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[HOW DID THE CREATOR BECOME A WHITE RACIST?]

Admin Note: Creators are not Christian Identity. The author made it up ...


HOW DID THE CREATOR BECOME A WHITE RACIST?

Chicago Tribune - July 18, 1999
Author: Rosemary Radford Ruether. Rosemary Radford Ruether is a professor of applied theology at the Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary.

How did the Creator become a white racist? This question lurks behind the recent - 1999 - shooting spree by Benjamin Smith who spent the 4th of July weekend cruising in his car through Illinois and Indiana, taking random shots at Jews (visible by their garb), African-Americans and Asians. Two were killed and another nine wounded before Smith apparently shot himself in a police chase.

Smith was a disciple of the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist group boasting a few thousand members across the United States. The group's members have been involved in racist leafleting and violence since 1991.

The original Church of the Creator was founded on hate in 1973 by anti-civil rights campaigner, Ben Klassen. Its replacement, the new World Church of the Creator founded in 1996 and currently led from the home of Matthew Hale in East Peoria, Ill., teaches that only white Anglo-Saxons are true human beings, descendants of Adam and Eve. Jews are the illegitimate offsprings of Eve and Satan. African-Americans and other people of color are descendants of inferior non-Adamite anthropoids. The World Church believes the United States should be "cleansed" of all Jews and non-whites. The church claims this should happen by deportation, but the church also harbors scenarios of a coming apocalyptic holy war between the races.

Mainstream Christians can only be repelled by such ideas, which seem to have little to do with Christian tradition. But such ideas have an old, if largely unrecognized, history in the churches generally and American Christianity in particular.

There are four themes that have been woven together to produce the "theology" of the World Church of the Creator and other Christian Identity churches. These themes are:

1) the doctrine of orders of creation;

2) the belief in an "elect nation;"

3) theories that Jews and other races are not descendants of Adam; and

4) an apocalyptic holy war between God's elect and the minions of Satan.

The doctrine of the Orders of Creation is found in medieval thought, but was particularly developed by Calvinism. It draws on the household codes (i.e. Colossians 3:18, 4:1; I Peter 2:13-3:7) of the New Testament to define the hierarchy of men over women, masters over slaves and parents over children as God's ordained ordering of society, established by divine decree at creation.

With European colonization and enslavement of Africans, this doctrine was expanded to define the white race as fundamentally distinct from and superior to non-whites. Races should not mingle and to do so is to violate God's order of creation and produce degenerate offspring. This idea underlay anti-miscegenation laws that forbade racial intermarriage in the United States, legislation that still remains on the books in Alabama. South African apartheid, backed by the Afrikaner Calvinist theology,also drew on this theory.

The idea of the elect nation of Jewish tradition was appropriated by European nationalism in the 16th Century to declare that one or another European nation is God's elect. One expression of this was 19th Century British Israelism, which taught that the British are the descendants of the 10 lost tribes of Israel who migrated to the British Isles. Americans appropriated the idea with gusto that they are the True Israel, God's elect nation and promised land. In Christian Zionism this theme hasbeen used to welcome Jews to America as special "kin," as well as to establish a favored relation between the United States and Israel.

But in the 1930s, with the rise of fascism, this idea took an anti-Semitic turn in the United States. Jews were seen as engaging in a world conspiracy against God's elect American nation. This was reinforced by an idea popular with 19th Century racists, namely that only members of the white race are descendants of Adam and Eve. Other races descend from pre-Adamite anthropoids or the coupling of Eve and Satan. Ancient Jewish agnostic traditions have seen this union of Eve with Satan as thesourceof Cain. American racists took up this idea but identified the Jews with this spurious offspring of Eve and Satan, and non-whites as the pre-Adamites.

These ideas were revived by Wesley A. Swift, Ku Klux Klan leader and founder of the Church of Jesus Christ, Christian in 1948. Swift's teachings became the root of various Christian Identity movements, such as the Aryan Nations, that rose in the late '60s and early '70s as a far right wing of the Christian right's reaction against the successes of the civil-rights movement.

While such Christian Identity groups number perhaps 50,O00 core members, they have recently targeted alienated white youth in affluent suburbs and have considerable presence through a number of Web sites and the promotion of racist music aimed at the young. Thus their potential for violence in a paranoid gun-saturated culture is considerable.

