This is a memo sent out to Pennsylvania State legislators concerning the English-Only bill discussed this week in Harrisburg. And yes, we had a huge hand in writing it.
DARYL METCALFE INVITED SPEAKER MEMORANDUM ON WHITE NATIONALIST ROBERT VANDERVOORT AND RELATED MATTERS CONCERNING H.B. 1506
Brian Villa and Daryle Lamont Jenkins
Introduction:
Members of the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee, Pennsylvania lawmakers, and fair-minded people must take a stand and speak out in opposition to to H.B. 1506. This Bill seeks to make English the official language in Pennsylvania.
In support of this proposition, Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, Chairman of the House State Government Committee, has brought forward one of his cohorts in hate politics, Robert Vandervoort.
Vandervoort is an invited speaker of Rep. Metcalfe as Executive Director of ”ProEnglish” and supports the purpose of H.B. 1506. However, as detailed below, Vandervoort is a White Nationalist with substantial connections to hate groups and activities that include the inspiration for neo-Nazi Dylann Roof1, the person who gunned down nine people in a church massacre, including senior pastor and South Carolina State Senator, Clementa C. Pickney.
The Robert Vandervoort Background:
Vandervoort is Executive Director of ProEnglish. ProEnglish is an organization founded and funded by anti-immigrant activist John Tanton2 3. Vandervoort’s organization is classified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an Active Anti-Immigrant Hate Group and has been classified as such since 20094 5. Moreover, in the years just before this designation, was the organizer of the white nationalist group, Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance, while he lived in Illinois6. Not only that, he has frequently written about his admiration for the white nationalist group American Renaissance and its leader Jared Taylor7. Here, it is important to note, and oppose, their holdings of “racial realist” positions, namely the promotion of a “wide variety of white racial positions,” including the belief that unless defended, whites will lose “their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people8 9.”
Vandervoort’s White Nationalism Connections Are Profoundly Substantial
Even assuming arguendo, that much of the foregoing could be dismissed, that does not hide the fact that Vandervoort often held his American Renaissance meetings with a similarly like-minded group, the local chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens. The White Supremacist CCC is an offshoot of the (crude and violent) White Citizens Council of the 1950s and 1960s; actively believes that there should be a separation of the races; and promotes the position that Blacks not only have a lower IQ than that of Whites, but are also genetically committed to being a criminal class of people10. In keeping with its inclusive practice of alienating many population groups, the CCC also opposes interracial marriage, multiculturalism, marriage equality, and even more. Unsurprisingly, the restriction, reduction, and moratorium of immigration is fundamentally sought as well11. The Council of Conservative Citizens is who Dylann Roof was inspired by (and to which Vandervoort has connection to). Roof wrote as much in his manifesto just before traveling to Charleston, South Carolina and perpetrating a church massacre. Once again, history teaches us that nine persons were killed. One of those persons Roof killed was Senior Pastor and South Carolina State Senator Clementa C. Pickney.
Daryl Metcalfe Repeatedly Associates With White Nationalists And Similar Ilk
As illustrated above and more fully shown below, this is not the first time that Pennsylvania legislator Daryle Metcalfe situates himself in White Nationalist political activities. In 2007, he spoke at an anti-immigration rally organized by Hazelton, PA activist Daniel Smeriglio, who also invited him to speak at his 2010 anti-immigration rally in Phoenix, AZ12. Smeriglio had close associations13 with the “Keystone State Skinheads”(KSS) a violent neo-Nazi organization that has seen its members go to prison from crimes ranging from assault to murder14. They, in addition to other White Supremacists that attended, made up the largest group of attendees in the 2007 rally, which also included speakers such as anti-Semite Paul Topete15 from the band Poker Face and John Clark of the American Immigration Control Foundation, whose, leaders have been Council of Conservative Citizens members.
In addition to the above, Metcalfe in 2007 founded State Legislators for Legal Immigration (SLLI) with major help from the Foundation for American Immigration Reform, an organization that promulgates anti-immigrant legislation and has strong White Nationalist connections16. Metcalfe also works closely with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a entity that likes populating for-profit prisons with immigrants17. Metcale is also a “birther”18, is against birthright citizenship19, and among other considerations omitted for brevity, works the same playbook as Donald Trump in wrongfully stereotyping entire classes of people.
CONCLUSION
The participation of in its possible passage casts much doubt on this Bill merits and the motives of its co-sponsors (Reps. Metcalfe, Warner and Saylor). Given that Metcalfe invited Robert Vandervoort in the first place, it most certainly should be a source of outrage. Pennsylvania lawmakers must make it clear that he and his hate politics are unwelcome in the Commonwealth. As a free and democratic country, we fail ourselves and our society if we do not call out those who try to change that.
For further information, click on [email protected].
FOOTNOTES
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProEnglish
3 Tanton’s anti-immigration views are principally directed at Latin American and Caribbean populations. This “concern […] evolved into a crusade against immigration flows into the United States, particularly from Latin American and Caribbean nations.” In 2009, the Southern Poverty Law Center studied and reported on Tanton’s writings, concluding that he “has for decades been at the heart of the white nationalist scene He has met with leading white supremacists and associated clos
ely with the leaders of a eugenicist foundation once described by a leading newspaper as a “neo-Nazi organization.” He has made a series of racist statements about Latinos and worried that they were outbreeding whites. At one point, he wrote candidly that to maintain American culture, “a European-American majority” is required. (Footnote and quotation marks omitted.) See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tanton
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProEnglish
5 https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/active-anti-immigrantgroups
6 http://www.ragingchickenpress.org/2015/09/18/pennsylvania-house-committee-inviteswhite-nationalist-to-testify-on-english-only-bill/
7 Id.
8 See, https://duckduckgo.com/?q=American+Renaissance&ia=about for the metadata description cited above.
9 And more formally, the American Renaissance “Philosophical” Race Realism position is the following: “If whites permit themselves to become a minority population, they will lose their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people.” See, “The Philosophy of Race Realism” at: http://www.amren.com/about/issues/#.
10 See, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Conservative_Citizens. See also, https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/council-conservative-citizens
11 Id.
12 See, http://newcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/SLLI_Profile_2012.pdf
13 See, https://ladylibertyslamp.wordpress.com/tag/keystone-state-skinheads/
14 See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_State_Skinheads
15 See, http://www.adl.org/combating-hate/domestic-extremism-terrorism/c/hutaree-militia-was-a-fan-of.html
16 http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/FAIR_Profile_2012.pdf
17 http://www.thenation.com/article/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor/
18 See, http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/renewed-push-birther-bills-following-gops-midterm-gains
19 http://theredphoenixapl.org/2011/01/05/the-arizona-apartheid-spreads/ (Citing this article’s text, “allowing the children of undocumented workers to become citizens of the United States is a “misapplication’ of the 14th amendment.”)
More Stories
AT LEAST ONE OF THE COPS WHO KILLED EZELL FORD HAS STRUCK BEFORE
PEOPLES' MONDAY HONORS FALLEN VICTIMS IN NYC
PA STATE REP: 'A WHITE NATIONALIST…IS A LOT DIFFERENT THAN A WHITE SUPREMACIST'