COLUMN: Got your number off the wall

From; Jeff Adler's, "Section 8," Fall '98 From; Jeff Adler's, "Section 8," Fall '98The other day while patronizing Chats, I stopped off to use the facilities in the Class of 1920 Commons. For the record, it is not my intention to be a critic of restrooms on Penn's campus, but you might be surprised what I found there. In this Penn-owned building, there were several stickers of racist propaganda pasted on the wall. They were torn and someone had written "white devil" over the remaining text, but I was able to make out a telephone number. National Alliance was founded in 1974 by William Pierce, a former assistant professor of physics at Oregon State University. According to its Web site, the goal of the National Alliance is to "have a racially clean area of the earth for the further development of our people," namely those of Aryan (European) descent. What is more, the Alliance asserts that "we will do whatever is necessary to achieve this White living space and to keep it White." This does not mean that other cultures won't be represented. If you're affiliated with Germanic, Celtic, Baltic or Slavic societies, you're allowed to stay in North America (as for the rest of us, we're beat). National Alliance wants to create an environment where the white race can thrive and express itself through scholarship, mass media, the arts and everyday lifestyles. As the Web site states, "this means a society in which young men and women gather to revel with polkas or waltzes, reels or jigs or any other White dances, but never to undulate or jerk to negroid jazz or rock rhythms." And these guys mean business, too. Serious business. Although membership declined in the 1980s, this decade has been one of prosperity for their organization. Membership doubled from 1990 to 1991 and then doubled again in 1992. Based on their own statistics, "recruitment rates at the end of l992 were 30 times what they had been in early 1989." According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, National Alliance's radio program, "American Dissident Voices," now has over 100,000 listeners worldwide. Their Web page receives over 1,700 hits daily. Too often, those of us who disagree with National Alliance and similar organizations do not take a firm enough stance. We may denounce them amongst our friends as immoral and awful, but we quickly dismiss them as ineffectual and expect other people to handle the fight against them. Let me tell you right now that National Alliance is far from ineffectual. The SPLC claims that Pierce's organization is campaigning to influence American militia groups. Both convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and convicted bombing conspirator Terry Nichols enthusiastically supported Pierce's 1978 race war novel, The Turner Diaries. College campuses are not exempt from the reach of National Alliance. For example, one racist e-mail on the group's homepage is from a man who described himself as a political science major at a Massachusetts college. Clearly, National Alliance's message has reached Penn. After all, those stickers in the bathroom didn't get there by accident. For Penn students and West Philadelphia residents, who are in an ongoing effort to promote mutual understanding, such propaganda serves only to undermine this popular effort. The question then becomes, How can one deal with groups like National Alliance? In this country we are incredibly fortunate to have freedom of speech. This freedom is responsible for some of the greatest advances for women and minorities in the past 50 years. But this freedom also means that we have to allow Pierce to expound his beliefs as well. Even though Pierce hates our government with a passion, we must still grant him the rights which our constitution allows. Freedom to exercise one's belief is what this country is all about. In other words, one cannot tell the National Alliance to shut up. Besides, this organization only feeds off of insults. Calling Pierce a neo-Nazi is a compliment. But there are ways which one can fight the attitudes expounded by National Alliance. Such an effort begins with the mobilization of a community determined to educate its constituents in tolerance. This means understanding the importance of cultural attitudes and ideas which may seem foreign to you. It means treating people as people regardless if you share common interests. It does not mean vengeance. Reading through the e-mails sent to National Alliance, one finds that many of their supporters claim to have been targets of reverse discrimination. One writer states that at his school, "threatening blacks tried to incite a confrontation with usually smaller and less aggressive white males." Whether this is true or not really does not matter. It is important to recognize that every white male is not affiliated with this type of hate group. Pierce specifically warns his constituents about columnists like me: "Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the 'in' crowd, the 'beautiful people,' the 'smart money.'" I will retort in agreement. Figure it out for yourself. I urge everyone who even slightly cares about the future of the nation to visit the National Alliance's homepage at http://www.natall.com. Take the time to learn about an organization whose propaganda has found its way into Penn's community.