Christian churches need to do more than wring their hands in dismay over such misunderstandings of Christian teaching. We need to take responsibility for more mainstream patterns of thought that feed racist extremism: namely belief in a God who ordered creation as a hierarchy that sacralizes the power of dominant groups over others, who favors some nations and religions against others and who mandates war and violence as a way to establish God's reign on Earth.

Caption: GRAPHIC
GRAPHIC: Illustration by John Overmyer.
Edition: CHICAGOLAND FINAL
Section: COMMENTARY
Page: 17
Index Terms: ISSUE ; RELIGION ; VIOLENCE ; DATE ; HISTORY ; UNITED ; STATES ; CULT
Record Number: CTR9907180103
Copyright 1999, Chicago Tribune

[FELTON CASE GOES TO THE JURY]

FELTON CASE GOES TO THE JURY

Boston Globe, The (MA) - July 26, 2002
Author: Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff
In a chilling, obsessively planned conspiracy, Leo Felton laid the groundwork from within prison for "Aryan Unit One," the white supremacist terror cell that would wreak havoc and begin a nationwide racial holy war against "mud people" - African-Americans, Jews, Asians, and Latinos - while his partner Erica Chase bought weapons and counterfeiting equipment to prepare for his release, federal prosecutors said yesterday in their closing arguments in Felton's bombing conspiracy trial.

But defense attorney Lenore Glaser appealed to jurors to consider Felton, 31, a misguided artist who depicted racist acts in comic books and dabbled in nonviolent crimes like counterfeiting without ever actually committing acts of neo-Nazi terrorism.

Jurors began deliberations yesterday afternoon after hearing nine days of evidence. Felton and Chase are charged with plotting to bomb a Jewish or African-American target, bank robbery and financing a racist underground cell with proceeds from counterfeiting. They also face a variety of handgun charges.

"They were both long-standing white supremacists committed to a vision of an all-white America," Assistant US Attorney Emily Schulman told the jury. The case, Schulman added, is not about their political beliefs but about the federal crimes they committed on the path toward " rahowa ," or racial holy war.

In a brief closing argument, Glaser said the government had not proven Felton's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. "This is not a case where political ideas are on trial," she said. "You need to separate your feelings about ideas and look at the evidence."

Glaser said the document investigators found in the North End apartment shared by Felton and Chase depicting a series of racial attacks, as well as passages about planned attacks in scores of prison letters, actually referred to the ornate comic strips Felton drew.

"This isn't planning. It's just talk," she said. "These are fantasies that Leo has."

In his closing argument, federal defender Timothy Watkins portrayed his client Chase as a bright-eyed victim of a charismatic convict. She purchased a gun and assisted in counterfeiting money, Watkins said, but Chase, 22, never shared Felton's desire to build a bomb.

"She was not a wild-eyed, rabble-rousing terrorist ready to march into battle for white power," Watkins said.

Felton used Chase like he used his ex-wife and fellow inmates during his decade in prison, Watkins said. "He's kind of like a hurricane, all kinds of energy going in all kinds of directions, able to really sweep a lot of people up into it," he said.

Chase's infatuation with Felton turned her into a different person, Watkins said, calling his client's vision of a shared future with the ex-convict "pathetic," and her decisions "mind-boggling" and "incomprehensibly stupid."

Felton used Chase for money, logistical help, and nonviolent schemes - never trusting her for the real work of Aryan Unit One, which was to build bombs and plan murders, Watkins said.

Neither defense lawyer contested the counterfeiting charges.

After closing arguments, Glaser moved for a mistrial because she and Watkins mounted antagonistic defenses. US District Judge Nancy Gertner denied the motion because Glaser hadn't asked earlier for the two defendants to be tried separately.

Assistant US Attorney Theodore Merritt said Chase willingly embraced Felton's bomb conspiracy, building on years of neo-Nazi commitment as a member of the World Church of the Creator. "She chose to become a terrorist - her term - and join Leo Felton in racial holy war," he said.

In a letter laced with racial epithets referenced by Schulman in her closing argument, Felton told Chase that he was someone who "would just as soon exterminate [several groups of people] as tie his shoes." Felton spoke of going underground after his release from prison in January 2001 and becoming "part of the historical process."

According to testimony from a cooperating witness, convict Thomas Struss, Felton planned to target the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Jewish media moguls including Steven Spielberg, and black leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

The jury of seven women and five men will continue deliberations today.

