It’s hardly worth addressing Gerard Morel-Cruz’s hysterical, anti-communist rant in the Feb. 8 Daily 49er. Getting anything out of it is difficult because it is directed, quite bizarrely, at me personally.
These kinds of rants are what right-wing forces use to divert attention away from the true issue at hand: racism. Racism is the main problem in this country. It has been since its birth. Whether it is aimed at Latinos, African Americans, Asians, Pacific-Islanders, Arabs or anyone else, it should not be tolerated.
I favor healthy debate, but not ad hominem attacks or anything that derails the honest discussion of how to achieve social justice.
What’s incredible about Morel-Cruz’s piece is that it avoids taking a position on CSULB professor Kevin MacDonald’s overt racism, anti-Semitism, immigrant bashing and support for violence against people of color.
The real question for our campus is this: should a white supremacist professor — who heads a neo-Nazi political party, the American Third Position Party, A3P, whose admirers include former KKK leader David Duke, and who supports the deportation of all non-white immigrants — be allowed to teach at a public university?
I say no and so do many others. There is no place for hardened racists like MacDonald at CSULB. He shouldn’t be allowed to shape any more young minds.
MacDonald is known as the country’s premier white supremacist intellectual. His party, the A3P, is named for the political current it represents. The term “third position” refers to a particular political stance of white nationalism—in other words, Nazism.
Despite his claims otherwise, MacDonald has admitted on “white power” Web sites to undermining the content of textbooks from which he teaches. He also has spoken in favor of mass deportations and violence.
In a radio interview on Dec. 14, 2009 on Radio Free Mississippi, MacDonald described how a “white homeland” would look in the United States: “Ideally, what we would do is have some kind of program that would repatriate these millions of people who’ve come here … since 1965 … If we obtain power, the first thing we would do is get these people to go back where they came from.”
While I abhor Morel-Cruz’s vile personal attacks and slander, I would like to point out to him that MacDonald would very much like to get rid of both of us, as well as many other students on campus. It is in his interest to fight alongside the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Students Fight Back, rather than against us.
When Radio Free Mississippi asked MacDonald whether he approved of the tactics pursued by violent racist leader named Alex Linder, who is ready to “get out there and kill” for a “white homeland,” MacDonald responded: “If [Alex Linder] succeeds in producing a mass movement with these tactics, more power to him. … [G]et out there and go for it, do it.”
This is clearly incitement of violence against people of color and Jews. This is hate speech, not protected free speech. Free speech is a hallmark of our society, but incitement and hatemongering is not welcome at CSULB.
Some claim that we should let “reason” combat MacDonald’s pro-fascist views. History teaches us otherwise. Reason couldn’t stop Hitler from using fascist ideas to murder millions. Reason couldn’t stop racist KKK lynching in the Jim Crow south.
MacDonald’s position gives his white supremacist ideas a false veneer of legitimacy. It lets him speak with authority and rally others behind his noxious views.
As a CSULB student, and a Mexican American woman, I refuse to remain silent as a professor attempts to organize a neo-Nazi mass movement that aims to destroy the lives of thousands of students, and millions of people around the country.
I will continue to advocate for students to boycott MacDonald’s classes. I will continue to circulate a petition demanding his immediate termination. A movement against racist hate is what is needed.
Marlou Cabral is a CSULB student and a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
