My prayers go out to the Sikh community suffering from this terrible shooting.
Please look for opportunities to give them tangible support.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has been monitoring hate groups in the US for decades. They provide outreach and teaching materials. They take people to court. They also provide solid research on these groups and their key leaders.
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The alleged shooter, Wade Michael Page, has a long history of involvement with the skinhead movement and with it a history of playing in hate rock bands.
Recently...
Wade Michael Page was a member of two racist skinhead bands –– End Apathy and Definite Hate, a band whose album “Violent Victory” featured a gruesome drawing of a disembodied white arm punching a black man in the face. In the drawing, the fist is tattooed with the letters “HFFH,” the acronym for the phrase “Hammerskins Forever, Forever Hammerskins.”
The Hammerskins is a nationwide skinhead organization with regional factions and chapters that once dominated the racist skinhead movement in the United States.
Some people associated with Page are attempting to run away from their associations with him even as we all still are trying to comprehend this despicable act.
Label56, the record label that distributed albums by Wade Michael Page’s band End Apathy, released a statement Monday afternoon –– one day after Page killed six Sikhs in Wisconsin –– attempting to distance itself from the terrorist attack.
But people have been watching:
The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Label56.com as a hate site since 2006 due to its active promotion and distribution of racist hate music. And while the label might have stopped selling End Apathy’s albums, it continues to offer such hate rock bands as Stormtroop 16, Children of the Reich, Total War and Bound for Glory.
There have been too many incidents against Sikhs that have not been addressed:
The wounded president of the temple, Satwant Singh Kaleka, had recently hosted state Rep. Josh Zepnick and the county district attorney to discuss a recent rise in violence against area Sikhs at their stores and businesses, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
http://abcnews.go.com/...
All Americans need to call on law enforcement and fellow citizens to support our Sikh sisters and brothers.