Under sentencing guidelines, if convicted on all counts Chase faces about eight years in prison, while Felton would face a minimum sentence of 35 years.

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.
Caption: PHOTO

LEO FELTON Bomb plot alleged
Edition: THIRD
Section: Metro/Region
Page: B3
Index Terms: MET; TRIAL NAME-FELTON
Record Number: 0207260253
Copyright (c) 2002 Globe Newspaper Company

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[WITNESS DESCRIBES PLOT FOR RACE WAR]

WITNESS DESCRIBES PLOT FOR RACE WAR

Boston Globe, The (MA) - July 18, 2002
Author: Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff
In the East Coast Aryan Brotherhood, Thomas "Hammer" Struss found a new family, the white power gang whose logo he emblazoned on his neck and whose battle call to racial war he adopted as his own during six years in a New Jersey jail.

Out of gang loyalty sprang an ambitious plan to found "Aryan Cell One" around the nucleus of Ipswich resident Leo Felton, dedicated to sparking " rahowa ," or racial holy war, Struss told a federal jury yesterday.

Struss's testimony in US District Court in Boston often sounded like a primer for white supremacist gang recruitment in prisons. He described a network of convicts and outside helpers who organized correspondence courses in Aryan supremacy and neo-Nazi ideology.

Felton, 31, and his girlfriend, Erica Chase, 22, are on trial for conspiring to bomb a Jewish or African-American landmark. According to Struss, the group shared a common dream of a racial guerrilla war waged by a small underground cell, financing stealth terror attacks against Jews and African-Americans with bank robberies and armored car heists.

Felton is also accused of robbing a Boylston Street bank with Struss in February 2001; Struss already has pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges in New Jersey and faces 10 years in prison.

While still in jail, Struss said he, Felton, and the Aryan Brotherhood's leader Wesley "Wolf" Dellinger hatched the plot for a terrorist cell that would provoke a race war by killing Jewish and African-American leaders.

Struss's adventure with Aryan Cell One landed him back in prison just days after a six-year sentence for assault and robbery. There, the prospect of decades in prison turned the 26-year-old high school dropout against his former peers in the struggle for white supremacy.

Speaking softly and avoiding eye contact with Felton, Struss described how his dedication to racist causes blossomed only after he went to prison in 1995. After a failed escape attempt two years later, Struss entered a maximum security unit in New Jersey where he discovered "like-minded individuals" who, like Struss, believed in racial separation.

"I was educated to the cause," he said, sporting a shaved head, a Fu-Manchu beard, and tattoos on the left side of his neck.

In order to join the Aryan Brotherhood, Struss said, he had to prove himself by stabbing a black inmate, a process called "blood in." He said he stabbed two more people during the remainder of his prison sentence.

For his commitment, he was promoted to a hard-core subgroup named "Einharjar," after elite warriors in Norse mythology.

"People in that group were the most dedicated, most serious, willing to do whatever was necessary to advance our cause by violence and force," Struss testified.

Struss also learned how Aryan Brotherhood members like Dellinger, and his friend Felton, a member of the more "hard-core" White Order of Thule smuggled hate literature and neo-Nazi tracts into prison.

In a process they called "berg-ing," a reference to Jewish surnames, accomplices on the outside would mix racist literature with legal papers in an envelope labeled "legal materials" - which by law prison officials cannot read - and affix false return address labels with phony law firm names like Greenberg & Weinberg. Felton bragged in a letter to Chase that his ruse had always fooled authorities.

Struss took on the nickname "Hammer" for the hammer; Struss and Felton also used the word "hammer" as a code word for a gun.

Although he had communicated with Felton only through surreptitious "jail mail," within days of his release from prison in February 2001 Struss took a bus to Boston to join Felton, also just out of jail. Having declared himself ready to be "martyred," Struss wanted "to get this thing started."

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.
Edition: THIRD
Section: Metro/Region
Page: B6
Index Terms: MET; NAME-STRUSS
Record Number: 0207180261
Copyright (c) 2002 Globe Newspaper Company


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[WITNESS TELLS OF ACCUSED PAIR'S TIE]

WITNESS TELLS OF ACCUSED PAIR'S TIE

Boston Globe, The (MA) - July 17, 2002
Author: Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff
In the eyes of her best friend, accused bombing conspirator Erica Chase was an active player in the national neo-Nazi network, using her energy, looks, and charm to recruit prisoners, make cross-country trips to skinhead rallies, and flirt with the charismatic leader of a well-known white supremacist organization.

