Hate groups are on our doorstep

To the editor:

On Saturday, July 28, the neo-Nazi hate group “Identity Evropa” staged a rally in Fort Tryon Park, waving American flags and flags with their organization’s logo, an inverted triangle symbol from German folklore. 

Some 20 to 30 young white men marched through the park carrying an enormous banner declaring “Stop the invasion, end immigration,” before unfurling it on the arched Billings Arcade near the Cloisters. They published photos of their action on Twitter, making sure that their faces were hidden.

The Southern Poverty Law Center — which monitors hate groups and other extremists throughout the United States and exposes their activities to law enforcement, the media and the public — lists “Identity Evropa” as a hate group “… at the forefront of the racist ‘alt-right’s’ effort to recruit white, college-aged men and transform them into the fashionable new face of white nationalism.”

“Identity Evropa” enthusiastically supports President Trump and seeks to close U.S. borders to immigration, among other things.

Before rallying in Fort Tryon, the group had staged a provocation downtown at the Mexican consulate with the message “We will not stand by while we are replaced in the land of our forefathers — this country is ours.”

There is irony in this messaging and the group’s name, given that Europeans were the first immigrants to a continent that was at the time abundantly occupied by indigenous peoples.

It is to the everlasting shame of Donald Trump, politicians like him, and those that support him, that white supremacy is finding aid and comfort across the country. What an ugly and yet unsurprising reality that a neo-Nazi organization like “Identity Evropa” would feel empowered to occupy Fort Tryon, in the diverse community of Fort Washington, on a summer Saturday in which the park is ordinarily filled with families enjoying a break in peaceful, green surroundings.

Great thanks to Congressman Adriano Espaillat and others for quickly organizing a counter-rally on Tuesday evening, July 31, on Billings Lawn at Fort Tryon Park, protesting the actions of “Identity Evropa” and asserting “zero tolerace for hate, xenophobia and racism.”

Jennifer Scarlott

The author is writing on behalf of North Bronx Racial Justice.