Arno Michaels used to be a proud Wisconsin white supremacist. He had a "hate metal" band, Centurion, that sold some 20,000 CDs about killing blacks and Jews, and undoubtedly acted as a soundtrack to fear and torment. (It still does; there remains a following in Europe.) But last year Michaels started an organization called Life After Hate, a web mag preaching anti-violence, and wrote a book My Life After Hate. It's part of his journey from hate leader — he organized 1988's Skinfest, which attracted monsters from all over the country to Milwaukee — to, well, anti-hate leader. Now 40, Michaels has a lot of making up to do. Things changed in the 90s, when he saw his own daughter at day care playing with kids of all races. "I didn’t want her to be a victim," he told the Shepherd-Express in February. "I thought about the parents of kids I’d beaten up. They loved their kids as much as I loved mine. It really hit me how horrible I’d been. I really regretted it." Now, he says, "hate was justified by a claim of love for the white race." That's what he believed from around age 17 to 24, when he was, let's say, an active racist. But white power isn't limited to targeting non-whites. It extends to targeting non-straights. Speaking to the Wisconsin Gazette's Will Fellows, Michaels explains why anti-gay hate was simply part of the mix. It's something he knows about all too well: his first arrest was for a gay bashing, and he's personally inflicted plenty of pain on our community simply for being queer.
What was the status of gays in your hate hierarchy?
Homosexuality was seen as a sick perversion of the natural order, an unnatural and unhealthy lifestyle choice, a symptom of the sick society that Jews were scheming to bring about. White men and women who were recruited into homosexuality wouldn’t produce more white offspring, further reducing the already sputtering white birth rate. Like everything else we didn’t like, homosexuality was seen as part of the Jewish plot to take out the white race.
Along with a desire to clean up society, seeking out gay people to attack had something to do with making a statement about our own masculinity. Gay people were generally easy targets. Anytime we encountered them we would hurt them if we thought we could get away with it, sometimes even in broad daylight in crowded areas. I believe the first time I was arrested as a skinhead was for attempted gay-bashing. A friend and I were caught in the alley behind a gay bar, armed with axe handles.
In one incident, I broke a gay guy’s eye socket with my elbow when he tried to respond to the taunts of my buddies. I will be haunted by that man’s broken face till the day I die. Today, my outspoken opposition to discrimination against LGBT people is driven as much by that memory as by a zeal for human rights in a broader sense.
How did anti-gay hatred compare to race/ethnicity-based hatred?
Both types of hatred are rooted in a fear of difference. Skinheads, like other fundamentalists, seek uniformity. Just as we pointed out and belittled African lips, Asian eyes and other racial/ethnic differences, we were always vigilant for differences in sexuality. The slightest bit of femininity displayed by a male was grounds for assault.
As whites, we didn’t worry about having to prove how not-black we were. But it was always important to keep your distance from homosexuality. Any good white man worth a damn had to either have a steady girlfriend, wife or a steady wake of female conquests to prove how not-gay he was. For those guys who weren’t a hit with the ladies, being called a faggot was always a concern. They would try to establish their heterosexuality by bashing gay men, verbally and physically.
Did you ever get to know any gay people?
I did have an uncle who was gay, who was ostracized by my family. I saw him as a tormented and mean person, which I blamed on his homosexuality instead of on how he was treated because of who he was. Back then, I cited my uncle as my personal connection with the sickness of homosexuality. He died alone in a mental hospital, and my aunt later took her own life in response to the guilt she felt for betraying him. Today, I cite my uncle’s sad story as my personal connection with the sickness of intolerance.
Queerty
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Trial begins for white supremacist accused of soliciting attack on Web post (USA)
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| William White |
The juror remembered to the minute when the call came in — at 9:34 a.m.
The voice on the other end of the phone had peppered him with questions, asking him to confirm his name, date of birth and other details. And then this: Were you on the jury that convicted Matthew Hale?
Within 20 minutes, the juror, Mark Hoffman, 46, was getting hateful texts, one after the other — although none specifically threatening him. By the end of the day, he learned that his personal information — address, phone numbers and even a photo — as well as references to his longtime partner had been posted on a Web site that identified him as a juror in the Hale case.
William White, a white supremacist from Roanoke, Va., went on trial Monday in federal court in Chicago on criminal charges that he had solicited an attack on Hoffman in a post on his Web site, overthrow.com. Prosecutors charge that White targeted Hoffman because he was the foreman on a federal jury in 2004 that had convicted Hale, a white supremacist from downstate Illinois, of plotting to kill a federal judge in Chicago.
"They wouldn't stop," Hoffman said of the texts he got on Sept 11, 2008. "I just kept breaking down in tears because they wouldn't stop."
Attorneys for White, though, told the jury that White at no point in the Web post specifically called for harm to come to Hoffman. While you might not like what he says, he has a constitutional right to say it, they contended during the first day of the trial.
"This is a man who believes in the supremacy of the white race," said one of White's attorneys, Chris Shepherd. "There's no getting around a lot of what Bill White says is downright offensive. … You don't confront bad ideas with more government censorship. You confront bad ideas with superior ideas."
Federal prosecutors, however, said White's post needs to be considered in light of other inflammatory language on his Web site, in which he called for violence against other people he considered enemies of the white race.
In his opening remarks, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ferrara said that White knew the audience he was addressing on overthrow.com — those with similar beliefs — and that he wanted them to "pick up" on the details he posted.
"It was a call for others to act … (to) find Mark Hoffman and physically and violently hurt him," Ferrara said.
The charges against White had been tossed by a judge, but an appellate court reversed that decision and ordered him tried.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, brought in from Milwaukee to preside over the trial, allowed jurors to be selected Monday without their names being publicly identified. The government had asked to protect their identities, saying jurors might fear for their own lives in light of the charges. The defense objected to the request.
Hale was convicted in 2004 of plotting the death of U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow after she ruled against Hale in a trademark-infringement case. No attempt was made on Lefkow's life, but in an unrelated tragedy the following year, the judge's husband and mother were slain by a disgruntled litigant.
The post that White allegedly authored was titled "The Juror Who Convicted Matt Hale." It noted that Hoffman had "played a key role" in convicting Hale and referred to the juror as "gay and anti-racist."
In addition to the texts, Hoffman testified that he got a phone message that included racial and ethnic slurs.
Prosecutors pointed out to the jury Monday that White's Web site also contained a post in September 2008 that had a picture of President Barack Obama and the title: "Kill This (expletive)."
Nishay Sanan, another of White's attorneys, moved through the posts Monday with Hoffman, pointing out that much of the personal information was public at the time White posted it. Sanan also repeatedly asked him whether he ever saw a direct physical threat from White in the posts.
Hoffman responded no — although he immediately answered yes when prosecutors later asked him if he still felt threatened.
Chicago Tribune
Israeli neo-Nazi leader detained
A 24-year-old Israeli suspected of leading a neo-Nazi group in Petach TIkva was detained at Ben-Gurion Airport Monday.
Dmitri Bogotich, who is believed to have led his friends in perpetrating a series of vandalistic acts and attacks against various minorities in Petach Tikva and Tel Aviv, fled Israel in 2007.
On Israel's request, an international arrest warrant was issued against Bogotich, who apparently fled to Russia before being expelled to Kirgizstan. In recent days he was arrested while traveling in the country and handed over to Israel.
Israeli police officers accompanied Bogotich on his flight to Israel and detained him upon landing in the country, proceeding to handcuff and chain him. He was later taken for an interrogation about his role in the neo-Nazi gang; eight of its members have already been convicted and are serving their sentences
Following the arrest, the commander of Israel's Central Police District, Bentzi Sau, said that "the Israel Police will reach anywhere in the world in order to nab the criminals. The citizens have someone they can count on, and the criminals have something to fear."
The affair first came to light in September 2007, after police detained eight youngsters aged 16 to 21 on suspicion of assaulting various individuals, and mostly drug addicts, homosexuals, religious Jews, punks, and foreign workers. The gang sought out its victims near Tel Aviv's central bus station and Carmel market.
Y Net News
Far-right ‘hero’ is a convicted paedophile (UK)
The far-right group launched a campaign to free Richard Price, co-ordinator of the West Midlands division of the EDL, after he was jailed last month for violent behaviour. But Price, 41, had been convicted in June 2010 of making four indecent images of children, and possessing cocaine and crack cocaine. That conviction followed an earlier arrest in 2009 for public order offences believed to have been connected with EDL marches. Police were understood to have seized and analysed his computer, leading to the discovery of sexual images of children that he had downloaded. His home was also searched and the drugs were found.
Price admitted four counts of making indecent images of children and two charges of possessing cocaine when he appeared at Birmingham Crown Court. He was banned from owning a computer for a year, given a three-year community supervision order and ordered to sign on to the sex offenders register for five years.
Price, from Quinton, Birmingham, and Collum Keyes, 23, also from Birmingham, were among 12 people arrested when they surged through police lines during a protest in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, in May 2010. When that case came to court in December, Price admitted using threatening behaviour. He was jailed for three months and given a ten-year Criminal Anti-Social Behaviour Order banning him from attending marches outside Birmingham. Keyes, who admitted disorderly conduct, was fined £150.
When Price was jailed, EDL members launched a campaign urging supporters to write to the Prime Minister and MPs to try to “win justice for Richard Price, EDL”.
The Aston Villa supporter, who has also been linked to football hooliganism, was even likened by his supporters to a modern-day John Bunyan, the Puritan Christian preacher and author of Pilgrim’s Progress who was jailed for continuing his sermons without the permission of the established Church in the 1600s.
But today’s revelation that one of the EDL’s leading members has been convicted of sex offences will come as a huge embarrassment to a group that has struggled to shrug off its reputation as a new version of the National Front.
In recent months, particularly following the political demise of the British National Party, the EDL has begun to attract more support. Its leader, who had previously used the alias Tommy Robinson, was traced by The Times and gave his first interview using his real name. Stephen Lennon has vehemently denied that the group he started in Luton, Bedfordshire, is racist, saying that it has even set up a gay and lesbian division and given a prominent role to a Sikh supporter opposed to Islamic extremists.
Supporters of the EDL had claimed that Price became a political prisoner after he, along with Keyes, was banned from organising, controlling or travelling to any open-air protest outside Birmingham for ten years. It was the first time a Criminal Anti-Social Behaviour Order, sought by Thames Valley Police in conjunction with the National Domestic Extremism Unit, had been issued to a demonstrator connected to the EDL.
Last month, a database of EDL supporters was published on the internet. Hackers had attacked the group’s database of those who had made donations to the EDL and people who had bought clothing from its merchandise wing.
The Times Online
Barry pupils help spread anti-racism message (UK)
Four Barry pupils have been congratulated after their designs were chosen for an anti-racism campaign.
Jola Krystyna Brown, Rebecca Burrows and Jade Saif were presented with certificates by Vale of Glamorgan Mayor Colin Osborne at the Civic Offices on December 14.
The fourth successful student was Amelia Holden, but she was unable to make the awards ceremony due to illness.
Jade, from St Richard Gwyn School, said: "I’m really happy about having my drawing chosen.
"I was looking at a book that described shading techniques, so I decided to draw something like that."
More than 1,000 children took part in the Schools Against Racism 2011 Calendar and Poster competition, which is organised by Cardiff-based anti-racism charity Race Equality First.
Jola (Bryn Hafren), Rebecca (All Saints) and Amelia (Cadoxton Nursery) will see their designs used in a ‘Schools Against Racism’ calendar, whilst Jade’s will be part of a poster campaign to promote race equality.
Cllr Tony Hampton, Vae Council cabinet member for education and lifelong learning, said: "I think it’s a tremendous achievement that their pictures were selected as winning designs.
"They should be very proud of themselves.
"We are all entitled to be treated equally and we can all learn from this campaign."
Each child received £50 in vouchers, with their schools also pocketing £150.
Barry & District News
Jola Krystyna Brown, Rebecca Burrows and Jade Saif were presented with certificates by Vale of Glamorgan Mayor Colin Osborne at the Civic Offices on December 14.
The fourth successful student was Amelia Holden, but she was unable to make the awards ceremony due to illness.
Jade, from St Richard Gwyn School, said: "I’m really happy about having my drawing chosen.
"I was looking at a book that described shading techniques, so I decided to draw something like that."
More than 1,000 children took part in the Schools Against Racism 2011 Calendar and Poster competition, which is organised by Cardiff-based anti-racism charity Race Equality First.
Jola (Bryn Hafren), Rebecca (All Saints) and Amelia (Cadoxton Nursery) will see their designs used in a ‘Schools Against Racism’ calendar, whilst Jade’s will be part of a poster campaign to promote race equality.
Cllr Tony Hampton, Vae Council cabinet member for education and lifelong learning, said: "I think it’s a tremendous achievement that their pictures were selected as winning designs.
"They should be very proud of themselves.
"We are all entitled to be treated equally and we can all learn from this campaign."
Each child received £50 in vouchers, with their schools also pocketing £150.
Barry & District News
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