SIUSLAW NEWS | SATURDAY, JULY 14, 2018 | 7A
INTOLERANCE from page 1A
Through that, the Christians
would release them from slavery.
The many gods would turn into
one, and Rome as they knew it
would be wiped from the face of
the planet.
“That can be spun to say the
fall of the Roman Empire began
with emperor Constantine.” Mi-
chaelis explained. “It was after
his reign that the fall of Rome
really began. In a couple of hun-
dred years, it was over. That’s
historical fact. But I don’t know
of any historians who would
agree that Christianity was con-
cocted by the Jews. But that was
the story we told ourselves.”
And with that power, the con-
spiracy goes, the Jews would be
able to “kill all the white people
on the planet that had been go-
ing on for thousands of years,”
Michaelis said. “‘If we didn’t do
something about it,’ we thought,
‘the white race would be com-
pletely wiped out.’”
That’s a common theme in
white supremacy, Michaelis ex-
plained — the genocide of white
people, fueled by an active con-
spiracy.
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But with overwhelming evi-
dence against their theories, how
can they turn a blind eye?
“History is always written
by the victors,” said Michaelis.
“People want to believe that their
version of history is an objective,
ironclad fact. When in fact, his-
tory is a subjective thing. It de-
pends on your perspective.”
Take the facts you like, and
dance around the rest, he said.
“Anything contrary to that
was a Jewish lie,” Michaelis said.
“And now we get to a very im-
portant prerequisite to believe
any of this s--t.”
Anything that did not come
from their news sources was
propaganda, “A fake Jewish lie,”
said Michaelis.
If there was a news story that
was critical of the movement,
Jewish conspiracy. If there were
mistakes in the reporting? Jew-
ish lies.
“If there’s a news story where
people take it up a notch and
make us look stupid, we said the
Jews are trying to make us look
bad,” Michaelis said.
This phenomenon is not ex-
clusive to white supremacists.
He brought up Antifa groups,
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Sat. 7/14
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1529 Maple Street
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74 Park Village Drive
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stating that if any news organi-
zation was against the suprem-
acists, they were just corporate
media.
“You cannot have extremist
ideology without the means of
dismissing inconvenient infor-
mation,” Michaelis said. “And
this happens from all sides and
all different factions of extrem-
ism.”
But sometimes, history and
science are hard to ignore.
Pureblood
In a recent issue of National
Geographic, the whole concept
of race was deemed miscon-
ceived.
When scientists set out to
assemble the first complete ge-
nome, they found that all hu-
mans are closely related. Every-
one has the same collection of
genes, and they all come from
Africa.
“This all gets down to what is
white,” Michaelis said. “Who is
white, and who is not white?
In a 2017 article published by
the health and medicine publi-
cation STAT, white supremacist
Craig Cobb learned that he was
86 percent European and 14 per-
cent Sub-Saharan African.
Cobb called the findings “sta-
tistical noise.”
This led researchers to look at
what other white supremacists
who did DNA testing thought of
the results.
Some were happy with the sta-
tistics. “Pretty damn pureblood,”
one said, suggesting that being
100 percent white wasn’t needed.
Others used the results as an
excuse to say that organizations
like Stormfront are actually di-
verse, making it impossible for
them to be racist.
But many looked for ways to
discredit the tests. Some stated
that such tests were part of a
conspiracy “... trying to confuse
true white Americans about
their ancestry.”
Cobb went shopping, accord-
ing to STAT. He redid the test
from a different company, trying
to alter or parse the data until it
matched his worldview. Whatev-
er the numbers he found, it still
came out he wasn’t all Europe-
an. But the mere fact that there
could be differences in the num-
bers from test to test “proved” to
him that the test was invalid.
The takeaway? If you don’t like
what the scientific evidence says,
discredit, distort or lie about the
science.
Because if they did not, how
they view themselves would fun-
damentally change.
“I understand people’s fear
of change,” Michaelis said. “Ev-
erything that white supremacist
groups do all boils down to suf-
fering and fear. And that fear is
typically fear of change. Fear is
one of the most toxic elements
in human society that you can
have, and it’s also a glaring sign
of a very poor group who has to
motivate people through fear.”
And instead of being afraid
of being “erased,” the white
supremacists are trying to do
something about it.
Tee Plab
Creativity followers didn’t
refer to themselves as white su-
premacists, which would imply
they wanted to rule over the rac-
es — which wasn’t true.
They wanted the rest of the
races gone.
“We wanted our own home-
land,” Michaelis said. “The
Church of the Creator’s moto
was ‘This planet is ours.’”
They wouldn’t talk about mass
extermination. It was an impos-
sible task that had never been
tried before — as they denied
the Holocaust.
“All the other races on earth
depended on the white race for
survival,” Michaelis said in ex-
planation. “They were eating
our food and living off our mon-
ey. If we just stopped supporting
them, they would all ‘wither on
the vine,’ which was the phrase
they used all the time.”
One way to stop supporting
them? Start a race war.
“People talk about it all the
time,” Michaelis said. “There
was a real common effort to kick
the race war off and then hunker
down and come out when the
dust clears — and we can take
over. That was a ridiculous idea
that came up quite a bit.”
It’s a rationale that contin-
ued long after Michaelis left the
scene.
On June 17, 2015, in Charles-
ton, S.C., Dylann Roof entered
the Emanuel African Methodist
Episcopal Church (AME). He
came in during bible study, sat
down, quietly listened. He then
began to disagree with some of
the points the parishioners had
made.
When the parishioners began
to pray, Roof pulled out a gun
from his fanny pack and aimed it
at an 87-year-old woman. Before
he pulled the trigger, the wom-
an’s nephew asked why he was
doing this.
“I have to do it,” he said. “You
rape our women and you’re tak-
ing over our country. And you
have to go."
And that’s when the shooting
began. The nephew was first to
go, after diving in front of his
aunt to save her life. A total of
nine people were killed.
“He wanted black people to
riot and attack white people in
response to what he did. For-
tunately, he was proven utterly
wrong and failed miserably. The
people of Emanuel AME refused
to capitulate. They chose a path
of forgiveness and love.”
Even though AME chose the
path of forgiveness, others do
not. White supremacists have
other plans to start a race war.
Abtifa
Pictures taken in August 2017
have become iconic: Young
white men, carrying tiki torches,
chanting “Jews will not replace
us” and the Nazi Germany slo-
gan “Blood and soil.”
They were gathered in pro-
test of the planned removal of
a statue of Confederate Gen.
Robert E. Lee. At least, that was
the stated purpose, according to
Michaelis.
“The reason there were so
many people in Charlottesville is
because they could count on An-
tifa being there,” he said. “That’s
why they showed up in their
shields and their helmets. They
were going to go brawl the an-
ti-fascists, and the anti-fascists
were happy to play that role.”
There weren’t that many An-
tifa members in Charlottesville
when the riots broke out. Most
of the anti-supremacist protest-
ers who went to Charlottesville
were peaceful, but some anti-fas-
cists seemed to come looking for
a fight.
Anti-fascist militants (also
known as Antifa) are a disparate
collection of groups who share
some of the same beliefs. While
they may use the idea of Antifa
as a way to strategize together, it
is not a structured movement.
“The standard for Antifa
ideology is anti-capitalism, an-
ti-racism of course,” an Antifa
activist told Time Magazine in
August 2017. “Those are kind of
the two main pillars. But within
that, encompassed, it also comes
with being anti-racism, anti-sex-
ism, anti-ableism, anti-trans-
phobia, anything like that and
just protecting people who are
marginalized and oppressed.”
They use direct action against
groups who hold different be-
liefs. While some groups choose
to focus on online activism, oth-
ers aim for physical confronta-
tion.
In Charlottesville, who threw
the first punch remains unclear.
“I do agree with Donald
Trump,” Michaelis said. “There
were two sides to Charlottesville,
and it wouldn’t have happened
otherwise. You can’t clap with
one hand, and you can’t have a
riot without one side to fight the
other side. The violent opposi-
tion in this day and age is abso-
lutely feeding white supremacy.”
If you have a common enemy
that you can point to, and count
on showing up to fight you, then
that will instantly galvanize you
to fight.
“Groups like Antifa who think
they’re going to violently stop
white supremacists are doing
absolutely nothing of the sort,”
said Michaelis. “They are in fact
making them more powerful
than they’ve ever been.”
See INTOLERANCE page 8A
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“Gift of Our Wounds: Forgiveness After Hate”
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END HATE THROUGH KINDNESS!
SPEAKERS:
The Serve 2 Unite Mission:
A message for all age groups
of forgiveness, compassion and
peace in the face of hate, racism,
and bullying.
In the wake of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin
shooting on August 5, 2012, Serve 2
Unite emerged in a spirit of defi ance.
The hate behind the murders was met
with an ongoing practice of fearlessness
and creative compassion. Rooted in
the principles of service to others, and
relentless optimism in the face of adversity,
Serve 2 Unite today engages young people
of all backgrounds to value humanity and
the aspiration of living a genuine, honest
life as a peacemaker.
Pardeep Kaleka
“My Humanity rests in your humanity”
~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Pardeem is the eldest son of Satwant Singh Kaleka, the president of the Sikh
Temple of Wisconsin, who was gunned down during the attacks of August 5th,
2012. Pardeep grew up in Milwaukee and graduated from Marquette Univer-
sity.
Being a former Milwaukee Police Offi cer and a current teacher in the inner
city – Pardeep is no stranger to the never ending battle against racism, bigotry, and ignorance. He fi rmly
believes that the lamp of knowledge and truth will outshine all the darkness in the world, and does his
best to profess this through his work with Serve 2 Unite.
Arno Michaelis
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and
despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.”
~ Khalil Gibran (1883-1931)
In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Arno Michaelis was a founding member of
what went on to become the largest racist skinhead organization on Earth, a
reverend of a self-declared “Racial Holy War,” and lead singer of the hate-metal
band Centurion, which sold 20,000 CDs by the mid-ninteies and is still popular
with racists today.
Single parenthood, love for his daughter, and the forgiveness shown by the people he once hated all
helped to turn Arno’s life around, bringing him to embrace diversity and practice gratitude for all life.
Today Arno is a speaker, author of My Life After Hate, and very fortunate to be able to share his ongoing
process of character development working with Serve 2 Unite.