Anti-Racist Activism Works October 8, 2007

Apparently, I’ve been a little negative lately.

Over this past weekend in Baltimore, one of my oldest friends told me that she had to stop reading my blog. She said that it was too negative, bordering on depressing at times, and encouraged pessimism and apathy. After all, she said, if there’s so much hate and so much corruption going on in the world, why should anyone bother changing anything? The impression she got from This is Babylon was, “the world is screwed.” She told me that I should write about more positive topics, and ended off by telling me a mantra which I committed to my psyche upon hearing it:

“The energy flows where the attention goes.”

In light of this, I’d like to direct some attention to some people who are changing the world — by showing, in the most practical and clearcut ways, that hatemongers are not welcome in their communities.

A perfect example of this is this weeks story from Willamette, Oregon of the planned Nazi concert that wasn’t:

This Saturday afternoon in Portland’s southeast Lents Park, anti-racist activists held a rally in response to the gathering of white-power skinheads (and their hardcore bands) known as Hammerfest 2007.

Billed as an event which “all who support HSN” were invited to attend, Hammerfest 07 was to be THE bonehead event of the year, with an all-star neo-Nazi musical lineup. Out of this whole rally of anti-racist activists, it would turn out to be a small group who decided to take action:

After the rally, a diverse group of about 50 people, including a number of anti-racist skinheads, spontaneously arranged a caravan to a nearby neighborhood to leaflet. The fliers warned residents that one of their neighbors is neo-Nazi Randall Krager , who lives with his partner and fellow “racialist” Abbie Chelf on Southeast 70th Avenue near Johnson Creek Boulevard. The white power leader is one of the founding members of Volksfront, an Oregon-based white power group that helped sponsor Hammerfest 2007.

And what happened when they went to the “nearby neighborhood”?

Most of the people who were handed fliers by the motley parade of anti-racist activists were concerned and somewhat horrified to learn that a neo-Nazi leader lives steps away from their own homes. Standing in Harney Park at Southeast 70th Avenue and Harney Street, a crew of soccer moms read the fliers and called their kids in from the field, expressing plans to talk to other moms in the area about Krager’s presence. After about 20 minutes of walking around the area, the action dispersed and leafletters went their separate ways without incident.

How long did it take? Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes to mobilize a community. No one wants to know that a neo-Nazi activist and organizer is serving the cookies at the PTA.

But they didn’t stop at the soccer moms:

At the time of the rally, members of the organizing group The Ad-Hoc Committee Against Racism and Fascism still didn’t know the location of Hammerfest. Then around 6 pm, anti-racist organizers were tipped off that the Aryan moshpit was taking place at the Sherwood Elks Lodge at 22770 SW Elwert Road in Sherwood, Ore . They immediately posted their findings to activist newswire portland.indymedia.org, with hopes that Portland area residents might pressure the Elks Lodge to shut down Hammerfest by calling the venue’s booking agent…

Now, indymedia.org is no MSNBC. Many of the articles there are often dismissed as being the work of fringe conspiracy theorists and ineffectual punk rockers. This, however was different. After first dismissing Hammerfest as “just a bunch of guys playing music”, the Elks organizer decided to double-check the “music-playing guys” after reading the indymedia post:

As one of the leaders of the leaders of the Sherwood Elks Lodge, I wanted to let everyone know that we were duped. This group identified themselves as a “rock group reunion of friends” when arranging to use our facility…

Once we received received indication that the hammerskin nation was using our facility, we worked to confirm as quickly as possible…We talked directly to the organizers, who denied involvement in the racist group and reiterated their story that they were a rock group reunion…

In spite of outward appearances, the evidence soon indicated that we had been very badly misled, and the guests in our facility indeed were an organization whose beliefs we can neither condone or support. They had also misrepresentated themselves in renting the facility, and continued to misrepresent themselves in the evening. We shut down the event as quickly and as safely as possible after that and the group left before 8:00. None of the guests ever did admit who they were and their organizational affiliation.

They pulled the plug on the Nazis. What started out as a group of fifty anti-racist activists turned out pulling the entire plug on Hammerfest 07. One group of kids, one FedexKinko’s, a couple copiers…and they changed things.

It doesn’t take big committees or endowed organizations to change the world. Just look at the difference a few kids that care and 20 minutes can make.