's been able to determine the ethnicity of her biological parents.
"That's one of the pitfalls of what I'm about," he said.
INDIANAPOLIS -- A self-proclaimed neo-Nazi pleaded guilty Monday to the attempted murder of a black teenager from Gary, authorities said. Trevor Thompson, 21, is accused of shooting 13-year-old Ashley McNeil in the hip as she walked with friends outside an Indianapolis convenience store on June 21.
"It was a horrendous crime, contemptible conduct, and he's looking at 30 years in prison," Marion County Prosecutor Scott Newman said.
Investigators said that Thompson, who has tattoos of swastikas, apparently argued with several black men about the insignias and then went on a mission to hurt someone who was black.
McNeil recovered from her injury, but surgeons did not remove the bullet from her body.
Vandalism Probed as Hate Crime; San Diego: Outdoor murals depicting the history of Chicanos are defaced in a city park.
Tony Perry Los Angeles Times May 1, 2002
SAN DIEGO - Police are investigating as a possible hate crime the defacing of five outdoor murals painted on steel and concrete pillars at Chicano Park in the Barrio Logan neighborhood here, officials said Tuesday.
The brightly colored murals of heroic, larger-than-life figures depict the history of Chicanos in the southwestern United States, as well as important people in Mexican, Chicano and Latin American history.
Although vandalism and graffiti are common in public places here, the spray-paint attack on the five murals, which was discovered Monday, marks the first time that the artwork of Chicano Park has been marred in its 30-year history.
"Chicano Park has always been a kind of sacred ground: no gang graffiti, no tagging graffiti," said police Sgt. Joe Woods, who is leading the investigation. "This is definitely a first." One mural was spray-painted with the words "Down With Mexico" in Spanish. On the others the phrase "Viva la Miga" was painted, probably a misspelling of the word "migra," a slang term for the Border Patrol. One mural had a four-letter expletive in English.
"This is an outrageous act and has offended my community greatly," said artist Salvador Torres, who painted some of the murals and is known as the "grandfather of Chicano Park."
The park--beneath an elevated portion of Interstate 5 leading to the Coronado Bay Bridge--was born of the Chicano political activism that arose in the late 1960s and early '70s.
The site had been scheduled to be a California Highway Patrol facility but protesters, angry at the prospect of losing control of the land, blocked bulldozers in April 1970. That protest is often celebrated in Chicano history as a landmark event in a movement that emphasized radical politics and cultural pride.
Faced with the protest, the CHP and San Diego City Council backed down and allowed the area--wedged between homes and an industrial zone--to become an urban park, with murals and a lawn.
There are now more than 55 murals on the concrete and steel pillars of the overhead freeway done by more than two dozen artists, including several schoolchildren.
Two weeks ago, thousands of people flocked to the park for an all-day party to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the 1970 protest and its slogan "Reclaiming What's Ours."
Richard Griswold del Castillo, chairman of the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Diego State, said that Chicano Park has the largest outdoor collection of Latino/Chicano murals in the United States and that the murals are central to the park's historic and cultural significance.
"Chicano Park is a place of celebration, of cultural renewal, spiritual rededication and political protest," he said. "I am in shock and disbelief that someone would do this. I'm ashamed for San Diego."
Students in literature, anthropology and Chicano studies classes regularly visit Chicano Park to study the murals and ponder their importance.
On Tuesday, for example, a literature class from San Diego City College was at the park studying the murals. "This is ruthless, absolutely terrible," said English professor Elva Salinas. "It's the kind of hurtful thing that white supremacists might do."
Salinas' students shared her outrage. "Everybody should be able to show their culture without other people messing it up," said Jeanna Balestrieri, 20, a sophomore. "This is just wrong."
Ruben Moreno, the city Park and Recreation Department supervisor for Chicano Park, said he was surprised that anyone would dare deface the murals, given the protective feeling in the surrounding neighborhood.
"If anyone had seen them do it, you can bet they would have stopped them," he said. "It's not a smart idea to hurt the murals when anybody is around."
