Month: August 2012

The weak response by too many in the American media, security organizations, and even some human rights groups to the terrorist attack by a white supremacist against a Wisconsin Sikh temple on August 5 is appalling, hypocritical, and disturbing.

We must consistently support the universal human rights, respect, and security for all people of all races and religions, including their freedom of religious worship, without fear of violence. Our unyielding position on this and our unending challenge to those who would defy this must be the same for everyone in America and around the world. Sikh lives are not cheap, and no one’s life is cheap in America or anywhere in the world. All of our fellow human beings’ lives matter and are precious.

The failure to understand and grasp white racial supremacist and other racist hatred as an anti-social force for destruction and violence by too many in America today is astounding, and this must change. Many of these racial supremacists view their race as their “religion,” and their goal is to remove (by whatever means necessary) those that would stand in the way of their perfect racial supremacist society.

I remain astounded by those who focus on this latest terrorist attack on the Sikhs as one by an individual with a former military background, with a drinking problem, or with relationship problems – and diminish the white supremacist racial hatred that drove Wade Michael Page to commit his terrorist act against Sikhs in America on August 5.

Terrorist Wade Michael Page pulled the trigger, but the ammunition of hatred was provided by organizations that promote such white supremacist ideologies. One of the largest such groups, Stormfront, provide an international web site to promote such white supremacist hatred not only within the United States, but also around the world.

Repeatedly, individuals linked to terrorism and murder in the United States of America have been identified as supporters of the white supremacist group Stormfront.   Stormfront supporter Daniel Cowart was convicted of a terrorist plot in 2010 to kill 88 African Americans and Barack Obama. Stormfront supporter Richard Poplawski murdered three police officers and wounded two others in 2009. Now Stormfront supporter Wade Michael Page murdered six Sikhs in their place of worship in 2012. (These are the recent attacks we know about.)

All of them have been supporters of Stormfront and posters on Stormfront’s web site. Photographs of terrorist Wade Michael Page have been distributed wearing a shirt with the Stormfront “white pride world wide” logo. But there has been limited focus on the Stormfront organization and its supporters’ links to violence and terrorism.

On a regular basis, we have found white supremacist supporters on Stormfront who have praised terrorist activity, and even called for additional violence, including calling for additional violence after the terrorist attack this week on Sikhs in America. Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) has documented and captured screen shots of these Stormfront supporters’ open calls for terrorism and violence. We have documented praise of James Von Brunn whose June 2009 terrorist attack on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC left an African American security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns murdered. We have documented praise for the terrorist efforts of John Patrick Bedell in March 2010 attacking police officers at the Pentagon. We have documented praise for Joseph Stack’s terrorist attack in February 2010 in Austin, Texas, flying a plane into an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building and killing an African American military veteran Vernon Hunter. We have even documented some Stormfront supporters’ praise for the 9/11 attackers. In every case, it was consistently wrong, and consistently against our shared human rights.

But when the leader of Stormfront (and a former Ku Klux Klan wizard) Don Black tells the news media that Stormfront doesn’t “condone violence,” members of media shrug their shoulders, look no further, don’t ask questions about Stormfront supporters involved in terrorism and murder, and don’t ask any questions about these numerous reports. They simply publish what he says. Furthermore, when Stormfront leader Don Black tells the media that “We think Sikhs belong back in India,” there is no challenge to his comments by the media. Stormfront brushes the media aside and goes back to their promotion of white supremacist ideology on the Internet, in meetings, and on a daily public radio show on WBPR 1340 AM.

The ammunition of the white supremacist ideology of hate is used by those who commit white supremacist terrorism. We have seen this again in Wisconsin this week in America, and it must be a wake up call for Americans. We must the challenge the ideology of white supremacism, just like we challenge every other ideology that seeks to deny the human rights and dignity of our fellow human beings.

Too many Americans cannot recognize the terrorist threat of white supremacist racial hate. White supremacist racial hatred and its violent terrorism has roots in historical hate against non-white and other minority citizens, which remains a historical stain Americans must continue to work to challenge. When I was a boy, there were parts of America where businesses would only serve “White Clientele Only.” America has changed, but we must continue to challenge white supremacist hate. We continue to see those promoting and exploiting historical divisions in our nation. One of the other groups that white supremacist terrorist Wade Michael Page was involved with was the Confederate Hammerskins group.

Racial extremist groups reject equal rights and dignity for all of our citizens. But we must be one nation, indivisible, with liberty, justice, and equality for all Americans – of every race and every identity group.

If we demand other nations to challenge their extremist ideologies and groups, we must also set the standard in challenging extremist ideologies and groups in our nation as well.

If these were extremist organizations with Muslims involved, let us be very candid, we would see a very different reaction by the media, security organizations, and others. If there was such a centralized organization here in the United States, which was holding a daily radio broadcast to promote such extremist views used by terrorists, there would be a hue and cry among the public, calls for challenging those promoting extremist views of hate, and a demand for accountability.

But when it comes to racist terrorism, too many shrug their shoulders. They ask “what can I do?” “Why should I be concerned?” “Isn’t this only a few individuals?” Will they be just as placid about this if the terrorist attack comes from extremists in another identity group? I think we all know the answer to this. We must not be hypocrites in our nation or around the world.

The argument that we should not “give attention” to people such as white supremacist terrorist Wade Michael Page is overshadowed by the larger societal need to educate people in our society about the challenges of white supremacism and other racist views. Our society needs to continue to be educated as to the threats such groups represent to human rights and lives of our fellow Americans and our fellow human beings.

Others have told the media that we should not be concerned about the events of white supremacist group events recruiting others to spread hate, stating that these events are just for them “to get together, drink Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, fight, listen to music, that sort of stuff.” But we have seen first-hand their efforts to make new recruits to their army of white supremacism to spread the disease of this hate throughout our nation. We must acknowledge and challenge the threat of white supremacist hatred.

Most disturbingly, many have written about how they STRUGGLED to imagine what the possible MOTIVATION would be for a white supremacist terrorist to kill people predominantly of a different ethnic group. Today, the Associated Press published an article, reporting comments from law enforcement that we might never “know” the motivation of white supremacist terrorist Wade Michael Page to kill people who look different, have a different religion, or those who have different skin color.   We have heard this repeatedly by too many.  They can’t possibly imagine why this white supremacist thinks this way. Certainly, this naive attitude has some positive aspects in that the view of race as a rationale for violence has grown even more nonsensical than it once was.

But our defense of law and order, consistent human rights, and equal rights for people of all races, religions, sex, ethnicity, national origin, and other identify groups – cannot simply be built on naivety and ignorance of the challenges we continue to face in our society and our world.

We honor innocence, but to be fully responsible for equality and liberty we also need some understanding of world we live in, so that we can continue to grow and build as a society.

Every day at 9 AM, the leaders of Stormfront will go on the West Palm Beach WBPR radio station 1340 AM to promote their views and spread their ideology of white supremacism. The radio station appreciates Stormfront’s business and welcomes the listeners. Our freedom of speech allows Stormfront leaders to spread their message of white supremacist hatred.

By let us not forget that our freedom of speech also empowers us as well. We too have a right and a RESPONSIBILITY to speak out, educate others, and challenge those promoting the ideologies that reject such universal human rights, dignity, and safety for our fellow human beings.

While there may not be a challenge from the media, those promoting hate must know they will be challenged by those of us Responsible for Equality And Liberty – for everyone, around the world.

One final personal note to my Christian brothers and sisters, it is a deep shame that some in these white supremacist groups, such as Stormfront, use a Celtic cross in their campaigns. While some non-Christians have sought to redefine the Celtic cross, any Christian symbol, words, or trappings used to reject equality, dignity, and safety for our fellow human beings, is also a rejection of Christianity as well.  In America, we have seen those that promote racial hatred continue to use such symbols, as well as promotion on Stormfront by those racist groups holding “cross burnings” (what they call “cross lighting”) in our nation.  I  urge Christians in America and around the world to not let the cross and symbols of Christianity be used to promote racial or other hatred by those who would spread lies about the Christian faith.  I urge Christians in America and around the world to challenge those who would use such Christian symbols to denigrate and demean others, and I urge them to use their Christian lives to demonstrate their commitment to respect, humility, and love for one another.

Choose Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.