Saturday, November 11, 2006
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Along with this week's campaign literature and candidate positions, residents in one Portland neighborhood discovered racist fliers on their car windshields and elsewhere.Police became aware of the incident on Monday when a resident reported finding racist fliers tacked on utility poles at Ludlow and Fuller streets. By the time police arrived, the fliers had been taken down.
Other residents found fliers in their mailboxes or on windshields later in the week. One turned in to police was from a white supremacist Internet site.
The fliers were attributed to a Nazi group based in the Midwest.
"I think it shocks you in a way," said Pat Cushman, who had a flier attacking black people show up on his wife's car windshield at their home on Alba Street. "It's a concern, especially in a neighborhood like this one that underscores family values."
It's unclear how widespread the leafletting was. City police had just the one complaint. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Harnett, who leads the office's civil rights education and enforcement efforts, said he had received no reports.
Racist literature showed up in a Deering neighborhood four years ago, when racial tensions were heightened over an influx of Somali immigrants in Lewiston and the mayor's subsequent plea for Somalis to slow the pace of settlement in the city.
White supremacists tried to hold a rally in Lewiston, and racist literature showed up on the lawns of hundreds of homes near Portland's Hall Elementary School, in the same area as the recent leafletting. Harnett said the recent incident could be a useful point of discussion for parents and children.
Rick Brown, who lives on Hamblet Avenue, said the fliers did grab the neighborhood's attention and people are talking about them. He didn't get one, but a friend did.
"It blows my mind," he said. "We've lived here 15 years and we've never had anything like that."
Cushman said the propaganda should be discussed, rather than discounted.
"You can't defeat something like this by pretending it doesn't exist. You have to confront it," he said.
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at: [email protected]
Source: Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegraph, Nov 11, 2006