Tag Archives: White supremacists

2020 Presidential campaigns, Donald Trump, Racism, White supremacists

Former Trump official: Trump is enabling white supremacists

Trump’s ‘Racist’ Actions ‘Gave Permission’ To White Supremacists, An Ex-DHS Official Now Says

Forbes, by Andrew Solender, August 26, 2020
TOPLINE

Elizabeth Neumann, a former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention in the Trump administration who endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden last week, alleged Wednesday that President Trump enabled white supremacists and ignored pandemic warnings.

KEY FACTS

In a video for pro-Biden group Republican Voters Against Trump, Neumann says she is “first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ” who voted for Trump in 2016 for his anti-abortion stance.

Noting the rise in white supremacy in the Trump era, Neumann said Trump’s rhetoric made her job more difficult, calling his language and actions “racist” and alleging he “gave permission” to white supremacists.

On the topic of the pandemic, Neumann says experts told her “we need to be executing on these plans,” but that Trump told officials to stop doing their jobs because “he didn’t want the economy to tank and he didn’t want a distraction from his campaign.”

In an interview with Politico, Neumann and several other former Trump Homeland Security officials alleged inaction on white supremacy by the administration, with Neumann asserting “there’s not going to be anything substantive done on domestic terrorism” and stating that Trump “botched” his response to Charlottesville by saying “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“I do not think that we can afford four more years of President Trump,” Neumann said, concluding, “We are less safe today because of his leadership. We will continue to be less safe as long as he is in control.”

KEY BACKGROUND

Before her time in the Trump administration, Neumann served on the Homeland Security Council in the Bush White House, a role in which she “tracked terrorist threats and developed domestic prevention and mitigation strategies and programs,” according to the DHS website. In the Trump administration, she worked as Deputy Chief of Staff of DHS and as a senior advisor to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and Kirstjen Nielsen, and Acting Secretary Elaine Duke before serving as Assistant Secretary. She departed the administration in April, according to Politico, and endorsed Biden alongside over 70 other Republican security officials.

CHIEF CRITIC

“Our brave federal law enforcement, national security, and Intelligence officials work around the clock to monitor every range of threats facing our nation, including domestic terror,” White House spokesperson Alyssa Farah told Politico. The White House declined to comment further to Forbes.

SURPRISING FACT

Neumann is far from alone as a Republican backing Biden. Scores of Republican lawmakers and former executive branch officials have publicly endorsed him, including former Republican Senator and Defense Secretary Bill Cohen on Wednesday. Several other Trump administration officials have endorsed Biden as well, including former Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci and former DHS Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, who alleged Trump claimed “magical authorities” beyond the law.

WHAT TO WATCH FOR

Taylor predicts even more Trump officials will come forward before the election. “The president hasn’t heard the last of us,” Taylor told ABC News earlier this month, calling his allegations the “opening salvo.”

#BlackLivesMatter, Black Lives Matter, Contra Costa County, Martinez CA, Racism, White supremacists

In Martinez, Contra Costa and elsewhere – white backlash to Black Lives Matter

White backlash to Black Lives Matter was swift. It was also expected

San Francisco Chronicle, by Otis R. Taylor Jr. July 9, 2020 
Justin Gomez at the site of a Black Lives Matter mural that he and his wife, Angela helped organize and that had been defaced shortly after being completed in Martinez, Calif., on Tuesday, July 7, 2020. The couple that vandalized the Black Lives Matter mural (since restored) on Court Street on July 4th, has been charged with a hate crime each for their actions.
Justin Gomez at the site of a Black Lives Matter mural that he and his wife, Angela helped organize and that had been defaced shortly after being completed in Martinez, Calif., on Tuesday, July 7, 2020. The couple that vandalized the Black Lives Matter mural (since restored) on Court Street on July 4th, has been charged with a hate crime each for their actions. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle

The expected hostility toward the racial uprising energizing the country has begun.

It was expected by behaviorists and historians because history reveals that when some white people feel threatened by social justice movements, they lash out.

On July 4, the paint had barely dried on the 165-foot long Black Lives Matter mural on the street in front of the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse in Martinez when a man and a woman showed up. They dumped black paint on the yellow letters.

“This is not happening in my town,” the woman said as she spread the paint with a roller.

The hateful display of counterfeit patriotism was video-recorded by bystanders and went viral. On Tuesday, Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton charged Nicole Anderson and David Nelson with a hate crime for defacing the mural.

“It was a peaceful mural, and it was a powerful way, as we’ve seen all over the country, that has been used to think about the importance of Black lives,” Becton told me. “But this one in particular was to think about the importance of Black lives in Contra Costa County.”

The county is roughly 43% white, according to census data. Black people make up less than 10% of the county’s population, while Latinos account for about 26% of county residents.

