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Racism, Free Speech and the College Campus
by Tim Wise
As has been the case for as long as I can recall, an American college campus is once again embroiled in controversy over the expression of racism in its hallowed halls, and what it may seek to do in response.
This time the place is Bellarmine University, a Catholic college in Louisville, Kentucky, where, for the past several months, freshman Andrei Chira has been sporting an armband for "Blood and Honour"--a British-based neo-Nazi and skinhead-affiliated musical movement, that calls for "white pride" and white power.
Created originally as a magazine by Ian Stuart of the Hitler-worshipping and openly fascist band, Skrewdriver, the Blood and Honour "movement" promotes bands that sing about racial cleansing and the deportation, if not extermination, of blacks and Jews. Blood and Honour's symbol, similar to the Nazi swastika, is that of the South African white supremacist movement, and is featured prominently on Chira's armband.
Chira, for his part, seems more confused than dangerous. In the same breath he insists he is not a Nazi or neo-Nazi, but that he is a National Socialist (the term for which Nazi is shorthand). He insists he is not a white supremacist, a racist, or anti-Jewish, but he claims to be a follower of and supporter of the American National Socialist Movement (NSM), which calls for citizenship to be limited to non-Jewish, heterosexual whites, and praises Hitler on its website.
( Read more... )
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-12/31wise.cfm
by Tim Wise
As has been the case for as long as I can recall, an American college campus is once again embroiled in controversy over the expression of racism in its hallowed halls, and what it may seek to do in response.
This time the place is Bellarmine University, a Catholic college in Louisville, Kentucky, where, for the past several months, freshman Andrei Chira has been sporting an armband for "Blood and Honour"--a British-based neo-Nazi and skinhead-affiliated musical movement, that calls for "white pride" and white power.
Created originally as a magazine by Ian Stuart of the Hitler-worshipping and openly fascist band, Skrewdriver, the Blood and Honour "movement" promotes bands that sing about racial cleansing and the deportation, if not extermination, of blacks and Jews. Blood and Honour's symbol, similar to the Nazi swastika, is that of the South African white supremacist movement, and is featured prominently on Chira's armband.
Chira, for his part, seems more confused than dangerous. In the same breath he insists he is not a Nazi or neo-Nazi, but that he is a National Socialist (the term for which Nazi is shorthand). He insists he is not a white supremacist, a racist, or anti-Jewish, but he claims to be a follower of and supporter of the American National Socialist Movement (NSM), which calls for citizenship to be limited to non-Jewish, heterosexual whites, and praises Hitler on its website.
( Read more... )
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-12/31wise.cfm
