It festers: Racists and their fliers thrive if left in shadows

While it doesn't qualify as breaking news that racism exists in Wayne County, news this past weekend that a neo-Nazi hate group has been actively distributing fliers in area neighborhoods advocating white supremacy certainly struck a nerve with some of our readers.

The spokesman for the Church of Creativity confirmed the group's existence and presence in Goldsboro Monday via email.

Also not surprising, sadly, is that while most people who commented on our Facebook page after we shared the story said they were appalled, some defended the act.

And sure, OK, it is protected speech and no laws were violated. But people's sense of security sure was.

What is most surprising -- and maybe we are being naive -- is that some people accused us of justifying the group's behavior or enhancing their reach by reporting on it.

Well, the latter may be an unhappy byproduct of us doing our duty in informing the community that such a thing is going on, but imagine the backlash had we ignored it.

Furthermore, imagine being in a position to inform people that a group advocating, while claiming not of course, separatist and potentially violent theology is operating in our own back yard and then casually deciding not to. Not gonna happen.

The group suggests that "white is right" and the "finest" thing to be, while also suggesting that whites ought not to congregate or do business with Jewish people or people of color.

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact they came up with a little nickname for something as heinous to suggest as a racial holy war ---- they call it "Rahowa." (Didn't take a genius to put that one together.)

So no, we don't condemn the act because, No. 1, to do so would be to condemn free speech and that is a slippery slope, and No. 2, now we know for sure these people are here and are up to more than simply meeting in secret. Information is power.

And, while we aren't trying to be alarmists and their hypocrisy is self-evident in their literature, we now know that if the home improvement stores suddenly run low on tiki torches, that might be an indication something more than spring is coming our way.

Sorry to make light of the situation here but hey, we're too tired of this nonsense to be angry and we're way too resolved in rebuking these fools to be sad or afraid.

Maybe now that they've had their sliver of spotlight, they'll take their own advice and crawl back to where they came from.

Published in Editorials on January 29, 2018 10:53 PM