A 2018 report by UC Berkeley’s Urban Displacement Project and the California Housing Partnership studied housing prices and demographic changes in the county from 2000 to 2015 to, among other things, understand trends producing “patterns of segregation and unequal access to high-resource neighborhoods that have defined the county’s racial and economic geography for decades.”

By 2015, the report concluded, “approximately half of low-income Black and Latinx households in the county lived in segregated, high-poverty tracts — approximately triple the rate of low-income Asian and White households, and a steep increase from 2000. Families in these types of neighborhoods typically face greater barriers to economic mobility [and] are more likely to suffer adverse health outcomes.”

Once again, systemic racism impacts the health, economic and educational outcomes of people of color.

The permitted Black Lives Matter mural in Martinez was repainted almost immediately, but get this: The very next day, a man was arrested for allegedly pulling a gun on people looking at the mural, according to the Police Department.

The retaliation is driven by hate, resentment and fear. Don’t be surprised if it lasts beyond next year’s presidential inauguration.

“These are old means of subordination that white people have used,” said UC Berkeley psychology Professor Dacher Keltner, referring to recent viral incidents, including in Indiana where a Black man was attacked in the woods by white men. “This racism is the fabric of this culture.”

And when protesters rallied earlier this week to support Vauhxx Booker, the Black man who called the Indiana incident an “attempted lynching,” someone drove their car through the crowd, NBC News reported.

Wait, there’s more. A white woman used the N-word while arguing with a Black woman in a Sacramento-area convenience store on June 25. A white diner called someone enjoying a family celebration at a Carmel Valley restaurant an “Asian piece of s—.”

“Trump’s gonna f— you,” he said, rising from the table.

He already has.

The president is a grifter who knows hate is currency in America. He stokes white fear and resentment by painting Black Lives Matter protesters as terrorists and thugs. On July 1, he called Black Lives Matter murals symbols of hate. If his lies were your main source of information about people of color, you’d think the white, Black, Latino, Asian and Indigenous people marching for social justice were a bigger threat to this country than the coronavirus.

That’s why a white couple in St. Louis pointed their guns at protesters who marched past their home.

“The narrative of police brutality, the narrative of oppression, the narrative of racism — it’s a lie,” said the man in the Martinez incident, identified as Nelson, who wore a red T-shirt with “four more years” on the front. “Why don’t you guys learn about history?”

Once again, ignorance is a hallmark of white supremacy.

Here’s a brief lesson in American history: Southern white people went to war and sacrificed a generation to preserve the right to buy, sell and trade Black bodies. Then this country built statues to honor human traffickers and to remind Black people that their place — no, our lives — were conditional. After slavery was abolished, the lynchings of Black people became appointment viewing. Black people’s homes, churches and offices were bombed during the civil rights movement.

I could go on, but you get the historical context. In this country, when some white people feel their way of life — their status — is threatened, they respond with violence.

Dana Frank, a research professor of history at UC Santa Cruz, told me that some white resentment turns into anger instead of reflection.

“There’s white people that are well-meaning or confused and clueless, and then there’s the people who are actively crossing over into hostility. The second category is much harder to reach,” she said. “I think it’s very hard for your average white person to see all those forms of institutionalized racism in which they come out ahead. How do you open the door to somebody seeing that without that person feeling threatened?”

By getting white people to talk to white people about systemic racism.

Justin Gomez, who obtained the permit for the street mural, organized the effort a week after flyers calling for white unity were distributed in Martinez. Gomez, who is Filipino and was raised in Walnut Creek, has two children. He’s a stay-at-home dad, and his wife is a health care worker.

He told me he was blown away at how quickly the mural was defaced. Then again, he lives in Contra Costa County.

“We see Confederate flags,” Gomez said. “We see a lot of racist rhetoric in our local social media circles, so we fully knew that that was going to happen and we were ready for it.”

Six gallons of yellow paint were delivered to him Monday.

“We’re ready to fix it again,” he said.

Antifa, Donald Trump, Evropa, Peaceful protest, Police violence, Public protest, White supremacists

White supremacists behind some of the violence and looting, Trump and cronies fanning the flames

A white supremacist channel on Telegram encouraged followers to incite violence during police brutality protests by ‘shooting in a crowd,’ according to internal DHS memo

Business Insider, by Sonam Sheth , Jun 1, 2020
nypd george floyd protests
New York Police Department (NYPD) officers gather during a rally on May 31, 2020 in New York City. Protesters demonstrated for the fourth straight night after video emerged of a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, pinning Floyd’s neck to the ground. Floyd was later pronounced dead while in police custody after being transported to Hennepin County Medical Center. Justin Heiman/Getty Images
    • A white supremacist channel on Telegram encouraged its followers to spark violence to start a race war in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, Politico reported, citing an internal Department of Homeland Security memo.
    • Citing the FBI, the note said that two days after Floyd’s death, the channel “incited followers to engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”
    • One of the messages in the channel called for potential shooters to “frame the crowd around you” for the violence, the note said, according to Politico.
    • Other media outlets have also reported on white supremacist groups weaponizing protests against police brutality to incite violence.
    • Meanwhile, several Republican officials, including President Donald Trump, have blamed “antifa” for the violence and some have suggested protesters should be hunted down like terrorists.

