MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
|
|
MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
|
Helping Create the NEXT GENERATION of the Web: GENERATOR 21: The World's Magazine
To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, copy and paste the complete URL("http://www.g21.net/amdream9a.html") and enter it in the box after you click through.
| The World's Magazine: g21.net
Event #177: Take the New View LAST WEEK's EDITION For Deep Background visit the G21-Barnes & Noble Shop OR get great books at the G21 BARNES & NOBLE SEARCH ENGINE |
My earliest recollections concerning Hale was that he was a somewhat unremarkable character one passed in the hallway; a pale ectomorph with dark, wiry hair, thick framed glasses, bad complexion, and uninspired fashion sense. On occasion he might be carrying the violin he played in the school orchestra.
My contact with Hale was minimal, yet one anecdote sticks out in my mind as poignant. In 1990 Hale and I were in the same gym period. I vividly recall one day when all the basketball hoops had been claimed I joined a game dominated by Matthew Hale, rather than find myself singled out to run laps. Oddly enough (or not so dissonant, given the Nazi fetishism of physical fitness) Hale apparently had quite a competitive love of sport.
While it would be obvious to any observer that the social misfits he had assembled had no interest in anything but the appearance of activity, Hale approached the game with a fascinating determination. A crowd of loners, stoners, and fatties watched on with curiosity as Hale carried the ball through them to the basket, rebounding his own missed shots time and again. He seemed quite satisfied, seemingly unaware that at no time was he being guarded.
Nearly ten years have passed since the day Hale clandestinely approached me to join his white supremacist group. Memory associates the basketball game so closely with his confidence that I recall they occurred consequentially. While I had heard rumors that Hale was obsessed with fascism and socialism, more specifically National Socialism, it’s common for someone with a historical interest in politics to study their relevance to current trends. At that point I had no idea Hale could be so enamored with neo-Nazi mythology that he would make its perpetuation his life’s ambition.
Hale could not be expected to have known that my own fantasy life revolved around the underground fanzine scene. Since junior high I had spent evenings, afternoons, and weekends poring over xerox and newsprint detailing the utopian post-punk and peripherally related do-it-yourself and counter-cultural movements.
Although amply armed with anti-racist rhetoric, I was too shocked to express myself as articulately as I might have. I imagine a simple declarative like, "I don't believe in white supremacy," and a cold shoulder were deemed sufficient. I spent the rest of the week telling friends, brimming with schadenfreude, that Matt Hale organized a racist club. Moreover, that I was perceived as a potential co-conspirator.
Of all the people I spoke with in the days following my encounter, only one acquaintance claimed Hale had made the same appeal to him. This friend was, like me, benignly individualistic, with past-times that could be handily classified as nerdy. His manner likewise suggested aloof unpopularity and vague anti-authoritarianism. We were not above self-deprecating humor. The two of us shared hearty chuckles of a sardonic gist; the club that would have us as members... white power.
I was haunted by the implications of Hale's proposition. The zealous Hale perhaps observed personality traits the same way pop psychology would have us type all radicals or "undesirables."
While I was privately immune to the lure of white unity, I was apparently transmitting signs of vulnerability that would make me a suitable candidate for indoctrination: a self-aggrandizing loner, a disappointed idealist, a deluded flake, a sublimated but malleable future racist skinhead?
I left Illinois in the Fall of 1992, but continue to receive newspaper clippings from my mother, each article more shocking than the last. An incident involving a race-baiting sandwich board and a concealed weapon. Hale's unsuccessful campaign for East Peoria City Council. The formation of the World Church of the Creator.
I've seen him planted in the audience of "Oprah" -- debating "teen drag queens" on Jerry Springer. I've witnessed his evolution from isolated teenager to David Duke-level media savant.
Hale recently merited 1/3 of a page in the New York Times, due to the controversy surrounding his appeal to practice law, and now I have seen him on national network news: CNN, 20/20, the AP wire, front page sidebars. He' s made himself available for comment on the Benjamin Smith hate crime spree to any prominent media outlet that wishes to speak with him.
Infamy is not free of ego-gratification.
Tom Leyland resides in Brooklyn. He sometimes entertains the notion that he is invisible.
© 1999, GENERATOR 21.
E-mail your comments. We always like to hear from you. Send your snide remarks to rod@g21.net.