Exposure to ultra-white

In this newest era of the information age, data flies through wires and flows into homes and offices via the Internet with the greatest of ease. Any soul with a laptop and DSL can quickly spew unfiltered stories and opinion, and anyone can download it. Some of that information, however, is venomous. The toxic information is flowing unfettered and uncensored, and it can become dangerous in the wrong hands.

It seems everyone is jumping on the Internet, and that includes the knuckleheads in the white-power movement. The neo-Nazis in the National Alliance have a Web site that can be used to copy the hateful writing they put down on paper. Yes, even white supremacists can learn to pull the illogical info off the Web, make it into fliers and have it land on doorsteps—perhaps yours, if you live in certain Sacramento neighborhoods.

We wanted to find out more about this organization and exactly who was putting out racist, anti-Semitic slogans (see “My dinner with the white supremacists”).

But some in what we’ll call the anti-hate community, organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and others, worry that giving the racists media attention just gives them free publicity and could possibly boost enrollment. So be it.

We feel it is dangerous to ignore the ranting of racists. And hey, they’re just ignorant. Readers are smart enough to know hate when they see it and be repulsed.

But awareness is key. In the past, organizations putting out this kind of literature have spurred on followers to crime, an example being the Williams brothers and the torching of synagogues in Sacramento. It’s just too important to hide our heads.

And then there’s that First Amendment right that allows them to spew the venom at will (and us to criticize). We encourage you to read the story about them and their beliefs and see it for what it is. In the end, it’s just suburban skinheads without much going on upstairs.