Raymond Uzeta, president of the Chicano Federation of San Diego County, said he is pleased the Police Department is treating the vandalism as a possible hate crime, which could lead to tougher penalties for the culprits.
"I hope they're caught and prosecuted," he said. "We cannot tolerate people coming into a neighborhood and destroying public art that has brought so much pride."
In the past few weeks, incidents of hate and bias on Colorado campuses have garnered public attention. The Colorado College student newspaper ran a fake news story on April 1 that ridiculed African-Americans with recycled stereotypes. This was followed closely by anti-Semitic messages scrawled on the sidewalks at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
These incidents are not aberrations. Earlier this year, bulletin boards were plastered with Neo-Nazi fliers at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where I teach. An African-American student in Washington discovered threatening hate notes in his locker, warning of lynching and death; at Brown University, an African-American senior was beaten up by a group of white students who called her a 'quota.' Arab and Muslim students have faced a deluge of threats and harassment since Sept. 11. While we like to think of universities as institutions of higher learning above such irresponsible pranks and racism, hate crimes and bias incidents are frighteningly common on college campuses. 250 incidents of campus hate crimes were reported in 1998. Far more pervasive stillare bias acts - harassment that is not criminal in nature. Sociologists estimate that there are 1 million bias acts per year.
And sociologists estimate that only 20 percent of hate crimes and bias incidents on campus are reported to campus officials - even fewer to the federal government.
Bias acts such as the recent events on Colorado campuses affect students throughout the country. White students may pay little attention when news of such incidents reaches them, but for minority students, the consequences can be far-reaching. Sociologists have advanced the notion of co-victimization to characterize this experience. Co-victims see attacks or threats against their peers as threats against their own well-being. Because hate crimes and bias acts target victims based on their group membership, all group members are made to feel vulnerable and at risk.
As a faculty member, I am concerned. Is there anything we can do to prevent such incidents in the future? Research shows that there is not one simple answer.
The pervasive assumption that racial inequality has already been remedied lies at the heart of the problem. Many white students today believe that inequality is a thing of the past - a problem dealt with by their parents' generation and the civil rights movement. In addition, the college environment may be the first place that white students have any prolonged contact with anyone different. Increased contact between groups can be potentially positive, or explosive, depending to a large extent upon the campus culture.
The American Sociological Association's recently completed report on hate and bias acts on college and university campuses explores model responses and proactive measures taken across the nation to prevent outbreaks of hate. The task force found that support for diversity across the campus significantly reduces hate and bias.
While we tend to reduce hate crime to the acts of a few prejudiced individuals, research shows that the climate or broader culture plays a pivotal role in reducing or enabling the expression of hate. The task force found that three elements were most successful in reducing levels of hate and bias:
A diverse curriculum, including support for ethnic minority studies and womens' studies programs, as well as integration of diversity across the curriculum.
Diverse activities and programming for the broader campus community.
Strong institutional leadership and an organizational structure that supports diversity.
What this means is that the power to prevent such acts lies within our hands, as a community. While we may not be able to change each individual who harbors racist thoughts, we can and must work together to create campus climates that reduce the likelihood of such expressions. We must send a strong message to all students that we care about educating each and every one of them in an intellectually challenging, yet safe, environment.
(Abby L. Ferber teaches sociology and women's studies at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, and is the co-author of two books on white supremacy and hate crime.) ***********************************************************************
Flashback | Remembering Wounded Knee, 1973
by Carter Camp, Ponca Nation
I would like to dedicate these words to the brave young warriors of the "Native Youth Movement", each generation in its turn must face the enemy to ensure the survival of our Red Nations. It is my prayer that NYM warriors will one day know the joy and pride we knew at Wounded Knee.
Ah-ho My Relations,
Today is heavy with prayer and reminisces for me. Today is the anniversary of the night when, at the direction of the Oglala Chiefs, I went with a special squad of American Indian Movement warriors to liberate Wounded Knee in advance of the main AIM caravan. For security reasons the People had been told everyone was going to a meeting/wacipi in Porcupine, the road goes through Wounded Knee. When the People arrived at the Trading Post we had already set up a perimeter, taken eleven hostages, run the B.I.A. cops out of town, cut most phone lines, and began 73 days of the best, most free time of my life. The honor of being chosen to go first still lives strong in my heart.
