As we begin a new year and approach the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr., this might be a good time to take an inventory of our nation's progress
in achieving racial justice. While clearly there have been strides made even
in 2001, with African Americans recording new firsts including as Secretary
of State and as heads of American Express and AOL Time Warner, for many people
of color little has changed and, for some Arab Americans and Muslim Americans,
discrimination has increased. Meanwhile, a new report from the Center for New
Community in Chicago raises some disturbing new trends.
The Center for New Community is a faith-based organization whose mission is
to revitalize communities for genuine social, economic and political democracy.
Its Building Democracy Initiative helps the Center do this by tracking hate
groups in the Midwest. In its 2001 report, State of Hate, it listed 338 such
groups throughout Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri,
Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin, with Ohio leading the list with 73 such groups
and Michigan coming in second with 63.
Hate groups that the Center for New Community follows include white supremacist
groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups and white power skinheads,
but also include so-called Christian identity groups - those who believe that
America is the Promised Land, where the final battle between good and evil will
be fought and who believe that only white people are included in the promise
of God and some of whom have called for the execution of Jews and gay and lesbian
people. It also includes a new kind of hate group, middle American nationalist,
which is a variation of white nationalism in which its adherents cast themselves
as the true patriots. Middle American nationalism developed in the 1990's as
a reaction to the growing globalization and the increasing numbers of multiracial
people. It sees as its enemies people of color and "one world government."
But perhaps the most frightening trend identified by the Center for New Community
is the targeting of youth by these hate groups. The Center points out that the
2000 census data show that children of color and white children in the Midwest
are living in segregated communities and in a study done by Hamilton College,
half of the young people interviewed agreed that it is all right if races are
basically separate from each other. At the same time, many school districts
are dismantling their integration efforts leftover from the 1960s and 70s. The
message of the civil rights era is clearly not being passed on to this generation
of youth.
These young people, moreover, are being targeted by such neo-Nazi hate groups
as the National Alliance, the World Church of the Creator and the National Socialist
Movement which all focused attention on young people. Other groups, like the
Aryan Nations, thought to be extinct after a lawsuit by the Southern Poverty
Law Center closed down its Idaho headquarters, has recruited high school students
in the small Illinois town of Salem. The Center has found that there has been
a 30% increase in the number of neo-Nazi and racist skinhead groups in the past
three years.
In addition, these groups are targeting college campuses not only for recruitment
but also for activities designed to frighten students and faculty of color and
those who support and befriend them. For instance, Ohio State University was
blanketed with fliers warning against interracial relationships, and fliers
with a skull and crossbones and "Race Mixers Beware" were slipped
under the doors of African American faculty at the University of Illinois at
Urbana/Champaign.
A recent MTV poll found that 44% of Midwestern college students said that they
or someone they knew had been verbally or physically attacked because of their
race, religion, sexual orientation, or disability. Finally, the hate groups
are targeting youth through their music. Many adults pay little attention to
the music their children listen to, but white power music is the most significant
recruiting tool for young people. William Pierce of the hate group National
Alliance, runs Resistance Records, probably the largest white power music label,
out of the Cleveland suburb of Parma. But there are at least 21 white power
bands and 11 labels and distributors based in the Midwest, according to the
Center's special report, Soundtracks to the White Revolution.
To make Dr. King's dream come alive in this new century, we must be vigilant
in coming together to see that hate groups have no place in this nation. We
must expose such groups, we must educate our children and we must organize and
keep hate out of our communities and our schools. That should be a New Year's
resolution for us all.
(Note: For a copy of the State of Hate report, you can contact the Center for
New Community at www.newcomm.org or at
P.O. Box 346066, Chicago, IL 60634.)