A white supremacist channel on the encrypted messaging app Telegram encouraged its followers to spark violence to start a race war during nationwide protests against police brutality following the death of George Floyd, Politico reported, citing an internal Department of Homeland Security intelligence note.

Floyd was a 46-year-old black man who died on May 25 after repeatedly saying he could not breathe when a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

The DHS note warning of white supremacist linked violence was circulated among law enforcement officials, Politico reported. Citing the FBI, it said that two days after Floyd’s death, the channel “incited followers to engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”

One of the messages in the channel called for potential shooters to “frame the crowd around you” for the violence, the note said, according to Politico.

On May 29, the note said, “suspected anarchist extremists and militia extremists allegedly planned to storm and burn the Minnesota State Capitol.”

The memo pointed to “previous incidents of domestic terrorists exploiting First Amendment-protected events” as one of the reasons the DHS is keeping an eye out for additional violence by “domestic terrorist actors.”

NBC News also reported on Monday that Twitter had identified a group posing as an “antifa” organization calling for violence in the protests as actually being linked to the white supremacist group Identity Evropa.

Twitter suspended the account, @ANTIFA_US, after it posted a tweet that incited violence. A company spokesperson also told NBC News that the account violated Twitter’s rules against platform manipulation and spam.

These developments come as protests against racism and police brutality continue across the country. Peaceful demonstrations have taken place in more than 75 cities, though some have spiraled into chaos and deadly violence as law enforcement officials use heavy-handed crowd control tactics.

Some protests have involved smaller groups looting businesses and, in a few cases, setting fire to buildings and cars.

On Monday evening, police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protesters outside the White House gates in Washington, DC, while President Donald Trump delivered remarks in the Rose Garden saying he was “an ally to all peaceful protesters.”

Several social-media posts have shown other instances of violence linked to the demonstrations, including:

  • Police cruisers ramming into protesters in New York City.
  • Protesters in Denver being hit with a car whose driver was accused of deliberately trying to run someone over.
  • Protesters and officers clashing in Chicago.
  • A riot in Dallas in which one video appeared to show a can of tear gas being thrown inside a woman’s car while she was in it.
  • Police in Louisville, Kentucky, spraying pepper bullets at protesters. Officers reportedly also shot them at a reporter and cameraman covering the scene.

Trump and some Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have suggested using violence and deploying the US military to tamp down the demonstrations.

On Monday, a Blackhawk helicopter with US Army markings was seen flying low over Washington, DC, in a “show of force” against protesters. The New York Times reported that the helicopter descended to rooftop level, kicked up dirt and debris, and snapped trees that narrowly missed several people.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida suggested earlier in the day that protesters demonstrating against police brutality are part of antifa and should be hunted down like terrorists.

“Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Middle East?” Gaetz tweeted. Twitter later flagged the post for violating its rules against glorifying violence but left it up because it determined it was in the “public interest” for the tweet to still be accessible, though users cannot like, retweet, or reply to it.

Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas also advocated for using military force against protesters and indicated that they should be shown no mercy.

“We need to have zero tolerance for this destruction,” Cotton wrote, calling protesters “Antifa terrorists.”

“And, if necessary, the 10th Mountain, 82nd Airborne, 1st Cav, 3rd Infantry — whatever it takes to restore order,” he added. “No quarter for insurrectionists, anarchists, rioters, and looters.”

“No quarter” is a military term that means a commander will not accept the lawful surrender of an enemy combatant and suggests the captive will instead be killed. The practice is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.

Trump also called for forcefully subduing the protesters just before describing himself as an “ally” to peaceful demonstrators.

“If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time,” the president said on Monday during a phone call with governors and law-enforcement officials. “They’re going to run over you. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate.”

At one point, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said, “We have to be careful, but we’ve got to be tough.”

Trump responded: “You don’t have to be too careful, and you have to do the prosecutions.”

“When someone’s throwing a rock, that’s like shooting a gun,” the president said. “We’ve had a couple of people badly hurt with no retribution. You have to do retribution, in my opinion. You have to use your own legal system. But if you want this to stop, you have to prosecute people.”