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The Buffalo area is home to a small but growing cadre of right wing extremists who are making inroads at both the grassroots and electoral level

Some people here are taking solace in the fact that the white supremacist who killed 10 people in Saturdays supermarket massacre is from out of town.

As if Western New York doesnt have its own growing cadre of right-wing extremists.

Ill start with a reminder of a story we did last June in which Investigative Post reported only one county in the entire country had more of its citizens arrested on charges related to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol than Erie County.

Among those charged was an Amherst man who assaulted a Capitol Police officer, stealing his badge and radio, and a Cheektowaga man who damaged CNN camera equipment and invaded the Capitol building. They were among the 100 or so Western New Yorkers who traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the rally headlined by Donald Trump that precipitated the attempted insurrection.

At the time, Heidi Jones, a Buffalo attorney who researches local right-wing activity, told Investigative Post: Theres intertwined networks that have been recruiting and been active for many years. The COVID pandemic has given such an opportunity to recruit more people into it with the strongly divisive political environment that were in.

Cloee Cooper, a research analyst with Political Research Associates, told Investigative Post: Erie County is kind of a hotspot for militia and far-right groups and local elected officials have been privy to some of that, or endorsed it in the past.

Which brings us to the politicians. Lets start with Tim Howard.

Some 30 people died in the Erie County Holding Center during his tenure. That didnt stop Howard from getting elected no fewer than four times, the third time just months after he spoke at a political rally featuring Confederate flags and attended by avowed white supremacists. One attendee, frequent local political candidate Ricky Donovan, carried a sign that stylized the first letters of Senator Schumer as in U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish in the font of the Nazi SS.

In that 2017 election cycle, Howard joined fellow Republicans Mickey Kearns (county clerk) and Stefan Mychajliw (county comptroller) in waging a campaign that used overtly racist flyers. The mailers featured images of Black football players kneeling and dark-skinned immigrants scaling walls, presumably at the southern border, along with pro-police and anti-immigrant wording that told voters they better vote Republican.

Howard, Kearns and Mychajliw all won election.

When he decided to step down last year, Howard won election as supervisor of the Town of Wales.

Then theres the guy who didnt get elected governor, Carl Paladino.

His track record for racist rhetoric is unsurpassed in recent Western New York history. He won the Republican nomination for governor in 2010 before being trounced by Andrew Cuomo. While Cuomo won statewide by a 2-to-1 margin, Paladino carried all eight counties of Western New York.

He retreated to Buffalo, won election twice to the Buffalo Board of Education in 2013 and 2016 and served until he was removed by the state education commissioner in 2017 for publicly disclosing confidential information obtained in executive session.

In 2016, while still serving on the School Board, Paladino hit rock bottom, telling the alternative weekly Artvoice that in the coming year hed like to see Barack Obama die of mad cow disease contacted after having sex with a young cow. As for Michelle Obama, Paladino said: Id like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.

Did all this make Paladino a pariah?

No.

He remains part of the citys power structure.

For example, he continues to serve on the board of Buffalo Place, which promotes downtown and manages the Main Street pedestrian mall.

His campaign donations have long been accepted by Democrats and Republicans alike, including Byron Brown, the citys Black mayor.

His company continues to do business with various levels of government, including the City of Buffalo, as well as the Buffalo Bills, which has had a sponsorship deal with hotels his company owns since 2013.

Repeat: the Buffalo Bills do business with Carl Paladino.

When Paladino ran for governor, he tapped Michael Caputo, a protege of Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone, to run his campaign. The East Aurora native, who recently moved to Florida, worked on Donald Trumps presidential campaign and later took a job in his administration. He has advised numerous local right-wing candidates, including Mychajliw, the former county comptroller, and Assembly Member David DiPietro.

In 2020, Caputo brought alt-right idol Steve Bannon to an Elma fire hall to rally support for then U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, who was running for reelection while under indictment for insider trading. Collins won.

Paladino, Caputo, Mychajliw and DiPietro all maintain at least informal ties with the New York Watchmen, a quasi-militia group that frequently attends protests is support of right-wing causes. Caputo, in a September 2020 Facebook post, wore a Watchmen shirt as he warned of violence should Trump lose his reelection bid. He describes the groups founder, Charles Pellien, as an old friend.

