Hate groups and their death threats

Have you ever wondered what a high-caliber rifle bullet would do to a human head?

I hadn't really either until a couple of weeks ago when we, at the Montana Human Rights Network, received a threat detailing our collective deaths by said bullet if we continued to voice our disagreement with the philosophies espoused by the white supremacist movement.

Like other social movements, racists want to attract new members. What is different about white supremacists is that they use threats and violence to deal with their opponents.

People wonder if it would be better to just ignore hate groups, but this is exactly what they want. They know that if no one speaks up, their beliefs appear less offensive and more acceptable.

One example is the local controversy with April Gaede, longtime white supremacist activist and manager of Prussian Blue, the white-power musical duo comprised of her twin daughters Lamb and Lynx. When people from the neighborhood into which April and her family had recently moved learned about April Gaede's racist activism, they put signs that read "No Hate Here" in their windows.

Many of the people who displayed the signs found themselves the targets of harassing phone calls, hate mail and threats from white supremacists all over the country because their names, telephone numbers, addresses and, in some cases, pictures had been posted on white-power Web sites, such as Stormfront.org.

April Gaede has long been active in hate groups, including the National Alliance and the National Vanguard. She is a savvy manager, not only of Prussian Blue but also of the white supremacist message.

Hate activists try to reframe their agenda to make it more palatable to the public. They substitute innocuous sounding terms like "white pride" in place of white power and "white separatist" for white supremacist. This distinction is seductive but ultimately meaningless because, regardless of semantic subtleties, the message is essentially the same.

Despite Gaede's claims that she wants simply to live peacefully in Kalispell, her frequent posts on white supremacist Web sites, not to mention her long history of activism, tell a different story. Not only is Gaede encouraging her white-supremacist cohorts to move to Montana, she has also made it clear that she intends to recruit, and the music of Prussian Blue is the perfect way to attract young people to the movement.

Because of their youth and gender, Prussian Blue is a major player in the industry. Using two young, blond-and-blue-eyed girls singing folk/pop rock is a thinly-veiled attempt to repackage racism to appeal to the mainstream.

Gaede repeatedly posts information about those who oppose her views on white supremacist Web sites. In doing so, she is inviting the violent members of the organizations with which she is affiliated to threaten and attack those community members. These threats and accusations are purposely meant to silence her detractors.

Without local and persistent challenges to April Gaede's brand of racism, Montana will naturally be depicted as a haven for hate groups. If no one speaks up, April Gaede and her fellow activists become the de-facto ambassadors for our state.

The Northwest has long had the dubious reputation as a "homeland" for white supremacists. The Network won't stop shining a bright light on hate in our community because of anonymous threats in the mail — and Montanans won't be intimidated by bullies.

Rebecca Leinberger is an Organizer with the Montana Human Rights Network.