Photo by IsisAs if Hal Turner and Michael Blevins are not enough, there is yet another purveyor of hate out their on the internet airwaves. True enough, he has a very limited listener ship and a very low-key presence within the rank and file. Apparently, he wants to change all of that – understandably.
A couple of weeks ago when both Tony Willow and Floyd Cochran called in to the Hal Turner Show – Paul Gellar sent an email to Citizens Against Hate requesting that both Tony and Floyd be guests on his show. Quite honestly, we had never given much thought to Gellar as he just seemed to be another racist full of hot air filling up one of the Turner Radio Network time-slots.
After listening to a couple of his shows and discussing the pros and cons of such an appearance, both Floyd and Tony decided against giving him any more recognition than he already had. That decision was based upon the fact that 1) Gellar was obviously attempting to bolster his numbers; 2) He appears to be another narcissistic entity who is very impressed with himself; 3) It was pretty apparent that Gellar lacked a general understanding those opposed to racism and that it would only give him an opportunity to further castigate us and our associates; and 4) They were not interested in assisting him do any of those things..
This past week, Gellar decided to dedicate most of his show to the lambasting of Tony and Floyd – especially Floyd. Gellar had earlier claimed that he had a list of questions that he wanted anti’s to address and as he decided to go through these questions on the air – it became patently obvious that he didn’t have a clue as to what Citizens Against Hate, Tony Willow, or Floyd Cochran were all about. His lack of knowledge was so transparent as to make us all wonder if he had even bothered to do even a modicum of research – or had he just stereotyped anti-racists and ASSUMED that this is what we do? Actually, it was pretty funny at times – and absolutely, positively demonstrative of the fact that Paul Gellar is without any basic understanding of us and what we do. As Bill White is a man without a country – Paul Gellar is a mouth without a clue.
Gellar seems to have picked up a new buzz phrase – sensitivity training – and he applies it, erroneously to everyone who works in the area of anti-racism, evidently. We are all trainers in sensitivity. Hence he ponders whether he should call himself or his show, “Insensitivity Tainting Central” since he, in his words, is training people to be insensitive.
Now… I told Gellar on the Nikki & Tony Show that would address him shortly, so I am going to speak directly to him on some of these issues.
First, I doubt very seriously, Paul, that you are “training” anyone to be anything. In order to do such, you must captivate your audience – something which you simply do not do. Your shows are dry, boring, and offered without any radio presence at all. Secondly, no one listens to you. In a 67 minute show where you encouraged people to call in incessantly, you had one call. One. Apparently, you believe yourself to be a lot more important that you are.
Your first question for anti-racists was sophomoric and almost moronic. “Do you hate hatred?” I know you are trying to establish an aura of hypocrisy within the anti-racist movement. So…let me try to make this very clear. I don’t HATE anyONE. I may hate your message. I may hate the words that you choose to use. I may hate your ideology, but that doesn’t mean that I hate YOU. There is a major difference between hating an idea or an intangible – and hating a person or a group of people. Of course, you have to be able to engage in a macrocosmic view of the world to understand that.
You then ask since we believe that the best way to fight racism is with words, are we sad that so few have called your show or Hal Turner’s to put us in our place. Well, first let me say that we are glad to hear that you recognize us as the non-violent group that we certainly are and have been. In answer to your question, the only thing that I am sad about is that there is a need for groups like ours. A head-on confrontation with you over the internet airwaves is not something that a lot of people want to engage in. Generally speaking the only time that we feel the need to call in to shows like Hal Turner is when we believe that a point needs to made or that something needs to be cleared up. We do a lot of community outreach and that is where our focus stays most of the time. It’s not like we hang on every repetitive word that you guys utter.
Another thing that needs to be addressed is this delusion that you seem to be under that we are “depressed that our websites aren’t as popular as racist sites.” Unlike the racists and anti-Semitic people out there, we do not measure our success by the number of hits that a website receives or the number of posts on a message board. We realize, as you apparently don’t, that hits tell us nothing about those viewing a webpage or site. For your own edification, Paul, many of the “hits” that racist sites receive come from anti-racists and curiosity seekers.
I am going to combine a couple of your questions here, since several of them overlap. You ask if it is “wrong” for whites to have their own meetings or rallies and is it “okay” to harbor racist thoughts privately. How silly. This is an opinion question that can only be answered on a personal level. Determining what is right and wrong for any given individual is certainly nothing that anyone can do with any certainty. Additionally, this line of questioning only establishes your ignorance about what we do and what we are all about.
Citizens Against Hate fights and exposes hate GROUPS and the individuals within those groups who attempt to further their agenda of racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice. We do not “police” the thoughts of those in the general public, however, we do not remain silent when those thoughts become words or actions. There aren’t many of us who really don’t care if you are privately racist or wish to be separate from a mainstream multicultural society. We probably prefer to be separate from you. The gloves come off when that agenda is furthered through events such as rallies and meetings in an effort to persuade others that racism is acceptable, when you attempt to recruit members within our communities and neighborhoods, when you target the minds of our youth with what we consider offensive, or when you proffer an agenda that reeks of oppression and white supremacy. Again…it’s not you – it’s your message. It’s not that it is “wrong” for you to have meetings and rallies so much as it is “wrong” for hate speech to be shouted at the masses simply because you can. We oppose those who attempt to incite violence through meetings, rallies, one-on-one contacts, or the internet.
It didn’t take long in your litany of hackneyed and naïve questioning before you had worked yourself into an almost nonsensical barrage against Floyd Cochran and, once again, it became clear that you know nothing about Mr. Cochran. Suggesting that African-American people often refer to themselves as “lazy and stupid,” you then characterize Mr. Cochran as someone who rushes to the rescue in an effort to “straighten out their thinking.” You indicate that the African – American resents this, thinking “here comes Whitey with his sensitivity training.”
Mr. Gellar, Floyd Cochran is a lecturer and educator – not a “social worker” or a “sensitivity trainer.” Mr. Cochran speaks to groups of mixed ethnicity and he speaks to them about hate groups. He relates his experiences while both in the Klan and in the Aryan Nations. He discusses the mindset of the group. He speaks to the dangers, both physical and emotional to becoming a member of such a group. He tells of recruiting practices and what to watch for in communities and with out youth. He does not, I repeat, does not engage in sensitivity training in any way other than what could be considered a vicarious understanding of what is implicit in a successful multicultural society.
In your long and tiresome harangue against Mr. Cochran, you demonstrated not only that you had never heard Mr. Cochran speak or who his audience is comprised of, but that, much like others on the racist right – you just made assumptions and an ass out of yourself.
You continue by asking Floyd if he gets a “euphoric high” or “LSD flash backs,” or if he “meets chicks” doing what he is doing in an effort to determine his motive. You quickly exclaim that the same could be asked about you. Later you tell us that your motive is that you want more people to think like you. You claim that you want to reach a political tipping point where we all can become white nationalists. You say, “I am kind of like a virus in a sense – I want to spread our thinking among fellow whites so we can secure our territory for ourselves and become a political power instead of the secretive, sneaking around outsiders.”
Well, Mr. Gellar, I cannot speak for Floyd Cochran but I can tell you that you just verbalized what makes us tick – what energizes us – and what our motivation is. It is all about stopping you from ever reaching that “tipping point.” You are right, Coca Cola and IBM do not wish to advertise on the Turner Radio Network. They want absolutely no part of any of that. However, while claiming that such corporations “love a Floyd Cochran,” while speculating that he might just be a scam artist flipping from one end of the spectrum to the other and stating that a person such as that is “shallow,” is quite ingenuous on your part – especially when one of the current leaders of the movement is Bill White who has run the gamut.
Further, you speak of aesthetics while comparing “beautiful white women” to “ugly squat mestizo’s.” Now, I really don’t care about your taste or preference in women, but I do believe that you are “aesthetically challenged.” You speak of “shallow” individuals and then you demonstrate how that label fits you as you snicker and make a feeble attempt to bait Mr. Cochran. I don’t know how old you are, Mr. Gellar – but you remind me of a school boy who is attempting to speak of grown up things yet lacks the sophistication to do so. I know that you cannot help but agree that not all white women are beautiful. Well, not all Hispanic women are “ugly and squat.” In mainstream society, Paul, there is always going to be “preference.” Some like blondes, some like brunettes and some prefer redheads. There are those who like big-busted women and others who are more into the Twiggy look. That’s “preference.” And…that’s okay. Also in mainstream society, however, not everything is black, white, and brown. What a narrow and uninteresting world yours must be.
Lastly, your assertion that we are in this for the money was the biggest laugh I got out of that show. You really DO need to do some homework, Paul. You suggest that Floyd Cochran get a “real job” like a mechanic. What makes you think he doesn’t have another job? Are you sure that he doesn’t? And even if he doesn’t – don’t you think maybe the same thing could be asked about Hal Turner who sits back and depends on the money sent in by hard-working white nationalists?
Mr. Gellar, the rest of the questions raised by you dealing with crime, Hal Turner’s rally in Kingston, New York, differences in abilities according to race, hate crimes, and Matt Hale have all been done to death. You really do need to get some new material or save it those for anti’s who haven’t been around very long.
I would further suggest that in the future, if you are going to speak about one of us, or even about us collectively, that you, at the very least, learn something about us first. Before you start making wild claims about anti-racists or Citizens Against Hate, it would probably make you look a lot more informed if you took the time to know your enemy – and we are your enemy.
It’s one thing to try to pass yourself off as a right-wing, racist, talk show wannabe – but quite another to say “The best way to do social work is through mass sterilization.” Perhaps we should start with you.
July 5th Program - Tune into One Peoples Radio as we discuss the following:
