A white supremacist group known for wearing black fatigues and flying swastika flags is expected to rally in downtown Knoxville next month as a show of support for a tougher state immigration law.
The Detroit-based National Socialist Movement has received the required parade and noise permits from the city for its planned demonstration Aug. 14. According to its permit application, the group expects to gather on Market Square and then walk to a subsequent rally on the steps of the Knox County Courthouse on Main Street.
The permits’ applicant, Brian Culpepper, described it as an “anti-amnesty”�� rally in support of efforts to pass a Tennessee law similar to, “if not tougher”�� than Arizona’s new immigration law.
“This stuff of looking the other way, it’s got to stop … one way or another,”�� said Culpepper, a recent Virginia transplant who now represents NSM’s Tennessee chapter based in Decatur.
The Arizona law makes failure to carry immigration documents a crime and gives police there broad power to detain anyone suspected of being in the U.S. illegally. Critics contend that it will encourage racial profiling by law enforcement.
Culpepper said he expects 50-100 supporters, including Ku Klux Klan members and “various other factions of the white nationalist movement,”�� at the event, which he stressed is open to the public.
“We’re getting tremendous support from mainstream conservatives on this issue,”�� he said. “There’s no telling what kind of support we’ll draw (in Knoxville).”��
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, characterizes the National Social Movement as a neo-Nazi organization, although Culpepper said his group prefers the term “national socialists.”��
According to NSM’s website, one of the group’s central tenants is the prevention of all “nonwhite immigration”�� and the removal of all nonwhites from the U.S., “peacefully or by force.”��
They say nothing, however, about clowns.
Chris Irwin http://www.newnation.co/
forums/picture.php?pictureid=90&albumid=3&dl=1265331369&thumb=1, a local lawyer involved with Knoxville Anti-Racist Action, said his group is encouraging people to wear their best clown costumes to a planned counter-demonstration.
“We’re also asking people to come dressed in their Sunday best, or come dressed as Indiana Jones — be creative,”�� said Irwin, a veteran of such counter demonstrations who described the clownish tactics as a means of defusing the situation.
“That’s what they want. They want to be taken seriously … but laughter is a potent weapon.”��
In keeping with the immigration issue, Irwin said he’s also looking for a Mariachi band to join the counter-rally.
“These guys hate everybody,”�� he said. “But they love this Arizona profiling law. That would make me profoundly uncomfortable if I supported a law that also was fully supported by the Nazis and the KKK.”��
