Sunday, December 07, 2008
Neo-Nazi must now lie in bed he made
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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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Imagine you're a self-proclaimed, neo-Nazi leader who routinely spews hatred and disdain against blacks, Jews and others.
You get arrested on a charge of encouraging violence against a juror and end up in federal court in Chicago.
You're sitting before U.S. District Court Judge William Hibbler, who belongs to a group of people you have derided as "half-ape" and "n-----s."
In other words, he's black.
Maybe if you're William A. White, you look up at the man sitting in judgment of you, and the vile words you have written and the hatred you have incited flash before your eyes:
"It's nice to occasionally hide in the memories of a time when civil liberty and human freedom still meant keeping a n----- out of your store and a President could launch a social program called "Operation Wetback." -- February 2008
"For too long these half-ape animals have been able to intimidate white humanity with these threats of violence," White said, "We are letting the n-----s know we are no longer intimidated." -- February 2008
"King was just another ignorant, loud-mouthed, lying, cheating, stealing, pimping and abusing ghetto n----- that the Jew media puffed up beyond all reasonable bounds." -- March 2008
"I am also glad that I am so feared by Roanoke's Negroes, whom I have repeatedly beaten in the streets and in the courts, that they hold me responsible for all their troubles in this City. I hope their troubles mount until they all become so miserable that they pack up their bags and leave." -- September 2007
"It is also a shame to hear that so many of the Jewish vermin live in proximity to a rural community like Urbana-Champaign. One can only pray that the near future brings the extermination of this pest."-- May 2008
Such ugly words have an audience among the like-minded fringe who reside on the dark underbelly of the Internet.
But when White's words caused him to be thrust into the harsh glare of the judicial spotlight in a Chicago courtroom Friday afternoon, he stood alone.
White is the self-appointed commander of a white supremacy group. Where were his followers when he needed them? Not in the courtroom Friday, if they exist at all.
Except for immediate family, White was alone at a bail hearing in a city where, only months before, he had organized a banquet in honor of Adolf Hitler's birthday.
A picture from the event shows White wearing a Nazi armband, stretching his right arm forward, in front of a portrait of Hitler in the background.
For years, White's bizarre online postings have provoked, incited, bullied and threatened.
Before federal investigators shut down White's Web site in October, his postings included a call to lynch the Jena Six, a group of Louisiana teens charged with assault in a case that prompted a civil rights rally last year.
More recently, the site carried an image of Barack Obama, his head in rifle cross hairs, along with the headline "Kill This N-----?"
No matter how offensive his words, White had been adept at staying on the right side of the free speech line.
Until now.
His antics are no longer merely just the rants of a young provocateur.
He's now in his 30s, a husband and father, and his actions have snatched him away from his family and his responsibilities.
As we mature, our decisions and actions come with a reckoning that extends beyond ourselves, to our immediate family, to our to extended family, to our friends and to society.
For White, one of those reckonings came Friday, when the judge decided to hold him without bail until his trial. Hibbler's concern was not so much White's actions if he were released, but what others might do at his suggestion.
As for Bill White, he's been making this bed for years. Now, he's finally lying in it.
