It would be foolish to believe
that the death of Aryan Nations’ leader Richard Butler means
the death of hate in the West. Butler, who sowed ill will for
decades in the region, passed away at the age of 86 Sept. 8 in
Hayden, Idaho.
He died a broken man, his empire of
knuckle-draggers that began in1974 effectively crushed and
bankrupt. Butler’s defeat did not come from the efforts of
Idaho officials, who took a head-in-the-sand approach, but through
the courageous efforts of Victoria Keenan and her son, Jason, and
the support of modern-day hero Morris Dees, from the Southern
Poverty Law Center.
The Keenans, who were assaulted by
the Aryans while driving past the infamous Hayden Lake compound,
won a $6.3 million judgment against the Aryan Nations, which
included the 20-acre compound. The land was later sold and then
given away to a college.
Many in the region took the
opportunity to proclaim that Butler’s passing was a watershed
event, and that now, all hate had vanished from the Northwest.
It was a premature declaration of victory.
In
1999, when I covered the optimistically labeled “400-Man Flag
Parade,” the spectacle that the Aryan Nations put on annually in
downtown Coeur d’Alene, it was not Butler or his angry
comrades that shocked and depressed me. The images that have
lingered to this day were of the two children that dutifully
accompanied their Aryan parents down Sherman Avenue.
As I
later wrote for a magazine, “The 18 marchers included a cute
six-year-old Nazi outfitted in a pink dress, who later mugged for
television cameras by doing her best Hitler salute.” Alongside the
girl was her nine-month-old sister in a stroller. And what to make
of the dozens of supporters who lustily cheered the Aryans from the
sidewalks? Where are they now?
Certainly, many groups
— including the Aryans — have set up shop in the
Midwest, where I now live. Chicago’s Center for New Community
(newcomm.org) says hate is alive and well in the Heartland. In its
report “State of Hate: White Nationalism in the Midwest 2001-2002,”
the Center lists 338 active hate groups in the 10-state region. The
report warns that today’s hate organizations are harder to
ferret out than those of the past:
“Suit-and-tie
soapboxing on racially charged issues has surpassed the cammo-clad
paramilitary posturing of the 1990s. Gone are the survivalist chows
and the mass militia meetings organized around gun rights and
government conspiracies. Such gatherings have been replaced by
issue advocacy with a more clearly defined racial core: attacks on
(non-white) immigration, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and
civil rights and hate crimes legislation…”
Evidence
of this bait-and-switch strategy is alive and well in the West.
Anti-immigration is at the heart of Arizona’s controversial
Proposition 200, a November ballot initiative. The measure calls
for proof of citizenship as a requirement to register to vote and a
picture ID as a step to actually voting. Further, state workers,
under the threat of up to four months in jail, must authenticate
the U.S. citizenship of anyone seeking public health benefits.
Although there is popular support for Proposition 200,
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is on record opposing it, saying, “I
believe this is the wrong step for Arizona.” Arizona Sens. John
McCain and Jon Kyl, both of whom support immigration reform, also
oppose the proposition.
When backers of the initiative,
Protect Arizona Now (PAN), hired Tennessee resident Virginia
Abernethy as their advisor, the true designs of the measure were
revealed. Founder of PAN Kathy McKee cheerfully trumpeted Abernethy
as “the grande dame of the anti-illegal immigration movement.”
McKee conveniently failed to mention that Abernethy is an
avowed racist and a leader in white supremacist groups, including
the Council of Conservative Citizens, which says that minorities
are transforming the nation into a “slimy brown mass of glop.”
Upon her appointment, Abernethy said, “I owe it to my own
and others’ grandchildren to work to maintain the
environmental, cultural, and social integrity of the United States,
and to hold the federal government accountable for their
constitutionally mandated duty to protect this nation from
invasion.”
The phrase “social integrity” sounds eerily
like “ethnic cleansing.” Last time I checked, the United States was
a nation of immigrants, and any “invasion” began long ago at
Plymouth Rock. Somewhere, no doubt in a very hot place, Richard
Butler is smiling.
Stephen J. Lyons is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). His latest book is “A View from
the Inland Northwest,” a series of journalism dispatches from the
Idaho-Washington border. He lives in
Illinois.
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