Posts Tagged ‘white supremacist’
 
March 28, 2013 1

White Supremacists To Stage Protest Over Memphis Parks

This Sat­ur­day, March 30, mem­bers of a North Carolina-based Ku Klux Klan group and other white suprema­cists will stage a protest at a cour­t­house in down­town Mem­phis, Ten­nessee, to protest that city’s deci­sion to rename three local parks bear­ing names related to the Con­fed­er­acy. In ral­ly­ing sup­port for the protest, Chris Barker, the “Impe­r­ial Wiz­ard” of the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (LWK), told fol­low­ers that the gov­ern­ment was attempt­ing to “erase all that our Anglo Saxon Race has to be proud of.” Fol­low­ing the protest, the LWK plans to host a cross-burning on pri­vate prop­erty at an undis­closed location.

A num­ber of Klan groups reacted with anger in Feb­ru­ary 2013, after the Mem­phis City Coun­cil voted 9–0 to rename Nathan Bed­ford For­rest Park, Con­fed­er­ate Park and Jef­fer­son Davis Park with less offen­sive titles. Of the three, the park named after For­rest had been the most con­tro­ver­sial, as prior to the Civil War, For­rest had been a slave trader, and dur­ing the War was a gen­eral who had been asso­ci­ated with the mas­sacre of African-American sol­diers. After the war he became the first national leader of the Ku Klux Klan. 

Klan reac­tion fol­low­ing the vote was predictable. James Moore, the LWK’s Grand Dragon for the Realm of Vir­ginia, posted a YouTube video of him­self attempt­ing to describe the City Council’s unan­i­mous vote as a “con­tin­u­ing cul­tural geno­cide [against] white Americans.” Frank Ancona, the Missouri-based leader of another Klan group, the Tra­di­tion­al­ist Amer­i­can Knights, claimed that “nig­gardly politi­cians” had “declared WAR on our White Con­fed­er­ate Heroes and History.”

Barker launched a cam­paign ask­ing his mem­bers and those of other Klan groups to call Mem­phis city coun­cil mem­bers to protest the deci­sion, even pro­vid­ing Klans­men with their phone num­bers and e-mail addresses. Frank Ancona urged his own mem­bers to par­tic­i­pate in “call­ing these degen­er­ate scum ASAP and let’s make them sorry they ever made this ridicu­lous deci­sion.” Some city coun­cil mem­bers have reported receiv­ing such communications.

On Feb­ru­ary 14, Tamra Crow­der sub­mit­ted a per­mit on behalf of the LWK for  the group’s pub­lic protest.  Other white suprema­cists soon joined in.  On March 10, the National Social­ist Move­ment (NSM), a neo-Nazi group based in Detroit, Michi­gan, announced that NSM leader Jeff Schoep would speak at the Mem­phis event.  NSM mem­bers from Texas, South Car­olina and Geor­gia also plan to attend. The North­ern Mis­sis­sippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Arkansas-based Inter­na­tional Key­stone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and the Louisiana-based neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations have all also claimed that mem­bers would attend.

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March 21, 2013 7

Extremists Flock to 40th Annual CPAC Conference

Mer­lin Miller, a white suprema­cist affil­i­ated with the Amer­i­can Free­dom Party, attended CPAC 2013.

The 40th annual Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence (CPAC) on March 14–16, 2013 in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. attracted a num­ber of indi­vid­u­als on the extreme right of the polit­i­cal spec­trum. Atten­dees at CPAC this year included a white suprema­cist who ran for Pres­i­dent in the 2012 elec­tion, mem­bers of a “white stu­dent union” at Tow­son Uni­ver­sity, and a reported white suprema­cist who cur­rently runs an anti-immigrant group. A promi­nent mem­ber of the anti-government Oath Keep­ers group pre­sented at the event.

Sher­iff Richard Mack of Ari­zona, an anti-government activist and mem­ber of the Oath Keep­ers, pre­sented at this year’s CPAC at a ses­sion titled “How a Con­sti­tu­tional Sher­iff can Pro­tect Your Sec­ond Amend­ment Rights.” The Oath Keep­ers claim they will refuse to carry out cer­tain “orders” that they expect the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to issue, such as putting cit­i­zens in con­cen­tra­tion camps, assist­ing for­eign troops in invad­ing the coun­try and declar­ing mar­tial law. Dur­ing his speech, Mack claimed “the Pres­i­dent has no author­ity in your county” and asserted that “there is no gun con­trol in the Constitution.”

Matthew Heim­bach, a for­mer activist with the now defunct racist group Youth for West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion (YWC) and the founder of the “white stu­dent union” at Tow­son Uni­ver­sity in Mary­land, attended CPAC with other stu­dents. Heim­bach and another stu­dent, Scott Terry, dis­rupted a panel titled, “Trump the Race Card: Are You Sick and Tired of Being Called a Racist When You Know You’re Not One?” Terry pro­claimed that “I feel like my peo­ple, my demo­graphic are being sys­tem­at­i­cally dis­en­fran­chised” and asked the speaker, K. Carl Smith of the group Fred­er­ick Dou­glas Repub­li­cans, “Why can’t we be more like Booker T. Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­cans?” Smith responded by talk­ing about a let­ter writ­ten by Fred­er­ick Dou­glas for­giv­ing his slave mas­ter. Terry inter­rupted Smith, blurt­ing out, “for giv­ing him shel­ter and food and…,” caus­ing a com­mo­tion. A few moments later both Terry and Heim­bach fur­ther dis­rupted pro­ceed­ings by shout­ing that Mar­tin Luther King was a “Marxist.”

Robert Van­der­voort, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the anti-immigrant group Pro­Eng­lish, attended this year’s CPAC. Van­der­voort is report­edly the for­mer head of the white suprema­cist group Chicagoland Friends of Amer­i­can Renais­sance, a local chap­ter of the white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tion Amer­i­can Renais­sance. Another extrem­ist in atten­dance was Merlin Miller, a white suprema­cist who ran for Pres­i­dent in the 2012 elec­tion on the Amer­i­can Third Posi­tion (A3P) ticket. A3P, now renamed the Amer­i­can Free­dom Party, is a white suprema­cist polit­i­cal party. Miller attended one ses­sion titled “Iran and the Islamist Threat to Amer­ica and the West: What is — What Should Be — Our Strat­egy.” As reported by ADL, Miller attended an anti-Semitic “Hol­ly­wood­ism” con­fer­ence in Tehran ear­lier in 2013.

Though one of the major themes of the 2013 CPAC was increas­ing inclu­siv­ity in the GOP, extrem­ist ele­ments, though small in num­ber, were still able not only to attend but to par­tic­i­pate at this year’s event.

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February 19, 2013 0

Was Hatchet Wielder An Insane Clown Posse Fan?

Mug shot obtained by KUSA 9News

Cur­rently fac­ing crim­i­nal trial in Den­ver, Col­orado, is Jason Gemkow, 34.  Accord­ing to Den­ver tele­vi­sion sta­tion KUSA, Gemkow allegedly used a hatchet to attack his for­mer room­mate last June, strik­ing the vic­tim twice in the head.  The vic­tim, who was for­tu­nate to sur­vive, later described the attack, say­ing that “there was blood all over me.  It was like a foun­tain of blood.” 

Fol­low­ing the attack, Gemkow fled to the Pacific North­west, where a Lin­coln County, Ore­gon, sheriff’s deputy appre­hended him in July 2012 at the Bev­erly Beach State Park.  Even­tu­ally, author­i­ties extra­dited Gemkow back to Den­ver, where he has been charged with assault.

Gemkow’s mug shot reveals a promi­nent “WP” neck tat­too, which is most com­monly a white suprema­cist tat­too stand­ing for “White Power.”  Exam­i­na­tion of an old Myspace social net­work­ing pro­file belong­ing to Gemkow leads to another reveal­ing pho­to­graph:  a photo dat­ing from 2010 or 2011 that shows Gemkow wear­ing a cap with the logo of the Insane Clown Posse (ICP).  ICP’s logo fea­tures a man run­ning with a large hatchet.  

ICP is a cult favorite white hip-hop duo from Michi­gan whose mem­bers dress as clowns, as some­times do its fans, who are called Jug­ga­los.  Jug­ga­los are typ­i­cally not racist (in fact, many are anti-racist), but a small minor­ity of Jug­ga­los do have ties to white supremacy.  A minor­ity of Jug­ga­los also engage in vio­lent or crim­i­nal activ­ity, to the extent that some law enforce­ment agen­cies have—controversially—identified some Jug­galo groups as street gangs.

There has been at least one pre­vi­ous inci­dent in which a white suprema­cist Jug­galo used a hatchet in a vio­lent attack.  In 2006, Jacob Robida used a hatchet to strike patrons of a gay bar in the head.  He then pulled out a pis­tol and began shoot­ing the three vic­tims, who sur­vived the attack.  Robida fled to West Vir­ginia, where he picked up a woman, and together they fled west.  On Feb­ru­ary 4, 2006, Robida shot and killed a Gassville, Arkansas, police offi­cer who had pulled them over.  Fol­low­ing a chase, Robida even­tu­ally killed the woman and then himself.

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