Residents symbolically cleanse Howell after white supremacist march

[marmar]

(Michigan Advance) A week after white supremacists marched through downtown Howell chanting “Heil Hitler” and holding signs saying “White Lives Matter,” several dozen counter protesters gathered Sunday to symbolically wash away the racism they say they no longer want to be normalized in their community.

Holding signs with phrases like “Make Racism Wrong Again” and “Kancel Klan Kulture,” the gathering was organized by Stand Against Extremism LivCo (SAGE), whose co-founder is Julie Ohashi.

“I was born and raised here, and it wasn’t any different, I’ll tell you,” she told the gathering. “They were just more in the shadows, because it wasn’t as accepted. But in the culture and the climate that we’re dealing with right now, they’re becoming emboldened. And with that, it’s going to take a big resistance to stand up to it. And that’s going to require allies, because we can’t expect our brown and our Black and our queer community to be coming out here and putting their bodies on the front lines. That is not a fair lift.”

Howell, which lies between Lansing and Detroit, has long had a reputation for extremist activity. It became known as a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hotspot in the 1970s and 80s when infamous Michigan KKK Grand Dragon Robert Miles held hate rallies and cross burnings at his Cohoctah Township property north of Howell until his death in 1992. ..............(more)

https://michiganadvance.com/2024/07/29/residents-symbolically-cleanse-howell-after-white-supremacist-march/

[notemason]

1. That should brighten your day!

It did mine