Racism in the Fox Valley

A police officer from Fond du Lac told me last year those distributing racist fliers are "cowards" who never show their faces because they are afraid to stand behind their anonymous words.

Two Wisconsin colleges in the Fox Valley are looking for the idiots who distributed racist fliers on their campuses yesterday. They can check the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Hate Map that shows eight racist groups operating in Wisconsin, likely some of the same white supremacist groups operating in the Fox Valley that hit UW-Oshkosh and St. Norbert College (De Pere).

And likely they're the same geniuses who left anti-Obama, racist fliers around Fond du Lac in 2008, and dropped white pride lit on car windows at a Latino pride gathering at the Fond du Lac Public Library last January.

Quit hiding, show your faces.

SPLC: Extremist/Racist Threat to Obama

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is expressing concern over a rise of hate activity that they link to the presidency of Barack Obama.

Writes the SPLC: "President Obama's election and the deepening economic crisis are creating the perfect storm for white supremacists intent on swelling their ranks."

Also reported by the SPLC:

Racist Extremists in the Military
SPLC urges enforcement of zero-tolerance policy
A recent search of a U.S. Marine's barracks turned up a journal containing white supremacist material and a plan to kill President Obama. The incident is the latest disturbing account that suggests extremists are infiltrating the military — even as officials deny there's a problem. SPLC President Richard Cohen recently urged the Department of Defense to uphold a zero-tolerance policy against white supremacist activity.

Fond du Lac Police: Neo-NAZI Cards Not "blatantly offensive racially," says report

Update III: Fond du Lac Police Captain Steve Thiry: "Obviously, people were offended," or we would not have investigated the incident. The Fond du Lac Reporter's piece gets knocked down.

Update II: Check out the xenophobic comments on the bottom of the Fond du Lac Reporter's piece, and you can understand why Neo-NAZIs in Fondy are in a word: Worrying.

Update: SPLC Maps 12 Racist Groups in Wisconsin

I read with disappointment this morning's report in the Fond du Lac Reporter on the neo-NAZIs leaving their business cards on the car windows of several participants of a Hispanic-Latino event last week.

The "Aryan Wear" group's cards asks if the car-owners had "had enough diversity?"

The card is pictured at right.

The lede in the Reporter piece by Sharon Roznik reads: "Fond du Lac police said the content of anti-diversity cards left on the car windows of several participants of last Thursday's 'HOLA!' event is neither threatening, nor blatantly offensive racially."

What?

What is so insidious about institutionalised racism is that it's sometimes difficult for some to recognize it when it presents itself, making an argument to persuade on the merits of racism [there are none] all the more difficult.

Yet I have to question either the reporting by Roznik or the perspicuity of the Fond du Lac Police. [Note: Fond du Lac Police Captain Steve Thiry just phoned and said, "Obviously, people were offended," or we would not have investigated the incident.

Are we to believe that a group advertising itself as "Aryan" and denouncing "diversity" is, as Roznik reports the Fondy police say, not "blatantly offensive racially"?

Are you kidding me? Are the Fondy police really that dumb? Did the police really make this value judgement? No.

This is the neo-NAZI group, "Aryan Wear" advertising their website and blasting "diversity": http://aryanwear.com/

The Fond du Lac Public Library is an outstanding institution serving as a counterweight to what is often a xenophobic city, a city in which "nigger" jokes were routinely heard during this writer's elementary school experience at Elizabeth Waters elementary school.

I'm curious and I'm going to follow up on these questions: Are they kidding me, since when are Aryans not "blatantly offensive racially"?