The American Renaissance “white supremacist” “hate group” conference was canceled again on February 17. It had been scheduled to be held at the Capitol Skyline Hotel in Washington DC on February 20 and 21. American Renaissance’s Jared Taylor has stated this will be their “final” cancellation of their planned February 20 and 21, 2010 conference, which has been held bi-annually since 1994. The event had previously been canceled on February 15, and then it was rescheduled again on February 16 at a new venue, which was the Capitol Skyline Hotel.
Along with our public awareness efforts to help educate the DC public as to the identity of “New Century Foundation” as “American Renaissance,” R.E.A.L. had contacted the Capitol Skyline Hotel on February 1. When the American Renaissance event was rescheduled at the Capitol Skyline Hotel on February 16, R.E.A.L. talked with the local hotel manager and once again educated him on the identity of the group. In addition, we offered to provide an alternative counter-message that promotes diversity, equality, and love at the location. We also asked about the hotel’s commitment to diversity, which American Renaissance publicly stated that it sought to ridicule. The local hotel manager stated that he would not comment on these issues, indicating his only focus was on selling rooms.
As with other businesses, we have learned that meaningful discussions on community and public relations issues – the message of respect for human dignity that businesses extend to all of their patrons – requires getting the attention of those who have made a commitment and ownership in their businesses’ brand name. Therefore, R.E.A.L. contacted Rubell Hotels management regarding the planned event by American Renaissance at the Capitol Skyline hotel, as well as the previous “hate group” events held there on February 13 and November 7.
We have learned that many involved with senior management at numerous hotel chains are unaware of “hate group” events being held at individual hotels that they own or manage. For this reason, R.E.A.L. made every effort possible to contact the Rubell Hotels management as soon as we learned of the plans of the national American Renaissance “hate group” to hold their event at the Capitol Skyline. Later, we were informed by Rubell Hotels that the event was canceled. Once again, R.E.A.L. points out that our emphasis was to inform the management on the background of the planned conference, and to ask for an opportunity to provide a counter-message of diversity, hope, and love.
The Rubell Hotels is well-known for the involvement and activity by the Rubell family in its planning and community outreach. Furthermore, we know that leaders in the Rubell family have a commitment to human rights, our shared conscience, and remembering the Holocaust. In March 2009, Jennifer Rubell was an attendee at the Americas Business Council (ABC) Reconciliation forum in Washington DC. Through their internationally recognized art gallery, we know that the Rubell family is also committed very much to freedom of expression. Certainly, in issues simply regarding freedom of expression, such liberties would find no greater advocates than leaders in the Rubell family.
But as we stated in our article “hate, free speech, and American business,” freedom of speech in American businesses serving the public also requires the expectation of our shared trust that our human dignity will also be respected. Hate speech is not tolerated by American businesses by its employees against other employees. The American public also has an expectation from American businesses that hate speech against its other customers will also not be tolerated. Hate hurts all of us, including American businesses serving the public.
Some in the so-called “white nationalist” community which includes the “hate groups” American Renaissance, VDARE, Stormfront, Occidental Dissent, and others have opposed R.E.A.L.’s free speech to challenge “white nationalist” “hate.” We defend our right to free speech in rejecting hate, regardless of the threats against R.E.A.L.’s Jeffrey Imm. We recognize that such threats are often used to discourage and intimidate those who challenge ideologies of hate.
We respond, as we always have, with the verse from a famous folk song, “We are not afraid.”
Some have accused us of “lovemongering” to defend our human rights. Our human rights compass is based on our love for our fellow human beings. We reject all threats and hate against our fellow human beings, including threats against those who promote hatred. Those who are misguided by hate are also our fellow human beings. We seek to get those who hate to put such hate behind them, and rejoin us in the consensus of human rights and dignity in our family of humanity. Hate will never stop hate. Hate and threats of violence are always wrong. While we may reject the ideas or ideologies of certain groups, we must not reject them as our fellow human beings, no matter how reprehensible their ideas or actions may be. We must challenge hate with our love for our shared human rights of equality, liberty, and dignity. It is also our responsibility to Choose Love, not Hate.
If we are going to reach the undiscovered country of universal human rights for all, we must make hate our past, never our future.
Over the past year, R.E.A.L. has made it clear that we stand in support of both equality and liberty. That is the very name of our group, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.). We don’t believe that we can be responsible for human equality and allow racial supremacism and racial hate to go unchallenged. We are an all-volunteer organization. Like such volunteer organizations, we have finite resources, and much as we might like, we cannot be everywhere and address every cause. But we have made every effort to address issues of national and even international impact on our fellow human beings. We are not simply a “hate-buster” group, but we offer an alternative of love and hope, based on our larger consensus on our shared universal human rights of equality, liberty, and dignity – for all.
Some have asked us, “why do you care?”
R.E.A.L. exists to answer that question with the answer “because we must care.”
There is no threat against equality, liberty, and human dignity that affects just some of us – of one race, one gender, one ethnicity, one religion. A threat against our universal human rights of equality, liberty, and dignity is not just a threat against one of us – it is a threat against all of us. That is the consensus that we have that we must mobilize to action.
Certainly if a white American like R.E.A.L.’s Jeffrey Imm can’t stand up to the ideological threat of white supremacism, who can? Isn’t white supremacism a problem that white Americans are responsible to address? To white Americans, we tell you – this is your identity group, this is YOUR problem. Don’t look to just the victims of white supremacism for the solution. We are all part of the solution by being consistently responsible for our shared equality, liberty, and dignity. Hate hurts us all. Rejecting hate is our shared responsibility.
On April 4, 2009, we reached out to the American public at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool steps, warning about the growing threat of racial supremacism. We stood there, remembering that same day when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered in 1968, and we prayed for all of us. We especially prayed for those who hate to lift the burden of hate from their hearts.
Two months later, our nation’s capital was under attack by a white supremacist terrorist James Von Brunn, who attacked the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on June 10, 2009, and murdered black security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns. Our message then was the same message as it is now – to choose love and reject hate. Other groups have a very different message. The next day, June 11, “white nationalist hate group” VDARE – located in the DC Northern Virginia suburbs, published an article using the attack to condemn plans for new hate crimes legislation. In VDARE Peter Brimelow’s article condemning hate crimes legislation “Holocaust Museum Hullaballoo Reveals ‘Hate Crimes’ Hypocrisy,” Brimelow described Von Brunn as “by all accounts an intelligent man.” R.E.A.L. protested VDARE’s event in McLean, Virginia ten days later, as well as VDARE’s event in Baltimore on Halloween.
Von Brunn’s white supremacist terror attack in Washington DC has been praised by members of the Stormfront “hate group,” whose members have been linked to a mass terrrorism plot in Tennessee and murders of police officers in Pittsburgh. Others have reported on Stormfront members calling for the assassination of Barack Obama. The Stormfront “supermarket of hate” has been a resource for numerous “white nationalist hate groups,” including the American Renaissance. The day after the American Renaissance conference was canceled on February 15, American Renaissance’s Jared Taylor was on the Stormfront leader Derek Black’s radio show.
Both in Washington DC and around the nation, there have been continuing efforts to promote violent white supremacist terrorism in America. The ideology of white supremacist hate has continued to grow, while too many in the media and in the public have felt either intimidated or unwilling to address such hate.
R.E.A.L. will continue to reject racism and hate. While we may not yet have enough volunteers to challenge it everywhere, we will certainly make every effort to challenge racial “white nationalist hate groups” in our nation’s capital of Washington DC. Groups described by human rights organizations as “white nationalist” or other “hate groups” in the Washington DC area such as American Renaissance, VDARE, and the “American Free Press/Spotlight” group, should know that our commitment to equality means that we will do everything we can to reject ideologies of hate from such groups. New groups that seek to expand a “white nationalist” presence in the Washington DC area, such as the Occidental Dissent, should know we will challenge ideologies of hate promoted here. To those who praise hate and violence on the Stormfront web site, they should know that their efforts to promote events that incite hatred here will not be unnoticed or unchallenged.
Like our businesses, our institutions survive based on trust. On June 10, 2009, Stephen Tyrone Johns died because he was holding the door open for white supremacist terrorist James Von Brunn. The white supremacist terrorist attack on the Washington DC U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was not just an attack on a museum or an institution – it was an attack on our trust for one another. We are not going to let white supremacists wage a war on human trust in our nation or in our nation’s capital. Stephen Tyrone Johns may have been murdered in the white supremacist terrorist attack here in Washington D.C., but he will not die as just another forgotten victim, while the ideology of hate that inspired his death continues to grow unchallenged.
Just like America itself, America’s national capital will continue to reject ideologies of hate.
Our message has consistently been not only to reject hate, but also to offer an alternative based on our universal human rights. To those who hate their fellow human beings, remember that our universal human rights are also your universal human rights. We challenge hate and we promote human rights, not just for us, but also for you.
We don’t offer you an upraised fist, but an outstretched hand and an invitation to Choose Love, Not Hate.
