This is a summary of the incident of Ku Klux Klan fliers being circulated before the Niagara County Peach Festival in Lewiston NY, and the police response to the alleged Klan recruitment that was to take place on Saturday, September 7th. All of the statements were published in local news sources in the days prior to that weekend.

These were the fliers seen by members of the community and reported to Lewiston Police Department. The fliers claim that local KKK members would “make their presence known” at the Peach Festival to recruit members of the “historically white” community. Lewiston Police Chief Frank Previte stated here, in regards to the fliers: “I am aware of the flyer. We have consulted with the DA and reviewed the material and it’s not a violation of law — it’s free speech.” Chief Previte said they would look into the authenticity of the fliers, and that they would be taking precautions for any potential problems that would have arisen due to the presence of the klan members. The police did not believe any rally would take place, however they were paying particularly close attention to people who were upset about the klan fliers online. “We are also looking at people’s reactions on social media and some of the threats being made there,” the police chief said. He warned that anyone “violating the law” would be arrested.

If we take a moment to consider that the police and District Attorney have already dismissed the recruitment efforts of a white supremacist group, known for terrorism and violence, as a perfectly legal act of free-speech, therefore exempt from their threat of arrest, but then focus their attention monitoring people who threaten the klan, we can see that the Lewiston Police clearly view people who oppose the klan as a larger problem than the klan itself. This is only one small demonstration of the ways in which the legal system in the United States gives preferential treatment to white supremacist organizations and other extreme right-wing groups, while at the same time, relentlessly cracking down on left-wing movements and activists. Even groups like Food Not Bombs are routinely harassed and arrested for feeding homeless people all around the country, who were unable to invoke their first amendment rights, (which has also happened here in Buffalo) while right-wing extremists are allowed to actively recruit for a dangerous and hateful movement, with the full endorsement of police, courts, and the constitution.

On September 5th, more updates were released, posted by The Niagara Gazette regarding the fliers and statements from LPD. The police department stated the document was determined not to be related to a white supremacist group, and instead was produced by an individual or individuals who have “done this in the past” and have “their own agenda.” (Clearly this agenda is white supremacy.) He declined to elaborate on how the determination was made. Without any concrete information given about the creator(s) of the flier, this set of statements seems to be yet another dismissal of racism and hate in the community, whether from an individual or from a particular organization. Even if the person the police claim to have made the flier isn’t officially affiliated with a klan group and wasn’t intending on recruiting, the effect of the flier was to instill fear in people in the hopes of keeping Lewiston as white as possible. This is not an isolated incident by any means. This is the fourth incident of a racist flier to appear in Lewiston alone in the past two years, along with many others which have appeared around Niagara County. Niagara County (Lewiston especially) has a reputation for being a hotbed of racism and reactionary politics, and seeing how the local law enforcement constantly gives them the green light, we shouldn’t expect that to change any time soon, unless the community starts to step up and take action.

After continuing to downplay signs of terroristic klan activity, and offering no legal way to engage the situation other than ignoring the problem, Chief Previte again emphasized that “while an individual’s beliefs or opinions may be considered by some to be vile or distasteful, it is never acceptable to respond to them with threats of violence.” This reaffirmation of the police department’s willingness to turn a blind eye to extremism, and instead focus on people wanting to protect their community against the klan, was illustrated once again when two people who allegedly made threats to the klan were identified and questioned by law enforcement. One person who was questioned was located in the City of Buffalo, the other in the City of Rochester. Some people reading this might be reluctant to defend the two in question due to the alleged violent nature of their comments towards the klan, or reluctant to label LPD as enablers of racist extremism who make sure neighborhoods like Lewiston remain prime breeding grounds for the klan by targeting those who speak out against them. To drive this point home, we must look at the way in which LPD also treats non-violent anti-racist activists organizing against the klan.

A local organization called SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) attended the Peach Festival the day the klan was claiming to arrive. Although no (visible) klan members were seen by attendees of the festival, SURJ intended to educate the community about dangerous recruitment efforts by white supremacists. They released a statement letting people know they would be in attendance and acting in a fully peaceful capacity. Upon arrival, SURJ was approached by LPD and told they had to leave the festival. It is very revealing of the nature of law enforcement and legal system in the US that a group with a violent history like the KKK would be granted protection by law enforcement under the first amendment, while a group such as SURJ, which is explicitly peaceful, was not given the same first amendment protection while trying to raise awareness about a danger to the community. In an interview with the The Niagara Gazette prior to the festival, a member of SURJ stated “History has shown hate groups can build power if they are ignored. People feel more comfortable looking the other way but that gives them free reign to keep recruiting, and keep terrorizing our communities,” These words ring true at home here as much as anywhere, illustrated to us by the actions and inactions of LPD and dismissals of the collective concern of the community by Chief Previte. Many times over the years we have dealt with racist propaganda appearing in driveways and mailboxes, and when left unchecked these extremist mindsets manifest themselves in incidents of violent hate crimes, like when local neo-nazis attacked a 21 year-old for bringing a black person into their bar in Niagara Falls, or even the many racially motivated mass shootings we have seen in the news cycle far too often. Police and politicians have chosen to remain indifferent to the threat every time it rears it’s ugly head here at home.

What lessons can be drawn from these events and the reaction to them by law enforcement? Let’s summarize what we have learned.

1. Police regularly downplay and ignore right-wing extremism until it is too late. Police will instead choose to focus their attention monitoring and harassing anti-racist activists and community members. This is how police act as an extension of fascist violence.

2. Constitutional rights and laws are not applied the same to all people, and right-wing extremist groups get preferential treatment because their reactionary politics serve to enforce the white supremacist, capitalist, colonial power-structure which is the foundation of this government. This allows right-wing extremist groups to carry out the “dirty work” of the state by targeting the same groups of people that are regularly targeted by police, government, and corporations, mainly people of color, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, poor people, disabled people, and leftists. This is how fascists act as an extension of police and state violence.

3. Police and fascists ultimately have the same interests and the same enemies, (as listed above) and because of this, fascism can never be completely defeated within the bounds of our current system. Our legal system is incapable of addressing the issue at its root. The defeat of fascism requires the abolition of capitalism and the dismantling of institutional white supremacy.

4. Police and the legal system leave very little legal options for resisting fascism, meaning that in certain cases, community self defense is necessary and justified against the threat of fascist violence. Ignoring fascism only allows it to fester and grow. We must be proactive in educating our community against fascist threats and ideology, and be ready to physically defend ourselves when the necessity arises.

For more information about local fascist groups, visit the “Local Far-Right Activity” section of our site. Here you can find much more information on local far-right organizations and their relationship to law enforcement.

To submit a tip about local fascist or far-right extremist activity, contact defend716@riseup.net

Article Submitted by an anonymous contributor.

Defend Buffalo blog has no affiliation with any groups mentioned above, and the views expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of the groups mentioned in the article. This was written with information gathered from public sources and anonymous submissions.

The following is an account and clarification of what happened during the disruption of the Trump rally that was planned for the morning of Sunday, the 21st. Due to logistical and time constraints, only a few of the key organizers were involved in writing this; however, we have attempted to present here, as accurately as possible, the perspective of the group as a whole. There has been a lot of misinformation circulating in the aftermath of the event, in both more “mainstream” media sources and on right-wing social media, and we hope to clear up some of the misunderstandings that we’ve encountered.

I.

1. No particular pre-existing group organized this event. The original organizers included individuals affiliated with a variety of local radical organizations, as well as independent revolutionary leftists.

2. Our group was in no way associated with Democratic politician Nate McMurray’s Bidwell Parkway protest, and did not “break off” from that Bidwell Parkway protest. The original group of antifascists was present at Colonial Circle shortly after 10am, hours before the Trump supporters had even arrived. It was only after McMurray’s rally ended that a few people trickled in from Elmwood, but the vast majority of the people who joined the antifascist demonstration were neighbors from surrounding streets who saw the gathering of Trump supporters for what it was — a group of belligerent fascists (mostly from out of town) coming to their neighborhood to stir up trouble and intimidate locals.

The original organizers explicitly formulated the Colonial Circle action as an alternative to the Nate McMurray rally and the liberal activism it represents, which we see as putting the career interests of a handful of Democratic politicians and nonprofit bureaucrats over the need to effectively combat the forces that have helped Trumpism spread. We do not believe in the false solutions offered by the Democratic Party or other capitalist swindlers.

 

3. Likewise, our group was in no way associated with the Western New York Peace Center, despite the presence, later on, of a small number of Peace Center members (including Victoria “Vicki” Ross).

 

4. The main objective of this action was to ensure that, as much as possible, the extreme right could not use the pro-Trump rally as a platform to normalize and spread its ideology, an ideology which promotes active violence against marginalized people. Fascists should not be able to take over public spaces without resistance.

