Racism and anti-Semitism in the United States are rising, with deadly consequences

The era that began with hope and change had now become an uncompromising hatred.

Very different rallying cries

All Americans did not see it as well. Racists considered a black man in power as a sign of America's browning. It was the show that they feared the most. They were terrified and furious.

White supremacists, Klansmen and others began to express themselves, to plot and to act. When Obama called people to meet, they used his existence to separate the country.

Their rallying cry became "We have a black man in the White House and you have to do something about it", according to Ken Parker, then great KKK Great Dragon and neo-Nazi.

"We would be laughing even between ourselves, we are going to send President Obama an honorary member of the Klan, because he is our … most important recruiting tool."

Part of the racism was open, especially that directed against Obama and his family.

The former president was introduced as a wizard and often passed on the rice of "Uncle Ben". His face was superimposed on the body of a chimpanzee. His wife and former first lady, Michelle Obama, has been called a "heeled monkey".

This racist current came as the country fought against divided Washington and the economic crisis that followed the Great Recession.

Kevin Nelson, a pastor from Kentucky, knew the reality of being a black man in America. More likely to be considered a thief. To be arrested. To be a target. The pastor knew that a black man who attained higher office could not, by magic, change what was happening on the ground, in neighborhoods where attitudes were so deep.

Still, Nelson was part of cautious optimism: "I think that, like most people, I celebrated the fact that our country had arrived at the point where we did not allow for skin pigmentation of a person to stop him from going to the oval office, "he said. said recently to CNN.

All hope for progress on the path of racial harmony was gaining momentum with the seemingly endless succession of a group of mostly young, unarmed black men, often killed by police officers.

Martin Trayvon, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald and Tamir Rice. Walter Scott. Alton Sterling. Activists send a direct message: "Black lives matter." Critics responded with "Blue lives matter" to support law enforcement or simply "All lives matter".

The white supremacists went further. The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi site, published articles in which it was written: "In fact, no, black lives do not matter." They called Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown, a "heroic assassin" of Brown, whom they termed "black terrorist" without any evidence.

Then came Charleston and a man who was trying to start a race war.

But online, the racists applauded the killer.

"They had a Klan hotline and the pre-recorded message, they clearly said we needed more warriors like Dylann Roof," said Parker, the former Klansman.

The message simply ended: "Hi Dylann Roof, salute the victory."

In a neo-Nazi chat room, readers of the Daily Stormer used different symbols to celebrate attacks on non-whites, similar to the "I love" Facebook button. The haircut of the Charleston killer has become one of them. A caricature of the face of a Jew was another. A gas chamber button, too.

Again, it was clear that black churches were not safe. As in the dark days of the civil rights movement and the murder of four little girls in a bomb attack on an Alabama church, devotees could be targeted for the color of their skin.

In Kentucky, Pastor Nelson began to lock the doors of his church. He could never have known that it would save the lives of his faithful.

Not black and white

The Obama presidency has lasted a period of multiplication, complicated hatred.

"After my election, there was talk of a post-racial America – such a vision, as well-meaning as it may be, was never realistic," he admitted. "Because race remains a powerful and often divisive force in our society, I have lived long enough to know that interracial relationships are better than they were 10, 20 years ago. or 30 years. "

Donald Trump's rhetoric during the 2016 election campaign seemed to reveal these divisions. Trump has received great support in a perceived and externally racist language. From his call for a so-called Muslim ban, to the denigration of Mexicans during his campaign announcement, Trump sparked the brewing of America's diversity and the enemies that emerged.

It was not just the race. Jews, Muslims, Latinos, gays, immigrants and other minority groups have been targeted for hatred online and in real life.

When Trump declared that he was going to make America great again, the racists heard a clarion call. The white supremacists perceived the message while it was time to make America "white" again.

Trump's victory coincided with the growth of readership on white supremacist websites and the language used on bulletin boards such as 4chan and Reddit became increasingly vitriolic. A report from the Southern Poverty Law Center on hate groups in 2017 found that more than 600 groups adhered to a form of white supremacist ideology. In this category, the neo-Nazis experienced the strongest growth in the past year, from 99 to 121 groups.

