Was He a White Supremacist?

What evidence do we need in order to make that call?

I think I thought my choices would protect me.

I think I thought it was elsewhere.

Last night I found out I was wrong.

_____

It’s last night, and I’m sitting up on the dais in the City Council chambers in Palo Alto, listening to public comments. One by one, the white supremacists arrive on their broomsticks, empowered by Zoom, and dump their vile sewage into our ears.

It is, in a word, repulsive.

Forty-five minutes later I still cannot concentrate. Two hours later I’m still stunned.

When I’m back at home I draw out the night. I displace the bile with Chardonnay and hot buttered biscuits. I finally feel calmed when I’m telling jokes and am giggling alongside my partner and our twenty-four-year-old son.

_____

Back at the meeting, a controlled burn plays out.

Our cavernous chamber can seat a couple hundred. We rarely have more than six, but tonight we have maybe forty people scattered here and there across our pews to speak up on an issue that matters to them, such as the park they want to protect, the community center they want built, or the building they want to preserve on the historical record. I notice two men who appear to be together, one older, one younger, seated down front, each holding a sheet of paper, as if they plan to speak from prepared remarks when the time comes.

In light of what is happening in Israel and Gaza, and this being our first meeting since the October 7 atrocities began, the Mayor opens the meeting with a heartfelt comment of support for Israelis and Palestinians. She calls for a moment of silence, and the silence is quite poignantly broken by her own quiet tears.

After the Mayor’s beautiful opening statement, we then turn to public comment on items not on the agenda. A female Israeli national who now lives in Palo Alto is here to speak in person. Her name is Sarah. She wears long dark hair and a t-shirt that demands the release of 150 hostages held by Hamas, and she thanks the Mayor and speaks with compassionate anguish about what is happening to Jews in Israel and here.

The second speaker is Jack. A tall white male with tattoos across his forearms and a do-rag on his head. A small film crew of two cameramen follows his every move as he walks up to the podium to implore the city to do something about the antagonism the local businesses feel toward his RV dweller community who have no other place to park but on city streets. A second RV dweller, tall, white, and with a long red beard, whom I’ve met before, sits closely by.

A third speaker named Aram, a local resident and regular commenter at our meetings, is given the floor. He is the first to participate by Zoom. The film crew packs up and begins to walk out of the chambers with the RV dwellers. Aram identifies himself as a Jew who decries what is happening to Palestinians and yells for Palestine to be free. The RV dwellers pump their fists in the air and say “free Palestine” as they leave the chambers. Some members of the audience here in chambers yell back at Aram’s disembodied voice and at the RV dwellers and the film crew.

A fourth speaker named Nick, also on Zoom, is given the floor and he opens the floodgates of white supremacy with his vulgar opinions about Jews, Blacks, and gay people. Some people in the chamber become visibly upset. Others shout back at the speaker. I purse my lips and gaze at some point in the far distance of the large room and work at not crying. I notice the older man and younger man who appear to be together, still holding their sheets of paper, their eyes darting back and forth at what is happening to the room and I imagine them also being new to the procedure of City Council and wondering when it will be their turn.

Now, it must be said that we on city council and city staff are not surprised by the arrival of the white supremacists. In fact, having heard that this has happened at government meetings all over the Bay Area for the past two months, we’ve assumed that at some point it would happen to us here in Palo Alto and we’ve been prepping how to handle it for weeks, with the advice of our City Attorney. The clerk follows our agreed-upon protocol. She turns the volume down; the speaker can still be heard but he is no longer the loudest voice in the room. When the speaker finishes, the Mayor comments that the only reason we are allowing this is because of the First Amendment, and she declares that we denounce this hate.