Some Watchmen favor combat gear at protests. Members were in D.C. during the assault on the U.S. Capitol and a pro-Trump rally two months earlier. Locally, their encounters with other protesters sometimes have turned violent.

Pellien, the groups founder, responded to news of Saturdays massacre by tweeting, Black neighborhood, white suspect in custody. Buckle your chin straps.

The local right-wing scene includes other players, including anti-vaxxers whose activities included picketing the home of Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz when he acted to curb the spread of Covid-19.

A small but growing number of elected officials align with this rag-tag collection of right-wing extremists.

DiPietro, the East Aurora Republican who represents much of the Southtowns and Wyoming County, comes immediately to mind. He rarely gets any legislation passed: his failed proposals include making English the official state language, requiring recipients of public assistance to submit to drug testing, dividing New York into three autonomous regions, and exempting private and parochial schools and day care centers from immunization requirements.

On Twitter, DiPietro followed accounts of right-wing militias and their members. He followed an account with the display name Caucasian Spring, whose bio read I love my whiteness. And yours. Another account he followed tweeted frequently about #WhiteGenocide and decried the de facto genocide of Western Man by immivasion.

DiPietro and Paladino were co-sponsors, along with Howard, of the 2017 rally that drew neo-Nazis and Confederate flags.

Not to be overlooked is Congressman Chris Jacobs, a one-time moderate who has gone full Trump. The last thing I read on him he was pushing to punish the Walt Disney Co. for opposing Floridas Dont Say Gay bill. Because, you know, thats a burning issue to his constituents in Upstate New York.

You can find a small but growing number of right-wing extremists in local government.

For example, theres Williamsville Mayor Deb Rogers and two of her colleagues on the village board, who have equated state measures to limit the spread of Covid to the abuses of Nazi Germany and Communist China.

The far right this month lent its support to at least 26 candidates running in 13 school districts in Erie and Niagara counties. Eleven of them won, in districts that include Williamsville, Akron and Grand Island.

The Constitutional Coalition, which along with WNY Students First assisted right-leaning candidates, said another 11 of their candidates won election in other counties in western and central New York.

These candidates ran on platforms that opposed the teaching of sex education, critical race theory and mask and vaccine mandates to address Covid.

Our base is energized. These school board victories are a strong foundation for future success. The mission is far from done, Nancie Orticelli, founder of The Constitutional Coalition, said in a joint statement with WNY Students First posted on Facebook.

If her words arent a wake-up call for progressives, moderates and other thinking people, I dont know what is.

True, last Saturdays shooter wasnt from here. But remember who was: Timothy McVeigh.

Geoff Kelly and Layne Dowdall contributed to this column.

Original post:
The rise of the radical right in WNY - Investigative Post

When I was a teenager, after reading the Diary of Anne Frank, I always asked myself if I had lived in Germany in the 1930s, would I have spoken up and done the right thing. Right now is my 1930s.

On May 14, 10 innocent lives were taken by a white supremacist and domestic terrorist in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. On the very same day in the state of Vermont, the VTGrassRoots organization and the states Republican Party were hosting two men who further racist and hateful ideology and alt-right propaganda. If you go to VTGrassRoots website, you will see a video repeating the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. In that video, you will see people of color putting ballots in a ballot box. This is accompanied by very dark and dramatic music. If you are easily fooled, it might lead one to assume that they are stuffing ballot boxes. It only furthers the narrative that our country is being stolen or replaced by people of color.

This is violent and harmful and we will continue to see domestic terrorist acts committed in this country due to white supremacy. There is no proof presented in the video that anything was stolen, just snippets of dark and grainy pictures that promote lies.

I am sure there are those who feel that they are expressing their right to free speech. But because your free speech is hate speech, your rights end where the dignity of others begins. Please take a stand against racism and hate in this beautiful state. Please vote for candidates that will continue and build on values that allow everyone to live with dignity and respect in our country.

