About yesterday's terrorist events in Overland Park: We're all in Kansas, Toto

The Overland Park alleged perp is, alas, only too well-known to hate-terrorist trackers like the Southern Poverty Law Center.

by Ken

When Howie e-mailed this morning asking if I had any interest in "doing anything on the KKK guy who murdered the 3 in Kansas," my first thought was:

I had some flash of a thought about it this morning while I was reading about it. I forget what the thought was, but maybe it'll come back to me. (More interesting, I hope, than "Oh God, not this again.") I know that before I knew what had happened, I'd read an e-mail from the 92nd Street Y referring to it in announcing new amped-up security procedures there, which I'm pretty sure I saved for just this possible use.

The 92nd Street Y, for those who don't know, is one of NYC's cherished institutions (140 years old, as you'll note below) -- a cultural center (home to some of the city's most interesting concerts and lectures); fitness center; children's, teens', and adults' education center, and Jewish community center. Just as a "for instance," off the top of my head I recall writing about a tribute to my idol James Thurber moderated by Keith Olbermann, with guests including longtime New Yorker reporter and humorist Calvin Trillin, New Yorker cartoonist and cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, and Thurber's publicity-averse daughter Rosemary, held at the 92nd Street Y ("At the 92nd Street Y Thurber 'do,' Keith O gives a virtuoso performance," June 2011).

Here's the e-mail from "92Y," as the 92nd Street YM-YWHA likes to style itself in even shorter-hand:

To our 92Y Community,


We wanted you to be aware that you will notice extra security presence at 92Y following the tragic events at the Overland Park Jewish Community Center and the Village Shalom assisted living center outside Kansas City. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the entire community there. 


Please know that Kevin Green, our director of security, is in touch with our law enforcement and homeland security partners and will issue additional updates as information becomes available.


As always, our goal is to provide an environment at 92Y that is welcoming, safe and secure. You can continue to help us do that by showing your identification to our security staff every time you enter the building, and asking your caregivers to do the same when they enter the building with your children. 
We also ask that you remain vigilant, and always report any suspicious activity to law enforcement immediately.


Please do not hesitate to contact any of us at any time if you have questions or concerns you would like to share.

Henry Timms

Interim Executive Director


Kevin P. Green
Director of Security
NYPD Lieut. (ret.)

Naturally the Right-Wing Noise Machine will clam up behind the denial that its followers have anything to do with this sort of violence, though it should be pretty clear to anyone with eyes that it's basically a full-bodied response to the ideology of Hate of the Other that is at the heart of 21st-century American conservatism. A colleague recalls that "just two years ago another noted white supremacist took the lives of seven Americans at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin" and notes "how the right-wing media had freaked out when a DHS report was declassified detailing potential increase in right-wing extremism in early years of this presidency."

I think we all remember how not just the RWNM but the media generally suffered such a drop in interest or at least intensity level at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing when it turned out that the perpetrators weren't Muslim extremists but good old-fashioned home-grown American right-wing terrorists. And I suppose it can be argued that with a mere three victims shot dead, this episode barely qualifies for conversation by present-day gun-violence standards, and considering that apparently none of the victims were Jewish, how can it stand as a cautionary tale of standing American anti-Semitism? (Partial answer: It reminds us that right-wing blowhards aren't just violent but stupid.)

By coincidence, the weekend before last I paid my first-ever visit to the heart of Lubavitcher Chassidic country, in Brooklyn's Crown Heights South, on a pre-Passover outing organized by Justin Ferate as the first of the spring "Wolfe Walkers" walks, and Rabbi Beryl Epstein, of the Chassidic Discovery Center, our remarkable tour guide (tours are given Sunday through Friday mornings as part of the Lubavitchers' eager outreach to the outside Jewish and non-Jewish world) gave the best explanation I've heard of the often-remarked-upon inward turning of Chassidic communities. The Chassidic movement, he reminded us, was born Eastern Europe in 18th-century, a time when about all that Jewish communities could expect from the outside world was bellicosity that too easily encompassed violence, often of the sweepingly deadly kind.

As Juan Cole reminds us, "US Press Once Again Declines to Call White Terrorism in Kansas, Nevada, White Terrorism, referring back to his own August 2012 post "Top Ten differences between White Terrorists and Others." Myself, I'm less concerned about whether the shootings are tried as a "hate crime" (I have no problem with trial and punishment for three murders, but apparently yes) than that for once some significant attention be focused on the cancer flourishing in the supposed heartland of America, increasingly in the grip of the right-wing culture of hate and violence.

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