Many emotions are surfacing, including anger and fear, as a result of Minuteman Project co-founder Jim Gilchrist’s looming visit to Cal State Long Beach next week.
Gilchrist isn’t visiting CSULB to gain support from our community for his agenda. He’s coming here because he hopes to force confrontation among and between passionate groups on our campus. It’s happened on the “Jim Gilchrist Road Show” before and it will happen again.
Simply put, he wants and needs the attention. With every public performance Gilchrist gives, he causes division, musters followers and most importantly to him, he attracts media coverage.
With such a large Latina/o population as CSULB has, it’s easy to understand how and why the controversial anti-illegal immigration leader wants to fuel an incident: He thinks we’re sitting ducks.
Many in our community have family and friends who may be directly impacted by the message Gilchrist spreads across the country. While most of his rhetoric is aimed at the Mexican border, his true purpose is to gain some kind of political foothold.
The true reason Gilchrist aligns with the oddest, and daresay most repulsive allies, is because it’s a wonderful photo-op and, face it folks, even adverse publicity is good publicity when you wish to be an elected politician.
He’s confused, ineffective and wishy-washy as a political hopeful. In 2005, he tried to garner a seat in the House of Representatives as an American Independent Party candidate. When he was trounced like a narc at a biker rally, he jumped on the Republican bandwagon.
During his campaign, he had the National Alliance and other neo-Nazis answering his phones, sidling along at public appearances and passing out neo-Nazi literature. Other gun-toting supremacist and separatist groups join his vigilante border patrols, hoping to brandish their pistols and take pot shots at nearly anything that moves.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has associated the Minuteman Project and its offspring, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, with race-baiting hate groups throughout the U.S. The latter group sprung up out of leadership discontent between Gilchrist and the MCDC’s current leader Chris Simcox, another virtuous humanitarian.
The problems that surface at his circus sideshows put names, faces and causes, no matter how misdirected, on the 30-second mini-bites of the 6 o’clock news. It’s a freebie to reach other like-minded oddballs and fringies, some of whom will contribute to campaigns and possibly vote for him.
That’s why wherever he surfaces, his best hope is to have people protest his presence. The cameras will be clicking and he will be posing.
To take Gilchrist seriously, though, is to take serious the Conservative Student Union that invited him here. They also need the attention to attract membership. The CSU (notice the hitchhiker acronym) has already been associated with spreading racist dogma through e-mails and message boards on our campus.
One widely-circulated e-mail called for putting an end to CSULB Latino/a organizations, not for being illegal immigrants, but because they promote immigration reform and maintaining their culture.
A handful of supporters, including the CSU, will undoubtedly hail Gilchrist’s dog-and-pony show, while many more will be infuriated that he has the stones to spew his racist propaganda at CSULB. It’s equally important to be witnesses at his always one-dimensional presentation, if for no other reason than to learn who the other racists are that permeate our campus.
Typically, the Gilchrist event draws some type of disturbance and, also typically, he files a frivolous lawsuit to get more media attention. That should be illegal, but it isn’t.
It’s crucial, though, that we allow these quasi-patriots to practice their First Amendment rights, just as it’s important to defend our own free speech rights, among which is the right not to absorb his diatribe with meaningful sincerity. Understand the nature of the beast. He’s a media whore, plain and simple.
Peaceful demonstration is what this article is about and we implore our student body to practice restraint. Don’t give these yokels valuable air time on the local news by feeding their strategy of divide and conquer.
Perhaps it’s better to treat them like any spoiled brat throwing a public temper tantrum.
What’s the worst thing that could happen – they’ll hold their breath until their faces turn blue? Now that would make a nice photo, wouldn’t it?