But it was a fateful romance with Leo Felton - one of her many prison pen pals - that pushed Chase from a bright-eyed, gun-toting teenager to a federal conspiracy defendant, according to the testimony of Kathy McGaffigan yesterday.

Even as Chase was allegedly helping Felton, her newly released boyfriend, assemble a potentially devastating homemade bomb - funded in part by passing counterfeit currency together - she told McGaffigan that Felton's marriage was her biggest concern.

"She didn't want to be with someone who had a wife," McGaffigan, a Harvard senior and Chase's longtime friend, testified yesterday. "Leo had a wife, and Erica was getting romantically involved with Leo. She didn't want to be his mistress."

Chase, 22, and Felton, 31, are on trial together in US District Court, charged with a conspiracy to spark a "racial holy war" by bombing a Jewish or African-American landmark in Boston. Chase's lawyer has tried to portray his client as a naive young woman enthralled by Felton, a charismatic neo-Nazi who drew her into his plan to transform racist ideology into violence.

In her second day on the witness stand, McGaffigan portrayed her best friend as a restless young woman who wasn't shy about making new friends and being active in the white supremacist network as she moved between Cape Cod, New Hampshire, Philadelphia, and Indiana.

"Erica is a very extroverted person," McGaffigan said. "She would talk a lot. She had a lot to say."

Chase, she said, regularly wrote and recruited prison inmates for the World Church of the Creator, an Illinois-based organization dedicated to " rahowa " - racial holy war - and extermination of minorities and Jews from America.

Attractive, outgoing, and energetic, Chase caught the eye of many men, including World Church founder Matt Hale, McGaffigan testified. Though Chase had moved to the Midwest, McGaffigan said, correspondence with Felton, a New Jersey inmate, drew Chase back East.

On April 9, 2001, McGaffigan told the jury, she took Chase to meet Felton, who had just been released from prison and had moved back to the Boston area. The two spent the night together in a hotel room, McGaffigan testified, and moved into a North End apartment the next day.

Though "she never said she was in love with him," McGaffigan said, Chase poured her heart out to her friend for three hours, talking about her relationship with Felton. Two days later, Felton and Chase were arrested in East Boston, allegedly passing fake bank notes at a Dunkin' Donuts.

"He was still going back to visit his wife, and Erica was very concerned about that," she said. "We talked a little about the bomb," said McGaffigan, who noticed a 50-pound bag of ammonium nitrate - a commercial fertilizer and key ingredient in the Oklahoma City bombing - in Chase and Felton's Salem Street apartment.

McGaffigan said she and Chase had been close, sharing homes in New Hampshire and Philadelphia and traveling together to Alaska. After the arrests, McGaffigan said, she went to the North End apartment and removed a gun, neo-Nazi flags, documents, and the bag of fertilizer.

The next day, however, she decided to cooperate with federal investigators from the US Secret Service.

Thanassis Cambanis can be reached at tcambanis@globe.com.
Edition: THIRD
Section: Metro/Region
Page: B4
Index Terms: MET; TRIAL NAME-CHASE NAME-FELTON
Record Number: 0207170238
Copyright (c) 2002 Globe Newspaper Company


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[AMERICAN SKINHEADS: FIGHTING MINORITIES AND EACH OTHER - NON-RACIST FACTIONS TRY TO COUNTER SUPREMACISTS]

AMERICAN SKINHEADS: FIGHTING MINORITIES AND EACH OTHER - NON-RACIST FACTIONS TRY TO COUNTER SUPREMACISTS

Washington Post - January 16, 1996
Author: Serge F. Kovaleski, Washington Post Staff Writer
A leader of a neo-Nazi skinhead group that painted swastikas and antisemitic slogans on synagogues in two Boston suburbs and chased young black girls with baseball bats was sentenced last year to 46 months in prison.

About 700 skinheads attended "white power" concerts New Year's Eve in Cleveland and Portland, Ore., featuring such bands as Aggravated Assault and Intimidation One.

And later this month in Huntington Beach, Calif., two racists will go on trial for the shooting death of a black man who was walking to a carry-out restaurant.

Since emerging in this country in the mid-1980s, racist skinheads have become a pervasive and troubling social phenomenon. Over the past eight years, at least 40 murders have been attributed to them, 34 of them since 1990, according to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. Racist skinheads also have been held responsible for thousands of assaults, firebombings and desecrations.

They are teenage and twenty-something toughs. Their outward trademarks are cropped hair, flight jackets, swastikas and other supremacist insignia, and steel-toed Doc Martens boots. Their subculture of bigotry, aimed at racial and religious minorities and homosexuals, is loosely derived from Third Reich philosophy, fueled by heavy beer-drinking and throbbing music on themes of racial separatism.

At the same time that violent attacks by race-based skinheads have increased, there have been mounting confrontations between racist and non-racist skinheads as the latter try to quash the white supremacist element while preserving their own iconoclastic look and alternative music.

Hate watchdog groups say that the availability of firearms in the United States has made racist skinheads in this country among the most dangerous segment, along with those in Germany, of the widespread movement that began in Europe. American racist skinheads, who increasingly are also targeting immigrants, are considered the most violent segment of the American extreme right.

"In general, skinheads have replaced the Ku Klux Klan as the most violent edge of the organized racist movement and the far right as a whole," said Floyd R. Cochran, a former national spokesman for Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho, who turned against the white supremacist movement three years ago and now monitors racism.

"The violence, however, does not tend to be organized," Cochran said. "It tends to be sporadic and committed by skinheads who become intoxicated on alcohol and hate music and act upon those feelings."

These skinheads have come under increased scrutiny following the racially motivated murders last month of a black couple in Fayetteville, N.C., near Fort Bragg. The victims were shot in the head at close range while strolling down a dirt road just after midnight.

Three white soldiers, who told police they were neo-Nazi skinheads and had set out that night to harass blacks after drinking at a local strip bar, have been charged in the case. One of the suspects, Pfc. James Burmeister, 20, kept a large Nazi flag draped over his bed and white supremacist literature in his room off-post.

The slayings prompted the Army to probe extremism in its ranks worldwide. A report is due March 1. Fort Bragg launched its own inquiry into the 82nd Airborne Division, where the three suspects were assigned, and found seven more soldiers it determined were racist skinheads.

Although skinheads have grabbed headlines for their hate acts and Nazi leanings, the subculture as a whole is splintered and constantly at odds with itself.

Skinheads are in many ways tribal, divided into factions that are identified by the colors, patches and tattoos worn by their members. Racist skinheads, for instance, often thread their boots with white or red laces to signify white supremacy. Some members also bear "88" insignia denoting Heil Hitler (H is the eighth letter of the alphabet).

The deepest rift within the skinhead subculture has occurred between the racist skinheads and the non-racist, or "traditional," skinheads, who include a wide range of minorities and are generally less chauvinistic toward women. Neither side, however, considers the other to be true skinheads. The non-racists disparagingly refer to the racists as "boneheads," who in turn consider their foes "race traitors."

For the non-racists, the appeal of the skinhead lifestyle lies in its hard-edged regalia, camaraderie and brand of music: mainly "ska," which is similar to reggae, and "oi," which sounds somewhat like punk. Their music is devoid of racist lyrics and mostly apolitical.

Still other skinheads describe themselves as independents. They do not belong to any camp and wear no identifying colors or insignia.

"Calling all skinheads Nazis is like a Klansman calling all black people muggers," said Wingnut, 25, a non-racist skinhead from the District who is half black and was adopted as a child by black parents. "It's a bogus stereotype."

Some skinheads pointed out that although Burmeister and another suspect in the Fayetteville slaying had hung out at Purgatory, a local bar popular among skinheads, the vast majority of skinheads frequenting the club are opposed to racism.

"This is far from a monolithic movement," said Brian Levin, associate director of Klanwatch at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which tracks hate groups. "Skinheads are made up of a spectrum of individuals ranging from non-racists to diehard bigots to those who see the movement less in terms of ideology than in terms of fashion, music and peer validation."

Many non-racist skinheads are fiercely patriotic and sport American flags on their jackets.

"The American flag to a skinhead is the most important thing you can have. It is worn on your arm with the star side forward; you never wear anything above it," said Robyn Kendall, 24, a non-racist skinhead in Chapel Hill, N.C., who publishes a booklet about her skinhead peers and their activities entitled "These Boots."

She adds, "It's just ridiculous that there are skinheads who are neo-Nazis. Didn't we beat that, didn't we kill that one in World War II?"

Some non-racist skinheads, however, are not comfortable with homosexuals within their ranks because they consider it to be a clash of lifestyles. "It groups two different worlds together and makes the skinhead movement more political and sexual than it should be," said non-racist skinhead Harold Babb Jr., 24, of Springfield.

Non-racist skinheads have earned reputations for violence when dealing with their racist counterparts, who they say are too incorrigible to understand the evils of bigotry. "I hate Nazis. If I see one of them I try kicking him, giving him the boot," said Bobby Mahoney, 18, a non-racist skinhead from Alexandria.

Other non-racists have turned to the Internet. "You say you're proud of being white? Why? You had no control over what race you are. Be proud of achievements, not race," read one recent posting on the news group alt.skinheads.

But the enmity between the two camps, often ignited by drinking, has sometimes turned deadly. In August 1992, for instance, a pair of neo-Nazi skinheads in Olympia, Wash., stabbed and beat to death a 17-year-old, non-racist skinhead who was part Asian and part white.

Many non-racists, the largest group of whom are Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice, or SHARP, say they want to retake a subculture stolen from them by racist interlopers.

Skinheads trace their origins to England's working-class neighborhoods in the mid-1960s. Tough youths began closely cropping their hair mostly so they would be less vulnerable in street fights. They also adopted a dress style from the factories that included military-style, steel-toed boots called Doc Martens, narrow suspenders and knit shirts under the brand name of British tennis player Fred Perry.

British skinheads were introduced to ska music by Jamaican immigrants. But as unemployment worsened in England, their strong sense of nationalism grew into xenophobia and bigotry. Skinheads often blamed immigrants, particularly the large numbers of Indians and Pakistanis in Britain, for their economic plight and assaulted them in what became known as "Paki-bashing." The National Front, England's ultra-right-wing political group, tapped into this anger and recruited large numbers of skinheads. Soon, their racially mixed music was replaced by the hard-driving rock of Skrewdriver, considered the first well-known white supremacist band.

Eventually, this extremism developed a neo-Nazi bent, particularly when the skinhead movement arrived in the United States. Today, the number of racist skinheads here has grown to about 3,500 in 40 states, according to the ADL's rough estimates. The United States has the fourth-highest skinhead concentration, behind Germany, with about 5,000, and Hungary and the Czech Republic, each with more than 4,000.

These American skinheads, some of whom also wear the Confederate flag on their jackets, often move into the Klan, militias and other far-right groups as they grow older.

But their ferocity has made them a feared group. In July 1994, a 36-year-old man in Reno, Nev., was fatally stabbed more than 20 times in what one informant told authorities was a "fag-bashing." A skinhead who pleaded guilty said he had wanted to carve a swastika on the victim's body but ran out of time.

In 1993, the federal government infiltrated a racist skinhead cell in Huntington Beach, Calif., called the Fourth Reich, and eventually arrested five youths who were planning to attack a prominent black church in Los Angeles with machine guns and pipe bombs during a Sunday service. The youths, who had carried out several prior bombings, originally had planned to kill Rodney King, but were unable to get his address.

"One day . . . one of the youths was jumping up and down with a gleeful look and motioning his hands like a gun, saying he was going to kill nigglets as they ran from the church,' " recalled Mark R. Greenberg, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles who prosecuted the case.

Last month, skinheads Bryan and David Freeman were sentenced to life in prison for slaying their parents -- Jehovah's Witnesses who disapproved of their teenage sons' neo-Nazi allegiances -- last February near Allentown, Pa.

Because of the negative publicity surrounding racist skinheads, some are growing their hair and shedding much of their unofficial uniform to be less conspicuous.

Some racist skinheads base their world view on Odinism, the pagan, war-based religious doctrine of ancient Scandinavians. Others adhere to Christian Identity, a blend of religion and neo-Nazism that teaches whites are God's chosen race. Each year, Aryan Nations holds an "Aryan Youth Action Conference" at its Church of Jesus Christ Christian compound in Idaho on the weekend closest to Adolf Hitler's April 20 birthday.

