Hate's in the mail, and it's up to us all to speak against it
Back in June, I opened my mailbox to find an innocuous looking letter from Houston. It was addressed by hand, in neat printing, to “Julie Muhlstein,” with my north Everett home address.
I have a sister-in-law in Sugar Land, Texas, a half-hour from Houston. A former Herald photographer works for The Houston Chronicle. Opening the envelope, I expected a note from someone I know. What I found was nothing less than a shocker.
It was a sturdy little card with “Patriot Front” and “bloodandsoil.org” on one side, and on the other side, “Patriotism With Teeth.”
Patriot Front is a Texas-based neo-Nazi organization. The white supremacist group uses the phrase “blood and soil” — reflecting Nazi Germany’s anti-Semitic “blut und boden” philosophy. The phrase was chanted by white nationalists at last year’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
I know why I got that ugly card, with its logo of a fasces — a symbol used in Fascist Italy, a bundle with an ax blade emerging. It arrived the month after I wrote a Herald column about Patriot Front fliers showing up at Everett Community College. At the time, a sign on campus advertised an event hosted by the Muslim Student Association.
Patriot Front fliers were also found in May attached to north Everett residents’ yard signs that welcome diversity.
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