Florida: where hate is great

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Florida ranks third, behind only the more populous California and Texas, among all states in the number of hate groups based here. More significant, though, is the increase in hate groups since 2000 -- 56 such organizations now call Florida home (as of 2008), compared with 39 eight years earlier. That's a rise of more than 43%.

The tanking economy, heated immigration debate and the election of the country's first black president likely pushed up the number of groups, the [SPLC] report said.

[...]

"We are in a worrying situation right now," said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Groups have succeeded in recruiting new members who feel threatened by a black president and the rising tide of immigration, Potok said.

"All of these things together are clearly making a significant number of white people … feel that somehow their country is being stolen from them," Potok said. A "cultural conflict" in Florida has spawned the large number of hate groups, Potok said. Extremists in Central and North Florida look with horror at the number of Jews and Latinos in South Florida.

Having moved recently (if temporarily, perhaps) from south to north Florida, I've seen such differences firsthand. Few here look askance at displaying the Confederate flag, and the racial and ethnic divide seems to me to be far more pronounced in the Panhandle than in south Florida.

Nevertheless, as I've noted here before, perhaps the leading white supremacist website, Stormfront, is based down south, in Palm Beach County. And its operator, Don Black, makes no apologies for his racist views:

Don Black, founder of the white separatist group Stormfront in West Palm Beach, said he's tired of seeing his group labeled as a hate group. He advocates for non-violent separation of races within the United States, he said.

"We are proud of our own heritage and culture just like every other race has the right to be," said Black, who claims more than 100,000 members worldwide. "Do you want America to become like Mexico or Haiti?"

No, not all hate groups are white supremacist organizations. But the fact that Stormfront is headquartered in Florida, and the fact that it continually tries to justify its racist stance with a thoroughly disingenuous "white heritage" argument, ought to embarrass every Floridian -- at least those of us with a conscience.

White supremacist still battling for his seat on Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committee

Actually, newly-elected Palm Beach County Republican Executive Committeeman Derek Black would prefer not to be called a "white supremacist." Then again, what would you call someone whose father, a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, runs what purportedly was the first hate website on the Internet, Stormfront.org; who created a children's page on that site when he was 12 and who still contributes regularly to the site; and who has the support of another notorious former KKK grand wizard, David Duke?

I first told you about Derek Black in August, when county Republicans elected him to office at the tender age of 19. Back then, county GOP chair Sid Dinerstein said that if Black (how's that for an ironic name?) truly was eligible, he would be seated on the REC per his election. Now, however, Dinerstein is trying to keep Black from office on the grounds that he didn't sign a required oath.

"We're going to fight," [David] Duke said. "I know Derek Black is going to fight for his constitutional liberties. That's why I'm here, because I want to assist Derek."

Sorry, says county GOP Chairman Sid Dinerstein. In the qualifying period in June, Black didn't sign a loyalty oath pledging he would not do anything injurious to the party. And that's not the only problem.

"He participates in white supremacist activities," Dinerstein said. "We're the party of Lincoln. We're the party that says we don't judge anybody by the color of their skin."

Derek Black's response: "I've told (Dinerstein) I'm not a white supremacist; that's an insult. I would describe myself as a white person who is concerned about discrimination against white people."

A community college student who was home-schooled in West Palm Beach, Black once contributed a kids page to his father's Stormfront Internet forum around the time he was 12. The page included puzzles, games, animated Confederate flags and white-pride songs. He has since helped with his father's Internet audio broadcasts.

As if Republicans overall weren't already about as dysfunctional as a group can be, here in Palm Beach County, it's comedy gold. The PBC GOP is between a rock and a neo-Nazi hard place, and I don't see this ending without fireworks (hopefully not firearms, though). They're going to rely on Derek Black's failure to sign a loyalty oath to keep him out of office?

Figures. Those Republicans are nothing if not consistent. Stay tuned ...

Republicans and racism: together forever and never to part

Don't worry, this isn't a Rickroll ... think of it more as a "Ratroll." I need to take you away from Denver just for a moment to share with you more Racist Fun With Republicans back home in America's Glans™.

Our old West Palm Beach friend Don Black of Stormfront.org is in the news again ... but this time it's via the reflected glory of his son Derek's election as a Republican committeeman in Palm Beach County:

Derek Black couldn't be reached Wednesday. But he's also known in this country's white supremacist crowd.

In 2001, Derek was just 12 when USA Today highlighted his work at creating a children's page on stormfront.org. That page included white supremacist songs, bulletin boards and anti-Martin Luther King bedtime stories. Don Black, the story pointed out, keeps a photo of his son in a Confederate uniform on his desk. The teenage boy, who sports flaming red hair, is currently listed as a radio commentator on his dad's site.
Derek Black quietly campaigned, visiting many of the district's historic homes. Residents on his block include a single lesbian on one side, and a gay couple on the other. One of the two men is black.

"His mom (Chloe) took him around, introducing him to everyone," said one resident who asked that her name not be used. Chloe Black, by the way, is none other than the former wife of [David] Duke, maybe the best known white supremacist of the past 30 years. He ran for several public offices in Louisiana, at times coming close to getting elected. He ran both as a Republican and a Democrat.

Naturally the Republicans would love this kid. He's evidently picked up all the old habits of his dad -- you know, racism, neo-Nazism, douchebaggery -- no doubt tempered by an ignorance that only youth can provide.

The local Republican Party leaders, while publicly expressing caution over young Derek's victory, nevertheless are taking great strides not to distance themselves from his family's demonstrated racist viewpoints:

"I assume he qualified to run for the seat and he was elected," said local GOP boss Sid Dinerstein. "Anybody in this country can join a party and run for a position on that party. He is entitled to be seated if he acts according to our constitution."

Added Dinerstein, who's Jewish: "Hopefully, he left that past behind. He shouldn't forget that this party was formed by abolitionists."

Allen West, a black Republican running for Congress in the south part of the county, says he'll "have a talk" with Black at the first meeting of the local GOP in September.

"If he won't judge me for my character instead of my race, I'll ask to please not support me in any way," West said.

In the meantime, though, Sid and Allen are perfectly okay with hitching their wagon to a racist fucktard. Nice going, Republicans. At least you're consistent.

Scumbag racists in south Florida support ... Obama?

Yep, it's true ... but not for the reasons most people like Obama.

The hate website Stormfront (as before, I'm not sick enough to provide a link -- you want it, go look for it yourself) is based right here in Palm Beach County, and like many other white supremacist organizations, they've seen an increase in interest thanks to Obama's run for the White House.

Tom Prater, Florida spokesman for the white power group Euro and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, says the Illinois senator's success is a boon for his cause.

"I've gotten more calls in the last two months about interest in our organizations than I got in all the years in the past," said Prater, who lives in Jacksonville.

August Kreis, national director of Aryan Nations, another white supremacist and anti-Semitic organization, agrees.

"Obama's done my group a lot of good," said Kreis, who lives in South Carolina and says he keeps a Nazi flag over his mantel. "He's polarizing Americans, black and white.

"Especially in Florida, affiliates have increased recently," Kreis said, although he did not produce membership figures.

As for [Stormfront founder and proprietor Don] Black, he did not respond to repeated phone calls, e-mails and a note left at his [West Palm Beach] home.

A neighbor said Black suffered a stroke early this month and was incapacitated. St. Mary's Medical Center confirmed that he had been a patient there recently and had been released.

Black was quoted in The Washington Post last month as being optimistic about the opportunities offered by Obama's candidacy.

"I get nonstop e-mails and private messages from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected," Black said. "White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we've lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it's bringing them over to our side."

He claimed he is getting 40,000 hits per day on his Web site, an increase from previous years.

There's a lot of reason to be optimistic about Barack Obama being the next president of the United States. But let's not forget the potential impact of racism ... let alone one wild-eyed fanatical racist with a gun.

The deranged whackos certainly are out there:

Some white power leaders say that even before the rise of Obama, they were drawing more interest from certain white members of the public, given the country's immigration crisis.

As for Obama, there is a difference of opinion as to what he means for white supremacists.

"I think if he gets in there, he'll give the Congressional Black Caucus everything it wants, and it marks doom for white people in this country," said Prater of Euro. "I believe Obama's allegiance is to Africa, not to the U.S."

On the other hand, Kreis of Aryan Nations is considering voting for Obama.

"Obama could polarize the nation even more and drive a lot of people our way," he said. "But I'm waiting to see who he chooses as a vice president. If he chooses a Jew, I couldn't back him at all. That would be too much for me."

Yeah, I guess they have a First Amendment right to spew their hatred. I just hope they remain as marginalized as they increasingly have been.

Obama's candidacy is a boon to hate groups

If ya can't beat 'em, slur and slander 'em.

That appears to be the methodology of those ubiquitous hate groups who have evolved over the past decade or so from crudely mimeographed newsletters to Internet distribution of their filth. And they're gaining strength from the candidacy of Barack Obama.

"I haven't seen this much anger in a long, long time," said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. "Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president."

Such groups have historically inflated their influence for self-promotion and as an intimidation technique, and they refused to provide exact membership numbers or open their meetings to a reporter. Leaders acknowledged that their numbers remain very small -- "the flat-globe society still has more people than us," Roper said. But experts said their claims reveal more than hyperbole this time.

"The truth is, we're finding an explosion in these kinds of hateful sentiments on the Net, and it's a growing problem," said Deborah Lauter, civil rights director for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate group activity. "There are probably thousands of Web sites that do this now. I couldn't even tell you how many are out there because it's growing so fast."

Neo-Nazi and white power groups acknowledge that they have little ability to derail Obama's candidacy, so instead some have decided to take advantage of its potential. White-power leaders who once feared Obama's campaign have come to regard it as a recruiting tool. The groups now portray his candidacy as a vehicle to disenfranchise whites and polarize America.

In particular, Stormfront.org (no, I'm not stupid enough to link to it), which emanates from my own county, has seen an increase in traffic due to Obama's nomination.

But on a Web site run out of a house in West Palm Beach, Fla., the other side is also fighting.

Don Black spends 16 hours each day on his laptop computer reading hundreds of derogatory Obama comments posted on Stormfront.org, a Web site with the motto "white pride world wide." Black, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, launched the site in 1995 to create a central meeting place for the white power movement. In the wake of Obama's securing enough delegates for the nomination, Stormfront, he says, has begun to fulfill his vision.

A site that drew a few thousand visitors per day in 2002 has expanded into Black's full-time job, attracting more than 40,000 unique users each day who can post on 54 different message boards, he said. Black has enlisted 40 moderators and his 19-year-old son to help run Stormfront.

Posters on Stormfront complain that Obama represents the end of "white rule" and the beginning of "multiculturalism." They fear that he will promote affirmative action, support illegal immigration and help render whites, who make up two-thirds of the U.S. population, "the new minority."

"I get nonstop e-mails and private message from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected," said Black, a white power activist since the 1970s. "White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we've lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it's bringing them over to our side."

With overt racists, as you see all the time with Republicans, there are "white Americans" and "black Americans" and so on ... it's so important for racists and Republicans alike to pigeonhole various peoples and groups into categories. I prefer to think of "Americans" without the adjectives, but then I'm just a DFH ...

Anyway, the racism is only going to get louder and stronger over time. Hold your ears, folks ...