The fifth speaker up is named Andy, also on Zoom. He is another white supremacist. He is drowned out by people in the room, some of whom raise their hands to speak but I gently nod my head no (procedure does not allow it). When the man finishes, the Mayor articulates another procedural point, which is that we are behind on the agenda and are therefore going to close public comments for now and return to them at the end of the meeting (likely to be hours hence). We move to council member brief comments and updates which are usually about events we’d like to commend or promote, but we’ve been told in advance that we may use this time to respond to any hateful comments that have been made. So I go for it:

A day later, seeing what I said in print, it seems so small. But this was my only line of defense last night. My shield. My holy water.

We then ask for comments on our consent calendar (a suite of about ten items that are passed all at once without Council discussion or debate). The older man and younger man with the printed sheets of paper rise from their seats and come to the podium together. The older man reads from his written sheet of paper words of gratitude to the city for funding Ada’s Cafe, which employs developmentally disabled people, including his son, to whom he turns and then hands over the mic. That’s when I understand why these two men are here, and that they have sat through this heinous meeting simply in order to express gratitude. Tears fall down my cheeks. I don’t want anyone to see me cry because I don’t want my emotion to be misunderstood; I am not crying over the son’s developmental disability. I’m crying because the father and son are evidence that humans have the capacity to be so damn good and kind in the midst of this bile-ridden shit show that is tonight’s City Council meeting.

I press a tissue against my eyes to stop the wetness. The man and his son exit the podium and leave the chamber. Others speak on the consent items before us. We vote to approve them all.

We then take a ten minute break. I choose to spend the break by going into the pews to sit with those who came to express concerns about what it feels like to be Jewish right now.

Pain and fear are everywhere. We sit close and touch hands to shoulders and share empathic eyes. I watch and listen as facts and feelings beget outrage, and as those things unfold, I sit with what to do.

Some express anger with the city for allowing these hateful words to be spoken. I explain the rationale. We are told other cities are taking more forceful measures against the Zoom bombing. I explain that we cannot curtail the speech unless it incites violence. “That WAS incitement to violence.”

Inside of me I disagree based upon my legal degree and years practicing law but I do not see this as a time for argument. I just try to hold space and express sorrow and compassion.

Some in the group assume the white supremacists came tonight because of the atrocities Hamas has committed against Jews and in response to the heartfelt pleas for compassion for the Jews murdered and kidnapped. I express support and pain and explain the longer history of the Zoom bombings in our region, and that we’ve expected them since before the Hamas invasion even happened. That the timing, while reprehensible, is likely coincidence.

Some are calling Aram’s pro Palestinian message hate speech, and say it should be condemned or prevented. I know I do not agree with this perspective, and I stay silent. And then they mention the film crew and how they said, “Free Palestine” as they left the chambers, speech that is in my view protected speech you can on the one hand disagree with. But is “Free Palestine” in the same category as the vile anti-Jew, anti-Black, anti-gay rhetoric that came in over Zoom? No.

But some assume the film crew were with the white supremacists. I’m pretty sure that can’t be the case, so I text my RV dweller friend to learn more. “It looked like Jack was with some guys with a video camera. Any idea what that was about?” I get this reply. “Ohhh that’s a documentary crew. They are making a documentary on Jack’s life. They have been coming and filming on and off for about 2 years I think. It’s about his reentry into society after being in prison for 30 years.”

And I know this, and I’m telling you this, but I’m pretty sure a whole bunch of people will assume that those guys are white supremacists if they see them again. Those guys who are some of the most dispossessed people in our city, living in a vehicle on a street in an industrial area of town.

You just want to blow a whistle and say Wait, wait, let’s all get on the same page here and let’s say what this is, but also what it isn’t, but that’s not possible.

What I’m learning is that any given event can be the fan that lifts a spark off the embers that lie deep within us. I’m seeing the fires within us all as a secondary danger. I’m deeply curious about my own embers and the things I misunderstand accordingly.

How about you? (Comment below!)

Oh and the man and his grown son, who were determined to press on despite the flames, I wish I’d gotten their names, too, so that I could thank them.

xo

🤗 Anyone who wants to join me in discarding hate and replacing it with understanding, acceptance, and peace, huddle up with me.

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