
          Contemporary Hate Activity
          By StaffStaff
          Vol. 11, No. 4, 1989, pp. 16-18
          
          EDITOR'S NOTE: As Stetson Kennedy points out[see "One Less Voice for Discrimination, Vol. 11
No. 4], the problems of bigotry, violence and discrimination
remain very much a part of the U.S. landscape. The following incidents
were compiled for Southern Changes by Leonard Zeskind,
research director of the Center for Democratic Renewal.
          * Violence
          
            Asian beaten to death
          
          Two white men are charged in the Raleigh, N.C., beating death of an
Asian man. According to eyewitness accounts and statements to police,
Ming Hai Loo and four Asian friends were in the Cue-'N-Spirits
poolroom and bar on July 28 when Robert Piche and Lloyd Piche started
calling them "gooks, slanteyes and chinks." The Piches also declared
that they had lost a brother in Vietnam. The 

Asians reportedly left
the bar but were followed into the parking lot where one of the Piche
brothers confronted Ming with a shotgun and a pistol. Ming was struck
on the head and died three days later.
          Police handled the incident as an unprovoked, racially motivated
attack but the DA charged only one of the Piches, and him only with
second-degree murder. A spokesperson for North Carolinians Against
Racial and Religious Violence said this was the first recorded
incident of anti-Asian violence id North Carolina in this decade. A
1986 U.S. Civil Rights Commission report concluded that anti-Asian
violence was a national problem and found that anti-Asian incidents
rose 62 percent in 1985 over the previous year (no later statistics
are available).
          
            Racist assault in New York
          
          One black youth was killed and three others were attacked Aug. 23
in the Bensonhurst neighborhood of Brooklyn, according to press
reports. The attackers were a group of 10 to 30 white teenagers who
were armed with a least one gun and seven baseball bats. The dead
youth, Yusef Hawkins, 16, was shot to death. Police are treating the
incident as racially motivated.
          
            Letter Bomb Injures 15 at NAACP
          
          Persons in Southeastern Regional Office of the NAACP in Atlanta and
an adjoining medical office were injured Aug. 21 by a tear-gas bomb
received through the mail by the NAACP. Some 15 persons were injured,
including a four-month-old baby. The FBI is investigating.
          
            Skinhead Sentenced in Alabama
          
          A 19-year-old skinhead was sentenced to three years in prison for
defacing a Mobile, Ala., synagogue and a Jewish community center. Two
17-year-olds were given probation.
          
            Flag Burning Provokes Racial Confrontation
          
          Arkansas neo-Nazi Ralph Forbes was among some 400 whites who
surrounded, taunted and jostled a small group of blacks who attempted
to burn a U.S. flag on the steps of the Arkansas state capitol in
Little Rock on July 4. The object of the attempted flag-burning was
reportedly a protest against drugs and homelessness.
          
            Third Kluxer Sentenced in Donald Death
          
          Former United Klans of America member Frank Cox Jr.  was sentenced to
life in prison for his part in the 1981 murder in Mobile, Ala., of a
black teenager, Michael Donald, who was kidnapped at random and killed
by a local Klan group in retaliation for the failure of a local jury
to convict a black man accused of murdering a white police
officer. Two other Klansmen have previously been convicted in the
case; one faces the Alabama electric chair and is currently
represented in the appeals process by an attorney procured by the
NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
          
            Black Family Attacked in Queens
          
          A black family watching a July 4 fireworks display in Queens, N.Y.,
was attacked by more than 30 white youths, some wielding baseball
bats. One youth was arrested; police were looking for others. Several
family members were hospitalized.
          
            White Youths Sentenced
          
          Three white youths have been sentenced--to write an essay, 15 days in
juvenile detention, and 32 hours of community service,
respectively--in a May 8 baseball bat attack on black students in
Auburn, Wash.
          
            WAR Member Arrested in Florida Threat
          
          Walter Komorowski, who says he is a member of White Aryan
Resistance and the John Birch Society, was arrested Aug. 15 on charges
of making written threats against government officials in Port Lucie,
Fla. Police confiscated handguns, knives, 1,200 rounds of ammunition,
and 15 rifles, including an AK-47. Komorowski allegedly stated that he
bought the AK-47 after viewing television news about the Stockton,
Calif., shooting of school children by a gunman using an AK-47.
          
            Mexicans Harassed in Georgia
          
          Officials of the Mexican government have expressed concern after
Mexican citizens working in the Gainesville, Gal, area received
leaflets distributed by the Invisible Empire Knights.
          
            Racist Graffiti in Georgia
          
          "Nigger Go Home" was spraypainted Aug. 1 on the car of a black
person living in Stone Mountain, Ga. A car belonging to a black
teenager in Carrollton, Gal, was vandalized outside a pizza restaurant
on July 21. A KKK "calling card" was left on the teenager's car.