By actively occupying the space as militant anti-fascists, we ensured that the rally was much smaller than it could have been. Over the course of the day, we saw cars covered in pro-Trump bumper stickers circle the park, see what was happening there, and drive away. Because of this, we believe that there would have been many more Trump supporters in that park if we had not taken space in it early on. If we had not been there, it is likely that the Trump supporters would have been able to occupy the entire park well before the arrival of the liberal activists coming from the Nate McMurray event. We’re not the only ones who think that our presence affected attendance. Rus Thompson, one of the organizers of the Trump rally, agrees – he stated in an interview that the rally would have been much bigger if we had not confronted their demonstration. (Interview)

We also wanted to make clear our active opposition to the views of those Trump supporters who weren’t driven away by our presence; we wanted to express our opposition to these people to their faces. Every time a person is allowed to express fascist or crypto-fascist views publicly without immediate concrete opposition, fascist ideology is normalized a little bit more.

 

5. We also wanted to achieve these objectives in a way that minimized the potential risk for us and our allies as much as possible. We believe that we were more successful in doing so than liberal activists such as Vicki Ross who came later and tried to hijack our strategy. These activists mainly attempt to ensure “peace” through cooperation with the police, many of whom are Trump supporters themselves (more on this later). We believe that this is a dangerous approach. In these cases, we cannot rely upon the police to protect us; we must actively work to protect one another ourselves.

To give one example: Whenever Trump rallies or other fascist events occur, far-right violence has been common not only during the rallies, but afterwards, when reactionaries follow individuals leaving the rally in order to attack them once they’re alone. To prevent this from happening, antifascists escorted people to and from their vehicles and homes, so people were not jumped on their way out. It appears that our efforts here were mostly successful, with two exceptions. We will say more about this shortly, but first we want to examine the organizers and attendees of this pro-Trump gathering in a bit more detail.

 

II

 

1. Make no mistake, the rally held by Rus Thompson and June Chapman was in effect a fascist demonstration, regardless of what those who organized it claim. The event, which was allegedly supposed to be a “peaceful demonstration” organized by Rus Thompson and June Chapman, included right-wing militia members and even proud white supremacists. This is the same Rus Thompson also spoke at the Spirit of America rally which took place in Niagara Square in 2017, alongside Sherrif Tim Howard who’s department has been responsible for twenty-five deaths (some under very suspicious circumstances) at the Erie County Holding Center, since Sheriff Howard took office. (Edit: the number of deaths at the Holding Center is now 25, we have been informed another person died the day this article was published.) White supremacist group Aryan Renaissance Society was also present at this Spirit of America rally.

(Pictured above: Scott Lacy and Todd Biro, violent white supremacists from the organization Aryan Renaissance Society, local affiliates based in Niagara Falls. This picture was taken at the Spirit of America Rally in 2017 where Rus Thomopson previously spoke. Another example of a pro-America pro-Trump event with a significant fascist turnout.)

(Sherrif Tim Howard speaking at Spirit of America Rally in 2017 in front of a confederate flag.)

More and more, these sorts of rallies are becoming an acceptable platform for proud, open, violent fascists to spread their ideology.. This is partly due to far-right extremists being emboldened by Trump’s violent and racist rhetoric; however, white supremacy has always been instrumental to he foundation of this country: the genocide of indigenous people, the enslavement of African people, the historical and continuing restriction of “legal” immigration along racial lines, etc.. Trump has merely taken the mask off of this deeply rooted racism, and as we saw in our city at both the Spirit of America rally in 2017 and the Trump rally in Colonial Circle, many of his “patriotic” supporters are taking their masks off as well.

2. At least one violent incident took place, and it is likely that a second did as well. Both were instigated by the other side. The first happened shortly before the rally had officially begun. Only a few Trump supporters had arrived at this point, and found the circle occupied by antifascists. One Trump supporter approached an anti-Trump demonstrator, tearing his cardboard sign from his hands, punching him in the face. The police initially detained the Trump supporter as a result of the attack, but he was released after a few minutes. The anti-Trump demonstrator had a cut on his face, but managed to hold out the rest of the protest with no major injuries. Antifascist street medics on site were able to assist with the wound. The second allegedincident did not occur at the circle. A WBEN radio caller who was a Trump supporter at the rally bragged about punching someone on a side street while going back to their car. (Source) As mentioned above, it is common for fascists to target people after rallies, usually singling out vulnerable people. The man pictured below is the Trump supporter who initiated the first fight.

3. Open, proud fascism and white supremacy were alive and well on the Trump side of the demonstration. One man in a white tee-shirt and MAGA hat can be seen giving a Hitler-salute more than once.
 
(A video of man pictured above can be found here.)

This man with a MAGA hat below told anti-Trump protesters that he “would rather vote for nazis than socialists”. Socialists want to build working class power and establish democracy in the workplace, whereas the nazis pursued an agenda of ethnic cleansing, genocide and imperialism while re-structuring the economy in the interest of certain sectors of the capitalist class. Comparisons between fascism and socialism that conflate the two are one way in which the right has managed to “normalize” fascism as an acceptable position in 2019 U.S. politics.
 

Other attendees of the Trump crowd in Colonial Circle include members of the Proud Boys, a violent fascist street gang linked to neo-nazi groups. Proud Boys have been well known for street violence and associate with groups like Patriot Prayer, American Guard (formerly Soldiers of Odin USA, created by Brien James, founder of Vinlanders Social Club whose members have been linked to up to nine murders.) The Proud Boys were also videotaped in the gang-beating of protesters outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City, alongside members of Battalion 49 and 211 Boot Boys, two other racist bonehead crews based in NYC. In addition, the Proud Boys were present at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, where neo-nazi James Alex Fields murdered anti-racist activist Heather Heyer. There are multiple Proud Boys and affiliates within the City of Buffalo. The ones pictured below were present at the Trump rally, and can be seen giving the “white power” hand sign and wearing a Proud Boys tee-shirt.

 

4. The right-wing extremists present at the Trump rally acted as if the police were their allies, and seemed to take police protection for granted in a way that we, as radical leftists many of whom are black, brown, and/or trans, could not. The Proud Boys mentioned above were the last three Trump supporters present at Colonial Circle and chose to hide behind remaining police once the rest of the Trump crowd cleared out. One of them posted on facebook shortly after the event, highlighting the collaboration that often occurs between police and fascist groups and the fact that many police officers share sentiments with fascist demonstrators.
 
Often times, the police are members of these groups themselves. Another police officer at the rally was pictured with the slogan “Molon Labe”, a right-wing dog-whistle commonly used by militas such as the Three-Percenters (III%). The phrase means “come and take them”, referring to the fact that these militiamen refuse to give up their guns to the government.
 
Apparently, this officer doesn’t realize that in the event of a government weapons confiscation, the police would be the ones doing the confiscating. Three-Percenters have been tied to other extremist and pro-confederate groups, and members have been involved in incidents ranging from armed standoffs to bomb plots. The Three-Percenter militia also provided security at the deadly Unite the Right rally mentioned earlier, alongside neo-nazi groups. Incidentally, some Three-Percenters were present at the rally in Colonial Circle.

5. To summarize: because of the real connection that many police officers have to the far right, we did not trust them to protect us, and believe that strategies that use “nonviolence” to justify collaboration with the police are in fact wind up promoting violence by empowering both fascists and their sympathizers within the police force. We had our own plan to keep our people safe, and insofar as we were able to execute that plan, it was quite effective. But by interfering with this pre-existing plan, Vicki Ross and her allies were in effect working to sabotage it, and thus putting everyone on our side in greater danger of violence.

***

 

Fascism is a serious, existential threat — not only to marginalized people, but to the wider community as a whole. The fact that so many types of far-right extremists can openly rally, and even attack people, alongside so-called “patriots” who stand by and do nothing should be cause for concern. Whether or not June Chapman and Rus Thompson intended for these groups to be here is unimportant. We cannot rely on Trump supporters to remove other fascists. We cannot rely upon the police to do so either. And we also cannot rely on Democratic politicians or non-profit careerists to mount effective resistance, because these groups, just like the police, have a direct, material interest in preserving the same violent settler-colonial project of which fascism is the ultimate and most extreme expression. No amount of superficial pandering and appropriation of revolutionary rhetoric by the aforementioned groups changes this fact.

Fascism stems from contradictions within capitalism. If we are to truly confront and defeat fascism, we must dismantle capitalism and the settler-colonial system that it has built, and that includes confronting the U.S. imperialist police state and everyone and everything that is objectively allied with it. Pointing this fact out, and having it inform our strategy, will make our resistance to fascism more effective, not less, and anyone who doubts this need only look at what happened this Sunday for objective proof of this.

—

Submitted by anonymous disruption-demo organizers.

If you have any submissions or tips on local fascist activity, please send the info to defend716@riseup.net