AAAAAGGHHHH!

The situation in Toledo this weekend was really ugly. Over the next few weeks, there's going to be a lot of talk from all sides, representing one point of view and then the other... but in the meantime, there's recently been some stuff on the news that just ain't right.

There's been a lot of talk in the media about the riots, and I've heard it said that the riots were started by "Virginia Nazis" and a "Nazi Group from Roanoke Virginia." That's not right.

I've even heard it said that competing groups of Nazi skinheads were going at each other in Toledo. From what I can tell, that's not the case. It appears to me that a group of Anti-racist skinheads showed up in Toledo to protest against the Nazis. (Yes, there are anti-racist and anti-Nazi skinheads.)

It's the term "Virginia Nazis," however, that gets deep under my skin. As a Virginian from the Roanoke area, I really want to set the record straight:

01) The Nazis who marched in Toledo are not a Roanoke Virginia group.

The Nazis who gathered in Toledo call themselves the National Socialist Movement. Their leader is a guy named Bill White (or William A. White), a slumlord who lives in and owns rental property in Roanoke. Bill White is NOT from Roanoke. He moved here from the Washington, DC area in 2003 and bought several rental properties. The guy is a neo-Nazi, so understandably, his appearance in Roanoke stirred up a lot of resentment. He has a Nazi website and newsletter, etc, and while I'm not going to link to them, you can round them up at Google pretty quickly. If you must.

From what I can tell, White isn't even really a Nazi, just kind of a generic troublemaker. He's been involved with groups who call themselves "socialist," groups that call themselves "anarchist," and just about every other fringe assemblage you can think of. I get the idea that "Nazi" is his flavor of the week. He seems like a pretty dedicated anti-Semite, but other than that, his brand of hatred seems to change with the wind. Just your average garden-variety sh!t-head with a mandarin vocabulary.

So, for the record, the leader of the Nazis who started all the trouble in Toledo currently lives in Roanoke, but this guy is not from Roanoke. From what I can tell, he was the only Roanoke resident in Toledo this past Saturday. This was not, despite what you might have heard, a case of Virginia Nazis raising hell in Ohio.

Lest anybody get the idea that Roanoke is a "little Berlin circa 1936," the fact is, Roanoke is probably more accurately thought of as San Francisco East. We're not overrun with Nazis. It might be safe to say, though, that Roanoke has a fabulous number of gay people.

02) Not every punk with a shaved head is a Nazi or a racist.

If there were "skinhead" groups in Toledo who were there in opposition to the Nazis, it probably wasn't because they were a competing group of racists. They were more than likely a group of "Sharps" or "Straight Edgers" who hate Nazis and everything they stand for. Don't assume that every punk rock kid with a shaved head that you see is a neo-Nazi. Based on my brief experiences with Sharps and Straight Edgers, they are pretty good kids.

And, while I hope it isn't necessary for me to say this, I want to make it pretty damned clear that even though my own head is shaved in the picture at the top left of this blog, I am NOT a damned Nazi. I no longer shave my head, but when I used to do it, it was simply because it's far, far, far more physically comfortable. It also makes getting ready for work far quicker. The thing is, I hate getting out of bed. If I can get an extra ten minutes of sleep because I don't have hair to wash, dry, and comb, that's cool with me.

03) There's not much difference between the rioters and the Nazis.

Somebody has to say it.

Look, if you're a nutcase, you're a nutcase. I don't care if you're a white sicko with a swastika on your arm or a black sicko with gang-banger tattoos and a stolen handgun... as far as I'm concerned, garbage is garbage.

So, in summation:

Nazis bad.

Looters bad.

Bill White is not from Roanoke.

There is, however, one nationally known scoundrel who is from Roanoke.

Roanoke is not Nazi Headquarters.

Roanoke, however, does have a fairly active gay community, which is kinda creepy in a different way (but far, far preferable to Nazis, just for the record. Drag queens don't scare me. Brown shirts do.)

Adolph Hitler died in a burning bunker with his brains blown all over the wall. If I have one bit of advice for today's neo-Nazis, it would be this: Follow your leader.

Labels: Media, News