SAYWHAT

By Dave Msseemmaa
Apache Associate Editor

It comes with many faces.

The angry eyes of a plantation owner with a cane in a history book. The laughing smile of a hurtful joke. The superior smirk of an unimpressed employer. The stoic look of an unfair cop. The hidden face of hate beneath a white robe. The pale lips of a hateful preacher spouting angry words.

Racism, in all its forms, is everywhere. Sometimes it’s almost invisible, like the woman at the mall who holds her purse tight when she sees a black man walking her way. Sometimes it’s obvious, like a preacher whose message is how to eliminate African Americans.

The racist preacher is close to home. Matthew Hale, “Pontifus Maximus” of the World Church of the Creator in East Peoria, says the world was created for whites and all non-whites should be shipped to their ancestral countries. That means all of us blacks would have to go “home” to Africa; Latinos would be sent south of the border, and so on. But since the world was created for whites, the Anglos of the world have a sort of eminent domain and can live wherever they please.

On the day before Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Hale held a rally in Pontiac. The weather was dreary and turnout was low, said the Pontiac Daily Leader, but I couldn’t help but think about how my community would react if this creep came to the Illinois Valley.

“I wouldn’t pay ‘em any attention,” said Kendrick Carr, president of the student organization People of the World End Racism, or POWER. “…just let ‘em be in their own little world.”

POWER has their work cut out for them. Racism, in all its forms, exists in every system of our society.

“We put in as much work being anti-racists as (hate groups) put in being racists,” said Carr.

Watching the group in action, speaking and interacting with students at area high schools and elementary schools, is a hope-filled witness to breaking down the barriers of the prejudices that develop among all the cliques in schools. The generally positive reaction and interaction with younger students shows most people don’t want to be racist. White people often say that racism is a problem with other whites and minorities and don’t realize that everyone has a role in racism.

But what about the people who are racist and proud of it? Hale’s church recognizes its own hate, according to its website. Online white power organizations commend Hale as being a pioneer, of sorts, in their strives to keep the white race pure, or whatever their motives are.

If Hale, or any other hate-preaching racist came to speak in the Illinois Valley, there would doubtlessly be people there to support him. I would also expect, though, that the efforts of groups like POWER have not gone in vain and opposition to any assembly of Hale’s faithful would be present, too. The reporter in me would want to attend a hate rally out of curiosity; the proud African in me would want to go out of spite.

Hale went to law school and passed the bar exam but was twice declined his license to practice in Illinois due to a lack of the required “good moral character.” To listen to a well-educated, logical man rationalize his racist views would be as interesting as angering.

“When you mix the cultures, you basically destroy the culture,” Hale told MSNBC’s Brian Williams. “We’ve gone from the culture of Da Vinci and Rembrandt to the culture of Michael Jackson.’’

That quote from a 1999 interview is just one idea, rooted in ignorance, of a man who floods his audiences with other ideas just like it.While I hope Hale or his cronies never stop by the Illinois Valley, I can’t help but wonder how racist of a place I live in. How strong are the voices of those locals who proudly belittle migrant Mexicans and instantly accuse blacks for societies ills? How much louder than that is the voice of anti-racist groups and regular people who avoid their prejudices?

I want to hear POWER shouting.

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