Patricia New

North Ferrisburgh

See original here:
Letter to the editor: Let's take a stand against racism - Addison County Independent

Washington

In a 180-page missive posted online before the May 14 mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, alleged gunman Payton Gendron wrote that he wanted "to spread awareness to my fellow whites about the real problems the West is facing."

The problems, according to the alleged shooter? Mass immigration and white people not having enough babies.

"This crisis of mass immigration and sub-replacement fertility," the 18-year-old white man wrote, "is an assault on the European people that, if not combated, will ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people."

Though he did not call it by its name, Gendron was referring to a far-right conspiracy theory known as the Great Replacement, which says Western elites, Jews in particular, are bringing in immigrants to replace whites.

In addition to the Buffalo shooting that killed 10 Black people and wounded three others, extremism experts say the racist theory has inspired attacks on ethnic and religious minorities as far away as Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso, Texas.

French origins

The idea that nonwhite immigrants could eventually displace native-born white Europeans has roots in 20th century French ethnic nationalism. But the term itself was coined and popularized by French white nationalist author Renaud Camus (no relation to Albert Camus).

As he recently told the right-wing outlet Konflikt Magazin, he first came up with the expression in the 1990s in a small, medieval village in the south of France.

There, near "Gothic windows and Gothic fountains," were Muslim women in veils and men in djellaba robes, he recalled. "I was, of course, accustomed like everybody else to seeing the change of people in [the predominantly Arab and Black] suburbs, but there it was especially striking."

Camus said he later gave a speech titled "The Great Replacement" in a nearby town, and in 2011, self-published a book of the same title in French.

Though never translated into English, the book helped spur the launch of a trans-European far-right network with connections to extremists in the United States, according to Wendy Via, co-founder and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

"The ideas were picked up almost immediately, and they comported with other white supremacist ideas here in the U.S. and other places," Via said.

Describing it as a "plain fact" and not a "theory," Camus said the great replacement is simply "a change of people with a change of culture and civilization."

Extremism experts say it's more than that.

"The great replacement theory is a conspiracy theory that says that white people are purposely being replaced with immigrants, migrants, Muslims, refugees across the world, primarily affecting the Western European countries and the United States," Via said.

American proponents

The white replacement idea gained traction in the United States among white supremacists who adopted it as a substitute for their theory about "white genocide" as they sought to rebrand themselves as white nationalists in recent years.

"The idea of replacing is somewhat easier to understand than genocide for people to accept," said Michael Edison Hayden, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Though Camus did not blame Jews, American white supremacists have adopted his phrase as an anti-Jewish slogan.

Many Americans first became familiar with the term in 2017 when alt-right activists organized a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where activists chanted, "You will not replace us," and "Jews will not replace us."

The rally turned deadly when a neo-Nazi sympathizer drove his truck into counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Link to violence

Camus denies his words have inspired violence. But extremism experts say the replacement idea has helped propel a string of deadly attacks by white supremacists on Jews, Muslims, Hispanics and Blacks in recent years.

Those include the massacre of 13 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; the slaughter in 2019 of 51 Muslims at two mosques in New Zealand; and the mass killing of 23 people, most of whom were Hispanic, at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, in 2019.

"It is a substantial influence on these types of attacks," Hayden said.

Hayden noted that before the replacement idea gained currency in recent years, most mass shootings in the country did not appear to be ideologically motivated. For example, the gunman in the 2012 massacre at a movie theater in Colorado suffered from severe mental illness and had no known extremist beliefs.

Now, shooters have found an ideology to justify violence, Hayden said.

"This functions in almost the same way that terrorists of all kinds are able to find sociopathic people or unstable people and fill them with a sense of purpose," he said.

In his manifesto, Gendron wrote that the person who "radicalized" him the most was Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch mosques shooter whose 2019 massacre manifesto was titled "The Great Replacement."

"Brenton started my real research into the problems with immigration and foreigners in our white lands," Gendron wrote.

Gendron added that he decided to take matters into his own hands after "learning the truth" on the right-wing message board 4chan that the "white race is dying out, that Blacks are disproportionately killing whites and that the Jews and elites were behind this."

A Media Matters search of the message board found that users have mentioned the terms "great replacement," "white replacement," or "white genocide" more than 90,000 times since July 2018.

Camus has sought to distance himself from the shooting in Buffalo and other attacks allegedly inspired by the great replacement theory.

A Twitter account apparently linked to Camus said Sunday that neither the Buffalo shooter nor the New Zealand mosques attacker had referenced Camus or his book, rejecting the suggestion that his book was a call to hatred or a call to violence.

Going mainstream

The replacement idea is no longer confined to the outer edges of the far right. Increasingly, prominent conservative television hosts and politicians have faced accusations of using it as a trope to condemn "mass immigration."

One prominent personality accused of promoting the conspiracy is conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Media Matters, said Carlson started regularly discussing the idea in 2019.

"It was a core white supremacist conspiracy theory that suddenly he was talking about on his Fox News show, and then suddenly, other Fox News hosts were doing the same thing. And then Republican politicians," Gertz said.

During a segment last year, Carlson said that Biden's policy of "mass immigration" is designed "to change the racial mix of the country."

"In political terms, this policy is called the great replacement the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries," Carlson said.

In comments on Monday night, Carlson said the Buffalo shooter was mentally ill and not politically motivated and that "the great replacement theory is coming from the left" where activists and politicians push a demographic shift for political advantage.

During a visit to Buffalo to pay tribute to victims of the shooting, President Biden said he condemned "those who spread the lie" about white replacement. The White House has previously dismissed suggestions that it is promoting an "open borders" policy.

Other Fox News hosts such as Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham have charged that Democrats are seeking to bring in immigrants to replace Americans for political gain, according to Gertz.

In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik has drawn criticism from Democrats and some Republicans for promoting the racist theory. She has denied the charge.

Continued here:
What is the Great Replacement Theory? - Voice of America - VOA News

BURLINGTON Two rocks were thrown through the front door of the Pride Center of Vermonts community center on South Champlain Street on Tuesday morning, the Center reported.

Video footage shows that at around midnight, an unknown person walked up to the Center's doorway and threw two rocks through the door before running on foot towards Pine Street.

The Centers physical space closed following the vandalism, but will reopen next week once the safety of the space can be more thoroughly assessed. Property management has responded and has boarded the front door and will be replacing the glass pane in the coming weeks. The door is also being covered by a pride flag.

All virtual events will still occur, and the SafeSpace Anti-Violence support line will remain open as scheduled, unless otherwise noted.

Pride Center of Vermont was established to advance community and the health and safety of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ+) Vermonters.

Burlington acting Police Chief Jon Murad says officers are investigating the vandalism with an eye toward the very real possibility that it was motivated by malice related to the Pride Center.

Burlington Police say they are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.Police say that when a crime in Vermont is determined to have been maliciously motivated it may be enhanced as a hate crime, the perpetrator can be given additional penalties at sentencing.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said he was troubled to learn about the vandalism.

Our city is using its full resources to investigate who committed this crime and why," Weinberger said in a statement. Acts of hate have no place in Burlington."

This targeted act of intimidation and vandalism is not new to the organization. In 2007, the Pride Center, then located on Elmwood Avenue, experienced several instances of vandalism, including a brick thrown through a front window and graffiti displaying the words Burn in Hell.

In February 2019, the front door was plastered with alt-right propaganda. Since then, the Center has reported a rise in the amount of hateful letters and messages delivered to it's mailbox, increasing in the level of harmful rhetoric and threats. This attack on the Center comes on the heels of an escalated climate of anti-trans violence, including the murder of a community member, Fern Feather.

The Center said it is grateful for and strengthened by the solidarity of the neighborhood, where people informed the Center of the incident, showed up to help sweep broken glass, dropped off flowers and offered their support.

The community is invited to come together in "joy, celebration and resiliency" on Saturday, May 7, for the annual TransPlants Sale & Block Party from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 255 South Champlain Street.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Go here to read the rest:
Pride Center vandalized, it's not the first time - Bennington Banner

Teachers have raised concerns about the influence of incel subculture on teenage boys, as a survey revealed that seven in 10 female teachers have been victims of misogyny in school.

The poll by the NASUWT teachers union confirmed a significant culture of sexual harassment and misogyny in classrooms, with almost 60% of those who participated saying they had experienced misogyny from pupils.

The union, which has 300,000 UK members, says it is deeply concerned about the level of misogyny that is faced by women, trans and non-binary members, and students, on a regular basis.

It is also worried about a lack of government initiatives to tackle the subculture of involuntary celibates (incels), warning that teenage boys are finding themselves drawn into their views because of a lack of support from other, more appropriate, sources.

The term incel is used for men who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner and express online hostility and resentment towards those who are sexually active, particularly women. Discussions in such internet forums are often hate-filled and deeply misogynistic.

According to recent reports, Jake Davison, who gunned down seven people, killing five, in a rampage in Plymouth in 2021 has been lionised by the online incel community, and data has shown the number of visits to forums has increased by almost sixfold in nine months.

Delegates taking part in the NASUWT annual conference in Birmingham over the Easter weekend will debate the issue, after a survey of more than 1,500 female members showed 72% had been a victim of misogyny in their school and more than half (53%) said their school was not doing enough to tackle the problem.

The motion up for debate calls on the national executive to lobby government for misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime. It also says the incel community should be considered an extremist group, based on its links to alt-right viewpoints and hatred of women, and calls for further research into the effect incel communities have on young boys within schools and colleges, which will report back to conference next year.

The motion also calls on the union to lobby for fully funded mental health and wellbeing programmes aimed at boys, stressing the need for early intervention from mental health services.

Kathryn Downs, a secondary school teacher from Leeds who proposed the motion, said: A study in October 2021 suggested that there was a 6.3% chance of being suggested an incel-related video by YouTube within five hops of a non-incel related video. Given the amount of time our young people spend on social media, this is 6.3% too much. Clearly this shows the dangers of failing to support and improve the mental wellbeing of boys within schools.

According to the NASUWT poll, misogyny emanated from across the school community 58% experienced misogyny from pupils, 45% from the senior leadership team, 42% from other teachers, 30% from their headteacher and 27% from parents.

The majority of respondents complained of intimidatory, undermining or unprofessional behaviour (76%), comments about ability (51%), intellect (33%), body (32%), teaching style (30%) and clothing (29%), while 3% of cases cited sexual and physical violence.

One in 20 said the misogyny had been posted on social media including Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok. Of those respondents who reported misogyny to their school, 45% said no action was taken and one in five teachers said they were not believed or their claims were dismissed. Two in five said misogyny had affected promotional opportunities and more than a quarter (27%) said it affected pay.

Participants in the survey provided a long list of examples of the kind of misogyny they faced. One said: Children regularly make sexist comments about womens roles in the home and in the workplace. Children making comments about feminism being a terrible thing and explaining it as man hating, or even the wish to kill men.

Another teacher wrote: Students exposed themselves during a lesson, sexual gestures, sex noises made during the lesson to intimidate.

Another contribution said: Year 9 boys asking in class if Id had breast implants. I have had my backside grabbed in corridor by pupils. Another said: My mentor when I was teacher training said he was going to tie me up and rape me.

On misogyny from colleagues, one said: WhatsApp group which included only male members of staff. A member of SLT commented that I was hot and several teachers agreed. Another reported: Senior leaders being dismissive and undermining of female teachers in front of male pupils. Male pupils ignoring instructions from female teachers.

Dr Patrick Roach, the NASUWT general secretary, said: It is outrageous that so many women teachers continue to suffer this kind of appalling abuse in their workplaces. Our schools and colleges must be safe places for all staff and no woman should ever feel harassed, scared or intimidated just by going to work.

A government spokesperson said: In no circumstances should teachers be subjected to abuse simply for doing their jobs. Any report of sexual violence or sexual harassment to school leadership teams should be taken seriously.

Staff working in education should also receive regular safeguarding training to support them to spot and handle instances of abuse and harassment among pupils or staff.

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70% of female teachers have faced misogyny in UK schools, poll shows - The Guardian