What is Required - Nothing Less than a Wholesale Reexamination of the Entire Minutemen Movement

June 16th, 2009

This week our colleagues at the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released an updated backgrounder on Minuteman activist Shawna Forde.  In addition to having a long and sordid history of blaming Hispanic "immigrants" and "gang members" for the world's ills, including blaming a series of uncorroborated and highly suspect personal "attacks" on them, Forde was just charged with the first-degree murder and burglary of a Pima County, Arizona man and his nine-year-old daughter.  Forde and her two accomplices allegedly targeted the man-a suspected drug dealer-in hopes of financing their anti-immigrant activities. 

Forde is a longtime member of the Minutemen and has close ties to many of its leaders, particularly Minuteman Project head Jim Gilchrist.  Apparently, the self-proclaimed unbigoted and nonviolent Minutemen have no problem associating with a vociferously anti-Latino activist who earlier this year sent an email about her upcoming trip to the border and claimed, "It is time for Americans to lock and load."       

Nor is this the first such incident.  In previous incidents documented by this website, Minutemen members have been arrested for carrying firearms during and threatening participants at pro-immigration rallies; producing videos showing Minutemen members tracking Mexican immigrants through night vision goggles and then shooting them; assaulting day laborers; calling on Minutemen members to "steal the money from an illegal walking into a bank or check cashing place"; and on and on. 

http://www.wecanstopthehate.org/uploads/Hate_Crimes_Fact_Sheet

It is not enough for Gilchrist to now express regrets for the direction the movement he helped initiate has taken.  It is not enough for Minutemen American Defense member Chuck Stonex to disavow Forde's actions by saying, "This is not what Minutemen do," when the kind of bigotry and hate touted by the Minutemen is exactly what compells people to murder.  What is required is nothing less than a wholesale reexamination of the entire Minutemen movement, not based on their beliefs, which they have a right to uphold, but based on their violent actions.

http://www.adl.org/main_Extremism/Shawna-Forde-Arrested.htm