Put bigotry on center stage

There is a distinct difference between celebrating European heritage and embodying white supremacist bigotry.

Somehow, Towson University’s White Student Union, an unofficial and unaccredited student organization, has managed to blur this difference beyond all distinction.

The group’s official motto is “to create an avenue for people to participate in political, cultural, educational and social events to celebrate European heritage.” However, the group leader, a former student named Matthew Heimbach, admits to patrolling the streets specifically for “black predators.”

The controversial, unofficial student organization has managed to draw both support and ire (although almost entirely ire) from the community since its 2012 inception.

Students and faculty alike have called for its disbandment, banishment or censorship.

Feeling proud of your heritage and playing the part of a racist vigilante are two different things entirely; I do not see it as necessary to point out why groups that target people of specific identities are dangerous.

However, censoring a controversial group always causes more harm than it mitigates.

Towson’s band of proudly pasty brethren do not exist in a vacuum. White heritage groups exist at many universities with varying degrees of involvement.

An IU White Student Union existed, albeit in the form of a Facebook page, for a few days before being hijacked by racist sympathizers and promptly disbanded earlier this year.

Heimbach’s brand of fascism has even breached our University. After graduating from Towson, Heimbach founded the Traditionalist Youth Network, a national, far-right political group with an active chapter at IU. In late August, Heimbach appeared at an IU campus rally that drew angry protestors aplenty.

In any society with a spectrum of cultures, personalities and philosophies, minority opinion groups will form. In many cases, the minority opinion will be unpopular or even downright offensive.

From Matthew Heimbach’s Caucasian cadre to the Westboro Baptist Church, the reasonable majority will resist exposure to the minority groups’, in this case flawed, opinion.

However, it is hypocritical to celebrate freedom of speech and simultaneously seek to suppress dissenting opinions on the basis that they are unpalatable to the general population.

More benefit for society is created when citizens are exposed to minority opinions, regardless of their tact or merit.

Only by allowing minority opinion groups to express their views publicly can we hope to have a true political or social dialogue in our society.

Many of the ideologies we identify with as Americans, such as democracy and social equality, began as dissenting opinions.

Instinctively, I am appalled by the actions of the aforementioned neoconservative radicals. Nonetheless, I cannot help but be thankful they have a right to express their views in a public forum so that progressives everywhere will feel solidarity in rejection of this drivel.

The rejection of bigotry will always create more unity in society than prejudice or hate.

­— johnfren@indiana.edu
Follow columnist John French on Twitter @John_M_French.