Supremacist Propaganda Found At Mashpee Commons
By RYAN SPENCER Aug 7, 2020
- Such a huge ruckus over a simple message
- Mashpee PF sticker.jpg (153.73 KiB) Viewed 3483 times
Stickers bearing the name and mantras of the white supremacist group Patriot Front were found on signs and light posts in the Mashpee Commons sometime around Saturday, August 1.
The stickers, which bore phrases like “Better Dead Than Red,” “America Is Not For Sale” and “Reclaim America,” included a link to the group’s website where a racist manifesto disavows democracy and claims the only true “Americans are descendants of Europeans.”
Sarah Chace, a spokeswoman for the Commons, said in an email on Monday, August 3, that she was not sure how many stickers were found or when they were put up.
“Our maintenance staff removes any and all stickers/graffiti daily as part of their routine rounds so I doubt they were up for long,” Ms. Chace said. “If someone sees something they should call our office or let one of our maintenance or security staff know.”
A subsequent walk through the Commons on Wednesday, August 5, revealed more than a dozen stickers from the group, most of which had been at least partially removed.
A sticker with the words “For The Nation Against The State” remained on the front of a stop sign at the intersection of Steeple Street and Greene Street from at least Saturday through Wednesday.
Another sticker on the front of a stop sign at the intersection of Market Street and Fountain Street was also visible on Wednesday, as was a sticker on the back of another stop sign at the same intersection, although a second sticker on the same sign had been partially removed.
Patriot Front is among the most active white supremacist groups in the United States and define themselves as American fascists, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an anti-hate and civil rights organization.
“There is an active and growing Patriot Front initiative in Massachusetts,” said Peggy Shukur, the ADL’s interim deputy regional director for the New England region. “They tend to do a lot of postering and leafleting.”
The ADL’s H.E.A.T Map, an online map that tracks incidents of hate, extremism, anti-Semitism and terrorism, indicates two other instances of propaganda distributed in the Town of Mashpee in the past year by Patriot Front.
According to the map, the ADL received reports of such propaganda in Mashpee on April 2 of this year and October 20, 2019.
In late March, propaganda from Patriot Front was also discovered in Woods Hole, Falmouth, North Falmouth, Pocasset, Bourne and two locations in Sandwich, according to the map.
“I don’t know if their intention is to get new members through these displays or create some sort of fear and intimidation within a community by posting these all over,” Ms. Shukur said.
She said that while graffiti is illegal, other forms of distributing propaganda are often protected by the First Amendment.
“Seeing these incidences and tracking them is really important step so that we can demonstrate that this actually happens,” Ms. Shukur said.
“The more people that are emboldened to speak out in these ways, we fear the more people will be emboldened to act on these ideas.”
“If you see something, please report it, report it to law enforcement even if you think it’s not a big deal,” Ms. Shukur said.
Incidents of white supremacist propaganda or other forms of hate can also be reported to the ADL through a link on the organization’s website, she said.
Captain Thomas A. Rose of the Mashpee Police Department said that the police department had not received any calls about the white supremacist propaganda in the Commons but was aware of the vandalism and has increased patrols in the area.
He said the department was aware of “no other instances in the past few months.”
Paul Rifkin, a resident of the Commons, said that he has not seen any of the Patriot Front stickers in the Commons but “they don’t surprise me.”
“I consider white supremacy a virus which has grown and been given voice to and credence by our president,” said Mr. Rifkin, who regularly participates in demonstrations in Falmouth calling for the removal of President Donald J. Trump.
“The virus is here on Cape Cod and there is an intensification of disagreement out there which I’m afraid is going to result—I can smell it—in blood in the street,” he said.
Notably, the leader of Patriot Front, 21-year-old Thomas Ryan Rousseau, led members of Vanguard America, another white supremacist group, in the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 before defecting from Vanguard just days later to form Patriot Front, according to the ADL.
President Trump famously stated that there were “some very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 Charlottesville rally. James Alex Fields Jr., who was identified standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Vanguard America in images of the event, was accused of killing Heather Heyer after plowing his car into a group of counter-protestors at the rally.
Mr. Rifkin said that he believes people have the right to express fascist viewpoints within the legal freedoms of the First Amendment.
“There are fascists in our midst and that has become oh so clear,” he said, but the First Amendment means, “these people have a right to be horrible.”
Of the stickers in the Commons, he said, “I think they do intimidate people and I think this is a time [that] if you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.”
Ashley Lancaster, the owner of the pet supply store Hot Diggity in the Commons, also said she was unaware that the white supremacist stickers had been graffitied in the Commons.
“I’m absolutely disgusted but not completely surprised,” said Ms. Lancaster, who displays a sign outside her store that says, “Dogs Don’t Discriminate. Be Like Dogs! #BlackLivesMatter.”
“The ignorance, hate and anger displayed by some who have confronted us about our sign is the reason why the BLM movement needs to exist in 2020,” she said.
Free stickers with the same phrase as the sign supporting the Black Lives Matter movement will be available at her store next week “for anyone who wants to proudly display the message that Black Lives Matter,” she said.