File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9710, message 74


Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 02:42:20 -0400
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-I: [WILDER-L] Ex-cop leads "Euro-American Issues Forum"


Forwarding this to the lists. Yes I agree with Rakesh these movements are 
far more important to discuss that Aldolfo's wacko theories on social 
fascism. I suggest that Chaterlee start with Stalin rather then the Social 
Dems in Germany or Cuba. What about the Hitler Stalin pact? 

Bob Malecki

>
>>Published Saturday, October 4, 1997, in the San Jose Mercury News
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>Group embarks on white fight for civil rights
>>
>>By Ariana E. Cha
>>Mercury News Staff Writer
>>
>>Crusading civil rights organizations, or havens for Angry White Males?
>>
>>The problem for fledgling European-American rights groups is getting
>>accepted for what they say they are -- legitimate ethnic advocates.
>>
>>At the center of the debate is the San Jose-based European-American Issues
>>Forum, which claims to be the nation's only civil rights group for
>>European-Americans.
>>
>>As California is poised to become the first mainland state in which whites
>>are a minority, the forum has yet to gain admission to a single coalition
>>of ethnic organizations. It's been snubbed by San Jose's Unity Day
>>organizers and San Francisco's hate crimes task force, among others. The
>>coalitions say the forum is too emotional, too willing to pick a fight.
>>
>>The forum may seem like just the latest in a battery of grass-roots
>>European-American groups that have popped up this decade in the Bay Area.
>>But the forum is growing more quickly than predecessors like the European
>>American Study Group, Resisting Defamation and the Celtic Coalition. It now
>>boasts some 170 members -- and is taking the fight for white rights to the
>>national level.
>>
>>Louis Calabro, co-founder of the 9-month-old forum, argues that fair
>>discussions about race relations must include European-Americans. He has
>>written to President Clinton urging that the group be included in
>>November's conference on hate crimes.
>>
>>"There really has been a one-way conversation about race," said Calabro, a
>>retired San Francisco police officer. "It has always been the
>>European-Americans under attack, and the other ethnic groups attacking us.
>>It gets into a shouting match, and they out-shout us all the time."
>>
>>Last month, Calabro's group filed a racial discrimination complaint with
>>the San Francisco Human Rights Commission against four Bay Area civil
>>rights groups that make up the National Voices for an Inclusive 21st
>>Century, an anti-hate group, which has also denied the forum membership.
>>
>>"Certainly I would applaud and encourage any group that is truly involved
>>in furthering civil rights," said Barbara Bergen, executive director of the
>>Northern California branch of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, a
>>target of the complaint. "But this group has been divisive."
>>
>>The forum says its main purpose is to change a perception of
>>European-Americans as a bland, oppressive monolith. That goal is generally
>>non-controversial.
>>
>>But its members' stands on many race issues pit the forum against
>>traditional civil rights groups such as the National Association for the
>>Advancement of Colored People. Most members, Calabro said, are against
>>racial preferences.
>>
>>
>>Spurred by Proposition 209
>>
>>In fact, the 64-year-old San Bruno resident had been toying with the idea
>>of starting the forum for years, but it was Proposition 209, the
>>anti-affirmative action measure passed by voters last November, that was
>>the spur.
>>
>>Calabro's group "is a reaction to feeling that you are losing power in
>>society," said Fred Persily, executive director of the California
>>Association of Human Relations Organizations.
>>
>>"They are trying to circle their wagons and guard what they feel is
>>theirs," he said. "But it is flawed logic to think European-Americans are
>>an endangered species. We still have racism and anti-immigrant sentiment."
>>
>>The forum, in turn, has accused other civil rights groups of paying scant
>>attention to hate crimes against whites. Bergen said the ADL is an advocate
>>for all victims regardless of their race, ethnicity or religion: "We keep
>>going around in circles because we keep assuring them that's not the case.
>>But they don't agree."
>>
>>Bergen and leaders of other civil rights groups say that the forum's
>>biggest obstacle to becoming a respected organization stems from its
>>tactics -- which they say border on the ridiculous.
>>
>>The European-American forum and its affiliated groups regularly pummel
>>local newspapers and national publications with letters criticizing use of
>>words such as "vandals" (which the forum defines as noble Germanic people
>>who overran Gaul and Spain in the 4th and 5th centuries), "geek" (which the
>>forum calls a derogatory term historically applied to European-American
>>males) and even "white" (an umbrella term that the forum says belies the
>>diversity of "European-Americans, North Africans and Southwest Asians").
>>
>>"We don't accept the term white," said Dale Warner, acting secretary of the
>>forum. "And we'll get in everyone's face and tell them that."
>>
>>Warner, a 56-year-old immigration attorney from San Jose, is well-known for
>>his "Heal the Wound" crusade in which he unsuccessfully tried to convince
>>prosecutors that they should treat the 1991 murder of a white student by a
>>Vietnamese-American youth at Mount Pleasant High School as a hate crime.
>>
>>Forum members say that some misguided people believe that European-American
>>groups are part of white power movements. In fact, Warner said, he is
>>careful to weed out supremacists from the half-dozen or so
>>European-American groups he has been involved with over the years. "If you
>>could show me evidence that anyone in EAIF is a supremacist or separatist,
>>I would quit in about two seconds," he said.
>>
>>
>>Growing group
>>
>>Each successive monthly meeting at San Jose's Rose Garden Library draws
>>more and more Bay Area men -- and women. Most members are
>>European-American, but some are Latino, ranging in age from late teens to
>>early 70s, Warner said.
>>
>>John Mallory, a retired personnel officer, said he joined because
>>affirmative action programs have become political playing cards and an
>>excuse to discriminate against whites.
>>
>>"Government, pushed by ethnic advocacy groups, is going in the wrong
>>direction," the 60-year-old Saratoga resident said. "We --
>>European-Americans -- need to provide a balance."
>>
>>Even the group's harshest critics concede that many of the forum's concerns
>>are legitimate.
>>
>>The forum, for instance, is working with the FBI to overhaul its method of
>>collecting hate-crime statistics. While whites and Hispanics are divided
>>when victims are counted, the forum notes, they are lumped together when
>>perpetrators are tallied.
>>
>>Earlier this year, the group convinced the San Francisco Unified School
>>District to include in its curriculum that people of German and Italian
>>descent -- and not just Japanese-Americans -- were forcibly relocated
>>during World War II.
>>
>>As minority students begin to outnumber their white counterparts,
>>European-American cultural clubs are taking root at schools, too.
>>
>>What is thought to be the first European-American club was formed at a
>>majority-Latino high school in 1991 in Anaheim amid much controversy.
>>Students who supported the group said white students get short shrift
>>because many counseling services for the college-bound are offered solely
>>to minorities; the club's goal was to create a similar support network for
>>white students.
>>
>>School administrators, however, generally have discouraged white clubs from
>>forming because they fear they could turn into supremacist groups.
>>
>>The ADL's Bergen said students at several high schools in California
>>recently have tried to form so-called "white power" clubs whose goal is not
>>violent -- but still "extremist, to advance the interests of the white
>>race." And many administrators say even European-American cultural clubs
>>are superfluous because the curriculum already is dominated by the history,
>>language and culture of people of European descent and that it simply
>>provides an excuse to exclude minorities.
>>
>>At San Jose's Gunderson High School, white students banded together two
>>years ago to form the European Student Union, but the club dissipated so
>>quickly that it didn't even make it into the yearbook.
>>
>>
>>Studying Europe
>>
>>But students at San Jose's Silver Creek High School hoping to resurrect a
>>European-American club, started in 1994 but soon disbanded, say the study
>>of Europe slowly is being watered-down in California's schools.
>>
>>Sophomore Victorio Corral said that given the choice, many Silver Creek
>>students would rather study Asian or Latin American history than European
>>history. And while the Spanish, Japanese and Vietnamese language classes
>>are packed, the French one has empty chairs.
>>
>>When Corral first spread the word that he wanted to restart the club,
>>several white students came up to him to inquire about his "whites-only"
>>club. But after Corral informed the students that the club was open to
>>people of all races and that its goal was cultural, they lost interest --
>>but students of color flocked.
>>
>>The new club officers say the big lure is that in today's California,
>>European pop culture and food are a novelty students are curious about.
>>
>>Corral, the president, is Chicano. The vice president Cambodian-American.
>>And the overwhelming majority of the members are non-white.
>>
>>"Here, everyone's a minority -- Mexican, Asian, black -- or white," said
>>Kimberly Morris, 16, who in August transferred here from an almost
>>all-white high school in Hattiesburg, Miss., and was one of the first to
>>sign up for the club.
>>
>>"It's important that all students show their spirit about where they came
>>from," she said.
>>
>>
>>For more information on the European-American Issues Forum, call (415)
>>952-8489.
>>
>>
>In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is
>distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
>interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and
>educational purposes only.
>
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>
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>
>



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