That night we had no idea what fate awaited us. It was a cold night with not much moonlight and I clearly remember the nervous anticipation I felt as we drove the back-way from Oglala into Wounded Knee. The Chiefs had tasked me with a mission and we were sworn to succeed, of that I was sure, but I could not help wondering if we were prepared. The FBI, BIA and Marshalls had fortified Pine Ridge with machine gun bunkers and A.P.C.s (Armored Personel Carriers) with M-60 machine guns. They had unleashed the goon (Guardians Of the Oglala Nation) squad on the people and a reign of terror had begun, we knew we had to fight but we could not fight on wasicu terms. We were lightly armed and dependent on the weapons and ammo in the Wounded Knee trading post, I worried that we would not get to them before the shooting started.
As we stared silently into the darkness driving into the hamlet, I tried to forsee what opposition we would encounter and how to neutralize it...We were approaching a sacred place and each of us knew it. We could feel it deep inside. As a warrior leading warriors I humbly prayed to Wakonda for the lives of all and the wisdom to do things right. Never before or since have I offered my tobacco with such a plea or put on my feathers with such purpose. It was the birth of the Independent Oglala Nation.
Things went well for us that night, we accomplished our task with little bloodshed and without loss of life. Then, in the cold darkness as we waited for Dennis and Russ to bring in the caravan (or for the fighting to start), I stood on the bank of the shallow ravine where our people had been murdered by Custers' 7th Cavalry. There I prayed for the defenseless ones, torn apart by Hotchkiss cannon and trampled under hooves of steel by drunken wasicu. I could feel the touch of their spirits as I eased quietly into the infamous gully and stood silently...waiting for my future, touching my past.
Finally, I bent over and picked a sprig of sage - whose ancestors in 1890 had been nourished by the blood of Red babies, ripped from their mothers dying grasp and bayonetted by the evil ones - As I washed myself with that sacred herb I became cold in my determination and cleansed of fear. Ilooked for Big Foot and Yellow Bird in the darkness and I said aloud...
"We are back my relations, we are home." Hoka-Hey!
(American Indian Rights Activist and Ponca Tribal Leader, Carter Camp has worked for Tribal Sovereignty and Treaty Rights for over thirty years. He is a former National Chairman of the American Indian Movement and founder of Kansas and Oklahoma A.I.M. In 1973 at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, Carter was one of three A.I.M. leaders who led several hundred warriors in the historic, 73 day Wounded Knee liberation and subsequent 'siege' by the American Government.)
Out Now! Issue #3 (Winter/Spring 2002) of the ARA Research Bulletin
The 32-page new issue of ARA's top-notch journal of anti-racist research, analysis and debate is now available! Features in this issue include:
-an anti-fascist analysis of "The Battle of York, PA." -a comprehensive report on recent activities of the National Alliance -an exposé on Bill White and "Third Position" fascism in North America -an overview of in-group and intergroup splits, infighting and squabbles among the racist right -a historical overview of the racist and pro-imperialist Jewish Defense League -an update on the resurgence of neo-Nazi activity in Portland, Oregon -a timely look at the totalitarian realities of "homeland security" -a critique of the failings of the anti-war movement -a strategic examination of revolutionary anti-fascism -a five-page overview of fascist and anti-fascist news and events from around the world -a partial listing of U.S. "white power" concerts over the past three years
Once again, this ARA Chicago project proves to be the most informative, cutting edge and vital look at the fight against racism and fascism from the front lines! A sample article from this issue is available at: http://www.antiracistaction.ca/store/mag3sample.html
Order your copy today at arastore - http://www.antiracistaction.ca/store/mag3.html. Back issues and subscriptions also available from arastore (http://www.antiracistaction.ca/store) or from ARA Chicago (email: ara_chicago@ziplip.com)