"Hi Trump, Hi our people, Hi victory!" Spencer shouted as supporters of the right-right – in fact, just renamed the white nationalists – raised his arms in a Nazi salute.

Each incident provoked outrage from the general public, which helped recruiters of the hate movement. Parker was one of those recruiters, for the Klan and the National Socialist Movement. He found himself vulnerable when he left the Navy after 11 years of service as a man-torpedo aboard submarines and that he returned home in a state of emergency. lamentable for a wedding in ruins.

When he searched online for a gap, a Klansman member called back in less than 15 minutes and began to sow hatred. Parker was hung up, finally tattooing a swastika on his chest, a white power symbol on one leg and on the other, two SS flashes, a reference to Hitler's elite paramilitary force is now a picture common for white supremacists.

And he was also recruiting, claiming that the goal was to "wake up the white race, let them know we have a problem with the minorities, that the Jews are managing everything".

His hatred spread in real life.

"If I and another of my white supremacist friends were at the grocery store and we saw a Jew, we would start making fun of them," he says. "Like, oh, that crooked Jew over there, you know, probably looking for a few cents," he says. "Where you see a Muslim at the grocery store, we start talking, you know, about Mohammed's new caricature … We sometimes think that we have to grab a bunch of bacon, throw it in his basket and drop it. "

As he uttered his insults, sites like Daily Stormer increased his readership; the site is now visited more than 2.5 million times a month, according to the data from the analytics company SimilarWeb. YouTube channels and podcasts dedicated to white supremacy began to grow exponentially, providing an easy way to spread racist and religious propaganda against hatred.

"For race and nation," we read. "Diversity is a code word for the white genocide," said another. "Danger: Sanctuary City Ahead", read another. "You will not replace us, end immigration now," said another.

As always, the goal, Parker explained, was to increase the number of people who felt like them.

"You can not fight with five people," he said. "So that's the perspective they're looking at, we're going to have a racial war someday, and the more people we have, the better."

Looking for a fight

If there was to be a war, the preliminary battle seemed to be Charlottesville.

"I'm not going to lie, because there are all kinds of people who went to Charlottesville and who knew that there would be a lot of conflict." They were looking forward to being able to defend themselves with, like, extremely excessive force. said Parker.

While he was traveling in a pickup truck in Charlottesville from Jacksonville, Florida, with "all sorts of white nationalists, Southern nationalists, Nazis, etc.," he thought of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the Nazi party American. Rockwell had used a "hate bus" to harass Freedom Riders in the 1960s. Parker liked the similarities and called his means of "race bus".

"On paper, we were just going up there to, like, defend the white race and defend our heritage, keep the [Confederate] monuments to come down, "Parker says of those attending the Unite the Right rally." But honestly, I think everyone was just going to fight. "

Charlottesville has attended numerous events across the country, on campuses and in public parks, where small groups have held banners declaring the supremacy of whites, sometimes in favor of preserving Confederate statues intended to honor the city. American history.

In Charlottesville, the long-held hatred of White supremacists for the Jews and their perception of control over the levers of power were also unveiled.

A group of white men carrying torches crossed the city shouting "The Jews will not replace us". Some chanted Nazi slogans and carried Nazi flags.

The next day, counter-demonstrators rallied to challenge the Unite the Right rally. Most were peaceful, but there had been violent clashes between the two camps, with Antifa extremists joining their opponents.

Heyer's death has called for an end to the violent hatred in the country. But for some, like Parker, the recruiter of the hate group, it brought joy. Someone who opposed their views was dead.

"It was like jubilation with all the white nationalists when that happened," Parker said.

He finally gave up white supremacism and his hateful views after meeting a Muslim filmmaker in Charlottesville. After spending time together, Parker realized that he did not hate the woman. He now says that he regrets his opinions and his actions.

Those who sought to vomit hatred felt that they were justified – and continue to quote Trump's words to this day.

Some victims felt that the absence of a sentence would leave the hatred uncontrollable and the possibility of further violence.

"The current administration has never stood up and said, stop hating hatred," said Millard Braunstein, a 91-year-old resident of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. "In Charlottesville, the president said that there were good people on both sides, show me a good neo-nazi and show me a good Ku Klux Klansmen, I mean, this is just not there. "

A race war did not break out after Charlottesville.

