In post-Charlottesville America, any large gathering of racists and fascists becomes both spectacle and specter. The threat of violence is omnipresent. Locals must “brace” themselves for “chaos and bloodshed.” Everyone dreads “another Charlottesville.” Dread is what Nazis want.
In two small cities near Nashville in Middle Tennessee, the fear was palpable ahead of two “White Lives Matter” rallies here on Saturday.
“So … what brings you to town?” a wary clerk asked guests as they checked into a hotel in Murfreesboro, home to Middle Tennessee State University and 132,000 residents, where one rally will be held Saturday afternoon outside the Rutherford County Courthouse. I heard some version of this question three times before I’d even found my room.
In nearby Shelbyville, a town of 21,000 south of Murfreesboro in Tennessee horse country, another rally ― organized by the same racists and fascists ― is scheduled for Saturday morning. Many Shelbyville residents will stay indoors or clear out altogether, according to local police.
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Justin Ide/Reuters
Matthew Heimbach, seen here after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is head of the Traditionalist Worker Party.
Blake Abbey says he was walking home from a bar with two friends on Sunday when a knife-wielding man jumped out, yelled homophobic slurs and stabbed all three of them.
“[He] called us ‘faggots for wearing tight jeans,'” Abbey wrote on his Facebook page, after the attack in Sacramento, California. “We did nothing to provoke him. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. My arm was completely mangled by a 7-8 inch Rambo knife.”
Their alleged assailant, 25-year-old Timothy Brownell, was arrested Monday on assault and weapons charges and released on bail. Police issued a new warrant for his arrest after they reclassified the stabbings as a hate crime, and Brownell turned himself in on Tuesday, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Andre McPherson has been coming to the Emanuel AME Church here off and on since 2003. His visit on Thursday night was his first in a couple of years, he said with a hint of guilt, but he felt he owed it to the church leaders and congregation to stop by.
In his more trying days when he was homeless, McPherson said, he often found himself at the doorstep of what’s known as “Mother Emanuel.” The Charleston resident credits the historic African-American church with helping him get off of drugs.
“This church helped me get me life together,” McPherson, 44, said through tears. “It helped me go back to my kids. It helped me get away from a certain street mentality. It helped me have pride.”
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A white supremacist site has blood on its hands, according to a new report.
Stormfront.org is linked to close to 100 killings in the last five years, the Southern Poverty Law Center found.
From the Guardian:
The White Nationalist web forum Stormfront.org says it promotes values of “the embattled white minority,” and its users include Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a 2011 massacre in Norway, and Wade Michael Page, who shot and killed six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012.
A New York Times report has identified the victim as Mark Carson, 32, and the suspect as 33-year-old Elliot Morales.
In what may be the latest in a disturbing series of crimes allegedly targeting New York’s gay community, a man was fatally shot in the head May 18 while walking through the West Village.
As NBC is reporting, local law enforcement officials are investigating the case as a hate crime after learning the suspect, who was arrested just blocks from the scene, allegedly hurled a series of anti-gay insults at the 32-year-old victim before shooting him.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the Associated Press that the suspect referred to the victim, who has been identified in the media only as a Brooklyn resident, and his companion as “gay wrestlers” after encountering them on the street shortly after midnight.
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A young British man has been convicted of manslaughter after killing a gay teen by setting him on fire.
The BBC reports that 20-year-old Jordan Sheard has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail for the death of Steven Simpson after pleading guilty to manslaughter charges. Simpson, 18, died one day after sustaining “significant burns” in June 2012, according to the report.
Simpson had Asperger’s syndrome, a speech impairment and epilepsy, the Yorkshire Post noted. The teen had reportedly been dared to strip down to his underpants before being doused in tanning oil, after which Sheard set him aflame at the party. Other reports said that anti-gay messages, including “gay boy” and “I love d*ck,” had been found scrawled across Simpson’s body.
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Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
Image: Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post.
James' World 2 