top
South Bay
South Bay
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

KKK, other hate groups showing up in Bay Area

by San Francisco Chronicle
On the list were branches in Mountain View and Santa Cruz of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, a racist website that features stories deriding Jews and Muslims and advocating white power. The site, run by white nationalist Andrew Anglin, made it onto the list because Internet chatter revealed book-reading meetings in the two cities, said Ryan Lenz, an editor with the law center.

“Andrew Anglin’s Daily Stormer has sought to move from cyberspace to the real world, or what they call ‘meat space,’ and one of the things he’s been doing is forming book clubs to read Nazi literature,” Lenz said. “That’s what’s been happening in Santa Cruz and Mountain View. And where they are meeting changes day to day.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center:

In San Francisco, the list names the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the white nationalist Counter-Currents Publishing house as having offices, although contacting them is tough. Walnut Creek is pegged as home to the anti-Muslim Islamthreat.com.

The number of hate groups in the U.S. rose to 917 in 2016, up from 892 the year before. Most alarmingly, it says, the number of anti-Muslim hate groups nearly tripled, to 101 from 34 the year before.

Mark Potok, editor of the center’s quarterly Intelligence Report, said last year “was an unprecedented year for hate,” which he blamed at least partially on the rise of President Trump and his followers.

“The country saw a resurgence of white nationalism that imperils the racial progress we’ve made, along with the rise of a president whose policies reflect the values of white nationalists,” Potok said. “In Steve Bannon, these extremists think they finally have an ally who has the president’s ear.”

Bannon is chief strategist to the president and formerly ran Breitbart News, a fringe-right website. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Efforts to contact the KKK, Counter-Currents and other organizations listed as hate groups were not successful.

The center’s compilation of organizations ran heavily right-wing in many parts of the country, but in the Bay Area it spanned a wider gamut — taking in groups such as the Black Riders as well as ones it considered jihadist, such as As-Sabiqun in Oakland.

Also on the list were branches in Mountain View and Santa Cruz of the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, a racist website that features stories deriding Jews and Muslims and advocating white power. The site, run by white nationalist Andrew Anglin, made it onto the list because Internet chatter revealed book-reading meetings in the two cities, said Ryan Lenz, an editor with the law center.

“Andrew Anglin’s Daily Stormer has sought to move from cyberspace to the real world, or what they call ‘meat space,’ and one of the things he’s been doing is forming book clubs to read Nazi literature,” Lenz said. “That’s what’s been happening in Santa Cruz and Mountain View. And where they are meeting changes day to day.”

Lenz said Counter-Currents is one of the biggest white nationalist websites and publishers in the country.
The KKK wound up with a tag in San Francisco because of flyers from the group that appeared on streets last summer. Sources in antiracist groups say one man living in the Marina neighborhood was principally responsible for Klan activity in the city, but efforts to contact anyone associated with the group were unsuccessful.

“I’m a little bit surprised that there are racist groups in San Francisco, but not really,” said Alan Schlosser, a senior counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. “It’s a diverse city. These are views that exist in this country, and San Francisco is not immune.

“It’s good that there’s sunlight being shown on these groups so they don’t just operate in the shadows.”

--

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan [at] sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron
by UC Santa Cruz
Dear members of the Crown and Merrill communities,

On Wednesday 9/28/2016 and Thursday 9/29/2016, multiple Crown and Merrill staff members found DVDs left by an unknown person or persons in public spaces on the college grounds. The DVD envelopes included a link to The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi and white supremacist website featuring articles denigrating to Jewish people, people of color, and other cultural identity groups. Similar DVDs have been found at other UCSC campus locations, and have been reported as having appeared at off-campus locations as well. The Crown and Merrill incidents have been reported through the UCSC Report Hate web site.

As noted in the UCSC free speech statement, all persons have “the freedom to express opinions; to hear, express and debate various views, no matter how unpopular; and to voice criticism.” In other words, people have the right to distribute controversial content on the UCSC campus, provided that they do not violate campus policies, state law, or federal law in the process. Although the UCSC Police Department is seeking a person of interest who was seen leaving the envelopes at Merrill College, it is not yet clear whether or not this person’s actions constitute a violation of any policy or law.

As the leaders of Crown and Merrill Colleges, we’d like to express our strongest condemnation of this hate- and bias-motivated speech, which is in stark contrast with the values of mutual respect and embracement of diversity espoused in UCSC’s Principles of Community, the Crown mission, and the Merrill ethos. We are dismayed that someone has chosen to anonymously promulgate such hateful ideology at UCSC, and are deeply concerned about its possible impact on our students, staff, and faculty. If you have been affected by this situation and wish to seek support or engage in dialogue, we invite you to reach out to Crown or Merrill staff such as Residential Assistants, Coordinators for Residential Education, or provosts, or to faculty members such as your Core course instructors.

We encourage all Crown and Merrill students to continue the lifelong process of educating yourselves about the many forms of human difference. UCSC offers many opportunities and resources, available to students of any and all identities, that may support such learning. These resources include but are not limited to:

The UCSC Resource Centers
African American Resource and Cultural Center
American Indian Resource Center
Asian American/Pacific Islander Resource Center
Chicano Latino Resource Center
Lionel Cantú Queer Center
Women’s Center
The UCSC Interfaith Council

The investigation into this incident is ongoing. The UCSC Police Department has encouraged anyone with information about the identity of the person who distributed the DVDs to contact them at 831.459.2231, ext. 1.

If you are the person who distributed these materials, we urge you to come forward and engage responsibly with our community. We acknowledge that you may not have had ill intentions, or were not aware of the potential impact of anonymously dropping off inflammatory materials. Taking responsibility is perhaps the best way that you can attempt to repair the harm caused and rebuild trust within our community. These kinds of outcomes may be facilitated through a restorative justice process such as those offered through UCSC’s restorative justice program. We will gladly support such a process should you be willing to come forward.

Please feel free to contact any of us should you have questions or concerns about this matter.

Sincerely,

Prof. Elizabeth Abrams, Merrill Provost
Brian Arao, Associate College Administrative Officer
Alex Belisario, College Administrative Officer
Prof. Manel Camps, Crown Provost
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$80.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network