But even if America has not witnessed the repetition of a great gathering of white supremacy ever since, one can argue that no place is safe from hatred.

Even the dead could not rest in peace.

"How could this happen in America today? It was my first thought," Braunstein said.

For the Jews, America whom they considered a sanctuary, had often disappeared. The anti-Semitic acts of 2017 were the second most important since the Anti-Defamation League started following them in 1979.

Barry Werber knew what it meant to be a refuge as a Jew.

"It was the land of milk and honey," he said. "That's where everything would be fine."

Some of Werber's cousins ​​died in the Nazi death camps. Those who survived were permanently marked – by tattooed numbers on their arms and even worse numbers.

Werber tells the story of a cousin. "It was used by German scientists for experiments to determine if the muscles were pushing once cut in one arm." They had literally cut the muscles of his arms to see if they were pushing back, "recalls Werber, beginning to stifle it. up. "And he had to live with that, thank God I never had to go through that."

The dose of Werber's hell would come unexpectedly 73 years after the Holocaust and on American soil.

He went to the temple to tell the Kaddish of mourning to his mother when an armed man came in and fired into the building. Eleven of its followers have died in the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, according to the ADL.

He buried so many friends in just one week. And always with the growing fear that instead of the "Never again" chorus that followed the Holocaust, there will be an "Encore". He fears that people are afraid to associate with Jews, who become frequent targets. It reminds him of shtetls, ghettos and small villages where Jews were gathered before the Nazis came to fetch them.

"Can this happen again? Unfortunately, this can happen if unfairness continues to grow and the compensation awarded by any leader allows it to grow," said Werber. "There are always people ready to take the train of hate and that's exactly what it is."

The Pittsburgh shooter had visited Gab, a social media site favored by right-wingers, a frequent source of hate speech and images, especially to Jews.

Locked, but not locked

The doors of the first Baptist Church in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, are locked.

Pastor Nelson would like it to be a safe haven, such as the Pittsburgh Temple or Mother Emanuel's Charleston location.

But since this black church was attacked, the doors of this place of worship serving the largest and oldest black congregation in the region have been closed, surrounded by mostly white suburbs.

And locked doors have probably changed the history of the church.

"Cameras capture him while he was trying to enter and enter through the sanctuary door," said Pastor Nelson. "He knocks on it and pulls it and he steps back, puts his hand on the pistol, so anyone who opened it would probably have been shot and killed."

Unable to enter, the man is gone. The locked doors may have saved some of Nelson's flock, but they did not stop the hate.

The unknown went to a nearby supermarket. He crossed the sprawling alleys. He could have shot a lot of people, but he did not do it. He chose two. They were black. Before his capture, the shooter told a witness: "Whites do not shoot Whites".

His intention was clear. He sought to take the lives of blacks. One of them was Vickie Jones, who was shopping for the evening when she was shot.

His nephew Kevin Gunn says he can not believe that his aunt survived breast cancer before dying at the hands of hate.

"It hurts to think that there are people who are not like his because they are different, be it their skin color or their race, their sex or their sexual orientation", he said.

He attributes political rhetoric and the proliferation of online hatred to the culture that seems to allow hatred to flourish.

"Before, we could meet people in the middle and agree not to agree," says Gunn.

Pastor Nelson also believes the situation is dangerous. But he saw where we were and, as a black man living in the South, there is nothing left to surprise him.

"I am not shocked or surprised at anything because of everything we have gone through and continue to cross," he said. "I am still saddened by the fact that in 2018 and by 2019, it still has not improved."

He always tries to convey a positive message to his parishioners.

"Although things and people are going to get worse, we do not have to get worse with that."

Gunn, who has lost her aunt, can not imagine the worst.

"I have to sleep at night," he says.

But he can not help being fearful.

"I think the more we try to fight racism, it seems like it's coming back twice now," Gunn said.

"C'est un peu comme l'hydre", dit Gunn, comparant les racistes au serpent aux multiples têtes de la mythologie grecque.

"Tu en coupes un, puis … deux autres apparaissent à la place."

Parker, l'ex-nazi maintenant repentant, se fait tatouer au laser. Comme en Amérique, la haine de haine peut prendre longtemps avant de disparaître et, éventuellement, de guérir.