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| Item: N.J. White Supremacists distribute anti-Obama hate flyers (358921) | |||
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Item: N.J. White Supremacists distribute anti-Obama hate flyers |
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Posted by JayZeeBMT on Tue Sep 23 20:41:05 2008 From Associated Press:TRENTON, N.J. -- Residents in one northern New Jersey town received fliers over the weekend attacking Barack Obama's candidacy on racial grounds, in what one national watchdog group is calling the first racist flier distribution against the candidate. Roxbury Mayor Tim Smith said the fliers were dropped off at about 25 to 50 of the township's 8,000 homes. He said nothing like it had happened before in the community of 26,000 residents. "I'm sickened by this," Smith said. "It's not at all representative of our community. I want the world at large to know we're not that kind of community -- this is a place where people take care of each other and nobody cares where you're from or what you look like." The flier shows unflattering photos of Obama, including a doctored one making him look like Osama Bin Laden, above text that reads: "Black Ruled Nations most unstable and violent in the world." The flier cites poverty, HIV, and unemployment rates in Haiti and South Africa, and warns: "The United States of America will be next! Why should we seal our fate by allowing a black ruler to destroy us?" News of the fliers was first reported Monday by The Star-Ledger of Newark. Roxbury Police Chief Mark Noll said the 8-by-11, black-and-white photocopied fliers were left in plastic bags weighted with rocks on lawns, driveways and in mailboxes in the northwestern New Jersey township. They are signed by a white supremacist group called the League of American Patriots, which has a New Jersey address in Butler, about 45 minutes away from Roxbury. E-mail and phone messages left for the League of American Patriots were not returned Tuesday. Noll said the incident was being investigated as a possible littering violation -- which carries a $500 fine -- and not as a hate crime, because the group did not target certain homes. Heidi Beirich, a director of the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacist movements nationwide, described the League of American Patriots as a white supremacist, anti-immigrant group that started in February in northern New Jersey. She said the group "tries to pass itself off as a suit-and-tie organization," but is "classic white supremacist." Beirich's group has been tracking threats from hate groups against Obama. She said the group has seen Web and e-mailed threats, and negative talk about the Democrat in the white supremacist world, but thought this was the first racist flier distribution. A call for comment left with Obama's New Jersey campaign press office was not returned Tuesday. Roxbury resident Elizabeth Corsetto said she picked up a flier at the end of her driveway on Saturday thinking it was a supermarket circular, and was shocked to see the headline "Do You Want A Black President?" "I was like, 'What?"' Corsetto said. "It's a ridiculous piece of literature and blatantly racist." Corsetto said she was outraged by the incident and had seen other neighbors stuffing the fliers in the trash. "I'm supposed to draw a conclusion that's what will happen to us if we have a black president?" Corsetto said of the flier's references to Haiti and South Africa. "I want to know how I'm going to fund my retirement with the stock market in the toilet -- those are the facts I want to hear." Bigotry finds new depths...but it's good to know the people in Roxbury seem to be putting those flyers where they belong, in the garbage. |
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