‘HATE IS NOT WELCOME HERE’
City mayor says ‘efforts toward peace begin locally’
KINGSTON, N.Y. » Mayor Steve Noble says American leaders must offer up strong sentiments denouncing hatred and bigotry after weekend violence that erupted at a white supremacist gathering in Virginia.
Noble, a Democrat, made his comments in his weekly “Mayor’s Message” statement.
“It is imperative that those in power denounce these heinous acts and proclaim clearly, without reservation or ambiguity, that hate is not welcome here,” said Noble.
Noble does not specially refer to President Donald Trump who has been widely criticized for not taking a more forceful and swift stand against white supremacy after Saturday’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“While the images from this past weekend may shock us, the truth is that this bigotry is not new. Whether explicit or implicit, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, classism and intolerance have continued to exist, causing harm to our fellow human beings,” Noble wrote in his message. “However, these voices of hatred have grown louder; they have had the opportunity to do so at a time when our country is severely divided.”
Noble said the response to the Charlottesville violence will “define our nation now and for generations to come.
“We as a nation have a lot of work ahead of us, but I firmly believe that these efforts towards peace begin locally,” Noble said. “They begin with each
of us.”
In the wake of the Charlottesville violence, Newburgh city officials are going to adopt a resolution condemning bigotry.
“You can’t fight hate with more hate,” said Mayor Judy Kennedy.
Councilman Torrance Harvey wants the city’s stance formalized.
“We, as a city and community, and as a city government, should take a stand and make a resolution and reflect the record that we stand against bigotry and hate and acts of racial hate and crimes that we witnessed this past Saturday,” Harvey said.
The Kingston mayor issued his comments Tuesday just before hundreds of people attended a candlelight vigil in Midtown in response to the events in Charlottesville.
The crowd chanted, sang
and carried signs, and spilled over across the street to the sidewalk of the YMCA on Broadway.
Kingston has had its brush with white supremacy in the past.
In November 2005, surrounded by about 40 supporters and facing some 200 counter-demonstrators, white supremacist Hal Turner decried “savage behavior by blacks” and vowed to bring Kingston “to its economic knees” by holding repeated rallies in the city if measures are not taken to protect whites from racial violence.
Turner’s supporters and opponents stood about 40 feet apart between Kingston High School and City Hall on Broadway — separated by metal barricades, police and a large police van — and though insults were hurled back and forth, there were no incidents of violence and no arrests, authorities said at the time.
Some of Turner’s supporters wore Nazi brown shirts and swastikas.
James Sottile, then mayor, had watched the rally from inside City Hall with the said he was happy that local residents heeded the call from municipal and religious leaders and, for the most part, stayed away.
“I am so proud that this community listened to the message to avoid this hatemonger and not to buy into what he has to say and not validating his message,” the mayor said at the time. “The real story behind today’s event is that the message of hatred and discrimination did not resonate with the community.”
Turner never came back to Kingston.
In Dec., 2010, Turner was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., for threatening to assault three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their 2009 ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb.