New Jersey Westboro Baptist Church Report Back

Early this morning, Wednesday Oct.28 2009, the Hub City Welcoming Committee (HCWC) including members of Hub City Anti-Racist Action and Trenton Anti-Racist Action confronted the sexist, racist, homophobic Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) at their New Brunswick picket stops on their two day tour of New Jersey.
The WBC had chosen New Brunswick High School and the Rutgers University Hillel building for their pickets and local antifascists chose to be a strong presence at both locations. The plan for the “official” Rutgers organized rally, "Rutgers United Against Hate" and the general sentiment of many students planning to attend, seemed to be for the most part, one of "ignore them and they'll go away" or "don't give them attention". Antifascists have learned that ignoring hatred and turning our backs to those who profess it is not an option, and
so we met and chose to act.

At the first location we arrived at approximately 7.30am and walked directly towards the corner that the 7 or so WBC members were occupying. New Brunswick Police, numbering around a dozen, immediately defended the bigots and came between our group and them. We were forced back to the street's opposing corner. Joining the HCWC at this location were community members, parents, and students including a handful of admirable members of North Brunswick High School's Gay-Straight Alliance. All together there numbered around 40 or 50 on our side of the street.

One antifascist who had arrived earlier than the HCWC and was using a videocamera to document the WBC on their side of the street was forcibly moved by the police to our side after he began to question and criticize the WBC for their use of the word "wigger".

The WBC's hateful songs and vicious name calling were drowned out and met with chants such as "These Faggots Kill Fascists!", "Queer liberation, human liberation, one struggle, one fight!" New Brunswick High School students showed interest in joining us and walked away from their classes and towards the street but were moved by
police and told to return to their school campus.

After staying for approximately half an hour, they all packed into one van and were escorted by the New Brunswick Police to their next picket location on College Ave. to the Rutgers Hillel building. Upon arriving at College Ave, local antifascists linked arms and marched up the street towards the WBC in hopes of confronting them and letting them know how unwelcome their message of hatred was. Upon nearing the WBC, we faced opposition again from the local police who forcibly pushed us back as police instructed us to move to the designated protest zone "inside the yellow tape" near the "official" protest which was taking place at the Rutgers Hillel.

Ignoring the instruction of the cops and informing them that we would protest where we wanted, the Welcoming Committee held its ground and we chose our own location to mock and silence the group. We stood directly across from the WBC and began to send the same message as we had earlier that morning. Shortly after our arrival approximately 50-75 supporters left the "official" protest to join us as we sent our messages directly to the WBC. After about a half hour they left this location, again under police escort, and proceeded to their next New Jersey picket location.

Later in the day they chose to picket at Jersey City's Dickinson High School where, according to reports, they were met with a barrage of rocks and bottles from students who had stayed for about an hour after school's dismissal to oppose the
group.

The HCWC distributed literature at both demonstrations commemorating the life of the recently deceased Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Our statement for the day noted that: "while Westboro Baptist Church may be a tiny fringe group, their beliefs--that those who do not conform to their warped vision of a homogeneous, totalitarian world must be pushed to the margins of society--are dangerous. Like Marek Edelman, we must take a stand against oppression. Like Marek Edelman, we must not be afraid to speak out--and to act--even as others urge us to be silent. And like Marek Edelman, we must refuse to oppose some
manifestations of bigotry only to endorse or ignore others."