          Also in Georgia, a sign marking the construction site of Temple
Beth David, the first synagogue in rapidly growing Gwinnett County,
has twice been defaced by swastikas. On the morning of a community
meeting to condemn the antisemitism, area mailboxes were stuffed with
hate literature.
          
            Confrontation in Oregon
          
          A group of blacks chased by a group of skinheads in Portland, Ore.,
on July 22, turned on the skinheads and began beating them. One
skinhead, Walter Evans, was knocked unconscious, but on reviving began
screaming, "White Power!"
          * Politics
          
            LaRouche to Campaign from Jail
          
          Lyndon LaRouche reportedly will run a campaign from his jail cell
for Virginia's 10th District Congressional seat. Also running in
Virginia on the LaRouche ticket are Nancy Spannaus for a state senate
seat and Harry Broskie, Clyde T. Mayberry and Nereida Thompson for
delegate seats.
          
            LaRouche Front Meets with Congressional Aide
          
          A LaRouche-organized "Food for Peace" delegation met with Fred
Clark, associate counsel for the House Committee on
Agriculture. Included in the delegation were former National Farmers
Union Virginia state director Jack Hall and former Philadelphia NAACP
president O.G. Christian.
          
            Opinions Differ on Minority Set-Asides
          
          A recent poll by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that 29
percent of Southern whites believe a fixed percentage of city
government contracts should be awarded to minority firms; 59 percent
of blacks supported the set-asides. In Louisiana, minority set-asides
were one of the key issues in the successful state legislature
campaign of former KKK leader David Duke.
          
            Contra Supporters Convene
          
          Tom Posey, leader of the Civilian Materiel Assistance, recently
held a four-day conference in Madison, Ala., and told the press he is
ready to resume shipment of weapons to the Nicaraguan contras. Posey
was recently acquitted on charges of violating U.S. neutrality laws by
a federal judge who reasoned that the U.S. was not in a neutral
military position against Nicaragua.
          
            Studies Show Widening Gaps
          
          The Population Research Center in Chicago reports that housing
segregation has increased in the past decade but that the ten worst
segregated cities were in the Northeast and Midwest, not the South.
          The National Academy of Sciences found that income for black
families, as a percentage of income for white families, declined from
1974-1984. The Academy also reports that black babies are more than
twice as likely as white babies to die in infancy, that black students
drop out of school at twice the rate of whites and are less than half
as likely to finish college.
          
            Duke Bill Fails
          
          A bill by Louisiana State Rep. David Duke, former KKK leader,
forbidding the use of state funds for affirmative action programs was
tabled on a 48-37 vote near the close of the 1989 legislative
session.
          
            NAAWP Candidate in Memphis
          
          Scott Shepherd, a white supremacy activist in Memphis, has
announced that he will seek a local House seat in 1990. Shepherd has
been a spokesman for David Duke's National Association for the
Advancement of White People and has sponsored a white supremacist
television show, "Race and Reason," on community access cable
television for the past three years.
          * Fashion
          Two workers were fired in June for wearing KKK hoods while walking
through the Southington, Conn., Pratt &Whitney plant. In
Philadelphia, Pa., five civilian employees of the Graterford Prison
were suspended following an incident in which two of them donned Klan
costumes and harassed black and Puerto Rican inmates. None of the
five, are known Klan members.
          * Rallies and Meetings
          Klansmen and skinheads held a meeting and Crossburning July 1-2
near Kansas City, Mo. Mississippi white supremacist Richard Barrett
held a small rally in Dawsonville, Gal, on July 4.  A chapter of the
Invisible Empire Knights of the Ku Klux Klan rallied in Hancock, Md.,
on July 29.  The Populist Party, which has a number of white
supremacists in its current and recent leadership, held or planned to
hold state-level meetings in Florida,Aug.18-20; Maryland, Sept. 9;
Georgia, Sept. 16; Texas, Sept. 23; New York, Oct. 7; Alabama,
Oct. 21; Louisiana, Nov. 4; Arkansas, Nov. 11; Tennessee, Dec. 2. 
 Southern White Knights leader Dave Holland was an organizer for this
year's annual Labor Day Klan march and unify rally at Stone Mountain,
Ga. The scheduled speakers included J.B Stoner and Ed Fields of
Georgia, Thom Robb of Arkansas, and Richard Butler of Idaho.  Some 50
neo-Nazi skinheads and members of the True Knights Klan faction
rallied in Villa Rica, Ga., on Aug. 5 .  A man calling himself Bobby
Norton has applied in Pulaski, Tenn., birthplace of the original KKK,
for an Oct. 7 march permit on behalf of the Aryan Nations.
        