A collection of South Bay residents, interfaith groups and anti-hate organizations has decided to fight hate fliers with some fliers of its own.
This week, a group of volunteers planned to go door-to-door, delivering up to 1,000 leaflets urging residents of two residential neighborhoods in Sunnyvale and San Jose’s Almaden Valley to “Say ‘NO!’ to hate.”
The leaflets were intended to counter hate fliers delivered to the same homes on Sept. 11 that apparently were printed off the Web site of the National Alliance, a white supremacist group linked to hate violence nationwide.
The response fliers are addressed “Dear Neighbor” and offer residents suggestions and Web sites for “ways you can counter prejudice and spread a message of respect in your area.”
“An East Coast based hate group intended to spread fear and animosity concerning religious and ethnic minorities,” reads the response flier, which was drafted by the local Interfaith Council, the National Conference for Community and Justice, the Anti-Defamation League and local residents.
The hate leaflets, thrown on the driveways of an undetermined number of South Bay homes, contained such language as “Let’s deport these arrogant Jews” and “Just say no to more diversity!” There were at least three versions targeting non-white groups.
Rabbi Melanie Aron, spiritual leader of Reform Congregation Shir Hadash in Los Gatos, said: “People felt it was very important to have some kind of positive response. There’s something we could do about prejudice and hatred.
“Given the present climate, just ignoring it didn’t seem like an appropriate response. It was very hateful” to all minority groups and “just about everyone under the sun.”
Aron planned to join fellow congregants and members of the interfaith organizations at an Almaden Valley church yesterday afternoon. From there, they planned to fan out through a 12-square-block area, distributing the single-page response.
Aron said two members of her congregation received the hate fliers last month “and were understandably upset.”
So was Cheryl Anton, a Sunnyvale mother of two whose father survived the Holocaust.
Anton discovered the fliers while taking a walk last month in her neighborhood with friends.
“This being in my neighborhood, I found [the fliers] horrifying,” said Anton, who described her community of nine years as tight-knit and ethnically diverse.
Anton said she decided to get involved because “you can’t go off doing these things and have people be silent. It’s how I was raised.”
She contacted the ADL and joined the grassroots response effort. She also planned this week to assemble neighbors to help her distribute response fliers in her area.
“I know most of my neighbors share my disgust. If everyone responded to things like this, I think they’d probably disappear,” she said.
“It’s fighting back through education and group awareness and willingness to work together,” said Bart Charlow, executive director of the Silicon Valley office of the National Conference for Community and Justice, a human relations group. “It feels good to stand together against this kind of hate.”
Jonathan Bernstein, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the hate literature was distributed as part of a nationwide campaign by the National Alliance timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bernstein said the leaflets also were distributed in Sacramento and numerous other communities throughout the country. Bernstein described the National Alliance as “probably the most influential hate group today” and noted that its admirers included Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. National Alliance leader William Pierce died in July.
Charlow and Bernstein suspect that the hate fliers were distributed by a small handful of the hate group’s followers.
After some debate about what would constitute the best response, Bernstein said the groups decided to draft their own leaflet.
“This is kind of a new approach for us,” said Bernstein, who described the reply as “very much a team effort.
“It’s important for people to remember that even though we live in a pretty liberal, tolerant community, there’s still plenty of hatred that goes on in the Bay Area.”