"Skinheads are the new breed of white people who are coming up. They are . . . {angry}, disenchanted and ready to fight," said Tom Metzger, founder of White Aryan Resistance (WAR) in Fallbrook, Calif., and one of the first white supremacists to recruit skinheads in the United States.

"They are young and have a lot of years to contribute to the overall racial struggle. And if you are going to be involved in racial political activity that is unpopular, you need the muscle to protect your meetings and gatherings," said Metzger, 57, a former Klan grand dragon who urges skinheads to train in boxing, karate and jujitsu. He also encourages them to obtain an education and find jobs.

Metzger and his son, John, have had property seized to cover part of a $12.5 million court judgment awarded in 1990 to the family of a 27-year-old Ethiopian immigrant who was beaten to death in Portland, Ore., by three skinheads. The panel determined that the Metzgers ultimately incited the skinheads to commit the murder. Nonetheless, Metzger is still reaching out to racist skinheads through his publication and a hot line.

Experts who monitor hate groups contend that racist skinheads have been lured by a false sense of superiority intended to heighten their self-esteem. Many of these youths are disenfranchised young men from broken families who are unhappy with the opportunities available to them, the experts said.

"Hatred is our only hope of beating back the Jews, blacks and the whole range of muds from inheriting this world at the expense of our great race," said an unemployed neo-Nazi skinhead from Portland, who would only identify himself as Peter, 22.

Racist skinheads, who also have targeted American Indians, generally exist in loosely knit cells. But watchdog groups said that Detroit-based Resistance Records is trying to provide these skinheads with a singular voice for the first time through its music, World Wide Web page and Resistance magazine, a slick quarterly publication that some liken to a Rolling Stone magazine for skinheads.

Resistance was founded two years ago by George Burdi, 25, of Toronto, and several other white separatists. Burdi, a skinhead who uses the stage name George Eric Hawthorne, performs with the band RaHoWa -- short for "racial holy war."

Resistance is now the largest U.S. distributor of white hate music, promoting more than a dozen such bands. Thomas Halpern, acting director of ADL's fact-finding department, said music is crucial to the racist skinhead movement because it is the main recruitment and propaganda vehicle. "It is more appealing to these young people than bombastic speeches and lengthy tracts," he said.

Burdi said he does not advocate random violence and that Resistance's goal is to provide a clear purpose for the skinhead movement, which he described as a "spontaneous phenomenon" that has had little direction. He promotes the creation of a separate homeland somewhere in the United States to serve as a sanctuary for white culture.

"The emotional connection that white people once had to their collective destiny has been missing," Burdi said in an interview. "With the explosive birthrate of non-whites around the world, whites have become the true new minority."

Burdi was recently convicted of assaulting a SHARP in Ottawa. He served several weeks of a one-year sentence before being released on appeal bail. Asked about the Fayetteville slayings last month, Burdi responded, "It is obviously not a productive route to take. However, my heart bleeds for none but my own."

Staff researcher Alice Crites contributed to this report.
Caption: PHOTO michael williamson PHOTO nancee lewis/san diego union- tribune PHOTO
"Traditional" skinheads, who say they oppose racism, cast a shadow on the wall of a Northwest D.C. nightclub. "Patriotic group": Wingnut, 25, a non-racist skinhead from D.C., wears a flag among other items on his sleeve because "skinheads are very patriotic." Non-racist skinheads: Skinheads Maureen Malone, Harold Babb Jr., Bobby Mahoney and Aaron Crucet gather at a D.C. club. Crucet, who is part Hispanic, says his group tries to combat racial bias. Skinhead recruiter: Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance, was one of the first white supremacists to recruit skinheads. PUBLISHING HATE A collection of items from Resistance Records, a music label that also publishes a magazine. Lyrics from Berserkr's "The Iceman Has Risen," which is distributed by Resistance: In the depths of the Aryan soul Lies an unequaled hatred where icy blood flows The Vikings, the Saxons, the Lombards, the Vandals The Teutons, the Normans, the Franks and the Angels
Edition: FINAL
Section: A SECTION
Page: A1
Company Name: ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B'NAI B'RITH NAZIS KU KLUX KLAN
Index Terms: STATISTIC; FEATURES; Violence ; Whites ; Racial discrimination ; Hate crimes ; Murder ; Gangs ; Germany ; Homosexuals ; Blacks ; Jews
Record Number: 698538
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