Is the line between mainstream American Conservatism and the White Supremacist fringe beginning to blur?
And should taxpayers have to pay to protect the free speech of hate mongers at public institutions? Recently, Michigan State University had to spend $3,780 for metal detectors to protect an MSU student organization that has been labelled a hate grop by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Is this really my responsibility: to protect a jerk from getting hurt for saying ignorant and hatefull things?
The all American boy in the black hat is Kyle Bristow president of the Michigan State University chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom. He looks like the poster child for FFA and all things American and a group named Young Americans for Freedom must be a bunch of flag waving patriots.
Actually, Mr. Bristow is an avowed White Supremacist with ties to prominent Neo Nazis such as Preston Wiginton, from whom he adopted the the black cowboy hat. Mr. Wiginton has recently sponsored a speaking engagement by Nick Griffin, National Chairman of the British National Party, Britain's homegrown fascists. Incidentally, Griffin is also a Holocaust denier. In November, Wiginton, clearly young Bristow's mentor, spoke at a Russian Ultra-nationalist rally in Moscow which included a call for ethnic cleansing in Russia. Wiginton stirred the crowd with a Hitlerian rant while waving his cowboy hat wildly. The Russian Nazis responded by chanting "White Power," for several minutes in English following the speech. Of course, those are the actions of Bristow's mentor, I wonder what our blue-eyed young American thinks himself?
Kyle Bristow took over the MSU-YAF in 2006. He quickly morphed the YAF from a mainstream campus Republican group into the only college organization in the United States that the Southern Poverty Law Center labels a hate group. Bristow has earned this designation by mounting a full-scale assault on pretty much everyone at MSU who isn't a white conservative. Just read the laundry list of his activities and you should easily distinguish this kid from the millions of respectable conservatives in this country.
Bristow has done all of the following while heading the MSU-YAF:
- Publicly outed several gay and lesbian MSU students by posting their photos on Facebook with insults included.
- Posted the images of non-white MSU students on Facebook as well. He even referred to some of the folks of color as "savages." What a good all American boy!
- Posted "Gays Spread Aids" posters across the MSU campus.
- Led a YAF attempt to stop MSU from establishing a Chicano/Latino Studies Doctoral Program. He referred to the program as a "Doctorate in Savagery."
- Asserted that Columbus brought civilization to the New World. He went on to assert that without Columbus the Indians would still be "running through forests in loincloths, scalping each other, and shoving bones through their noses." Actually, except for the scalping part that sounds like most middle class white kids now.
- He and several other members of the YAF mocked a Latin-American labor leader who came to MSU to speak about alledged murders of labor activists by South American Coca Cola bottlers. I'll give him one for creativity. He and his buddies shouted insults at the guest speaker while chugging two liters of Coke.
So, what do we think of this guy? Does this reflect the views of the average East Tennessee Republican? I doubt that very seriously, but such talk and action are increasingly becoming normal among the far right of the GOP.
The photo and all factual information in this post came from the Southern Poverty Law Center website. This is a link to the article: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=1499
I've also included a link to the MSU-YAF website. There are no overt White Supremacist statements on the website. The YAF wisely sticks to the Pro-Life and only conservatives love America and support our troops type of arguments. That makes them palatable to more people: http://www.msu.edu/~yaf/NewFrame.htm
5 comments:
Interesting post! A difficult question you pose, too. I'm not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar so I don't know the technicalities of it all.
Regarding the speech issue in general, I'd probably tout the ACLU position which is that all speech is protected, no matter how heinous we may find it. If you start making exceptions to that rule ("except for hate speech" or "except for pornography" are two common examples), then that opens the door to banning other things ("except for views in opposition to the government's," for example).
As for the "tax dollar" thing, that argument always annoys me. It's so easy to trot out the "why should my tax dollars pay for XYZ" thing, because it conveniently stokes populist outrage while steering the conversation away from legitimate debate. That seems to be the case here. This is not a financial question, to me. One could just as easily argue that those tax dollars are not going to protect a white supremacist speech, but instead are going to protect school property (which is after all public property), innocent bystanders, or just American citizens in general.
Now there IS the argument that public money should not go to institutions that promote positions that are discriminatory. This is a violation of the Civil Rights Act. (This is a debate currently being waged today regarding GLBT student organizations.)
If the FFA is a blatantly discriminatory group that promotes hate or violence toward minority groups, then the school would be in its rights to tell this organization that they cannot operate as an official college group and receive whatever benefits those organizations get. Frankly, I'm surprised MSU hasn't kicked them off campus already on those grounds alone.
But making this purely about "my tax dollars" is weak.
Southern,
Thanks for the awesome post! I actually totally agree with you on freedom of speech. This guy is free to think and say whatever he wants.
I also agree about the money. Once I've paid my taxes then the money belongs to my state of residence and the republic.
What about the increasing turn to White Supremacy and authoritarianism on the right? True, not true?
Thanks again for posting as I'm totally new at this.
Oh and the FFA is alright, they are the Future Farmers of America. The MSU-Young Americans are the group in question.
the FFA is alright, they are the Future Farmers of America.
LOL. Oops. Apologies to the farmers in my family! I meant YAF.
What about the increasing turn to White Supremacy and authoritarianism on the right? True, not true?
I don't want to damn an entire class of people and say yes, all conservatives are authoritarian Nazis. That's not fair, or accurate. At one time the Democratic Party had its share of white supremacists (I'm thinking of the Dixiecrats), but the Civil Rights era changed that. The Democratic Party fought that battle a long time ago and the Dixiecrats were forced to either accept a big tent or switch sides. I think a lot of them did go to the GOP, and the Republicans are now having to wrestle with that issue.
I think there has always been racism in this country, no matter what one's political affiliation is. And the past 8 years have seen a real escalation in extremist thought. The Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report tracks figures on hate crimes; I don't have the figures at hand, but hate crimes against minorities and immigrants have gone up substantially since 9/11.
A lot of this is a result of the GOP playing the fear card for political gain. Peoples' fears have been exploited for the sole purpose of hording power; the bogeymen are always the weak and the powerless: immigrants, minorities, gays, etc.
I don't think racism and authoritarianism are the prevailing political thought in either party. If that were the case, as my friend Mack points out, Tom Tancredo would be the hands-down winner of the GOP nomination. But that doesn't mean political forces are not exploiting the latent (and sometimes overt) racism and homophobia that exists in this country.
I do think that conservative talk radio has lowered the bar in terms of what's acceptable for national discourse. And our mainstream media has completely lost its way and no longer feels an obligation to inform, but rather to shock and outrage, to boost ratings.
And finally, on the authoritarian issue, well I do think the GOP has always been about hoarding power for the Presidency, I mean look at the Nixon White House. And remember who among today's GOP leaders got their start in the Nixon era: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove. For all their talk about being for "small government," the truth of the matter is, the Bush Republicans really just want to transfer as much power to the Executive as possible.
Check out the blog that tracks this group.
http://yafwatch.blogspot.com
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