In an echo of last summer's hateful leafletting that hit Watertown, South Dakota, the Highland Park neighborhood of St Paul and the broader Twin Cities metro, southern Minnesota's Owatonna was littered this past week.
The community reaction illustrates how much the Steele County community has changed since it was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s.
In the Owatonna People's Press, Annie Harman reported Wednesday in Anti-semitic, racist flyers left overnight have community speaking out:
“These people are cowards.”
That was the sentiment repeated multiple times, as Matt Jessop discussed his feelings surrounding anonymous flyers that popped up throughout Owatonna between Saturday night and Tuesday morning. And to Jessop, there is no such thing as a coincidence.
“The timing makes me that much angrier,” Jessop said.
On Saturday, he was one of hundreds of locals who attended the Juneteenth celebration in Manthey Park, organized by the Alliance for Greater Equity (AGE). The Saturday event celebrated the now federally recognized Juneteenth holiday, observed on June 19, which celebrates the day the last slaves in the United States learned they were free. Today, many people use the holiday to celebrate, highlight and uplift the local Black community.
It was Tuesday morning, three days after the celebration and the morning after the official holiday, that Jessop found the flyers in his driveway. Wrapped in a plastic bag and weighed down by corn, the flyers promoted white supremacists ideals and anti-semitic language, directing people to a website that promotes the works of a California-based anti-semitic hate group and conspiracy theory network. According to multiple media outlets, the flyers have been popping up in communities throughout the country dating back to 2018.
“All I could think of when I saw those flyers was of the Colemans,” Jessop said. “I had just seen them on Saturday at the Juneteenth celebration, and I immediately thought of them and their kids. That celebration was about joy and bringing people together, so yeah, the timing makes me angrier.”
Brian Coleman, a Black man, distinctly remembers seeing Jessop at the Juneteenth celebration, noting he and his wife, Linda, enjoyed a long embrace with their old friend. Coleman is currently the chair of AGE and was instrumental in organizing and welcoming people to Saturday’s event. Since the flyers have hit the community, the first batch found near city parks Sunday morning and more found in various neighborhoods on Tuesday morning, Coleman said he is mostly confused.
“The fact that these were tossed around in the middle of the night shows me the people doing it don’t want to be recognized or seen,” Coleman said. “It’s one of those things that happens just to stir the pot, create difference and divide our community. I don’t like it, and I don’t agree with it.”
“I would much rather invite those people to come to the table and have a conversation, so I can understand where they’re coming from. But they’re choosing to stay anonymous, and that’s what throws me off,” he continued. “If this is a point you believe in, then stand up firmly and say you represent these ideas and why … Let me know who you are; let me understand.”
But as Jessop has already stated, he believes the people spreading these flyers lack courage. He also, defeatedly, believes they are local.
“I initially wanted to say this is outside actors causing trouble, but I know it’s not,” Jessop said, holding back emotions. “I would like to believe this is not Owatonna people, I hope it’s not Owatonna people. But I have a strong feeling they are, because they did it at night and are afraid to show their faces in public with their BS beliefs.”
Taking a stand
Jessop has worked his entire adult life in a variety of public-facing jobs, most recently working in retail in downtown Owatonna. He said many of his customers are people of color, and he refuses to let them — or anyone — believe that nobody will stand up against hateful rhetoric.
“We can’t just push this under the rug and hope it goes away, because it hasn’t yet,” Jessop said. “It is important to me that people know that I saw this, that it moved me, and I don’t want it in this town. Some people might say it’s too controversial, but it’s not. It’s doing the right thing.”
Recognizing that he’s not part of the targeted demographic, Jessop said he just wants to “make noise.”
“If somebody in my demographic doesn’t have this conversation, it’s going nowhere,” he said. “Nothing anyone else says is going to be heard … But if people who don’t look like me know that they’ve been seen, if they heard someone say this is not OK, if they hear us make noise — well, that’s the kind of person my parents raised me to be.”
Coleman agreed with Jessop’s mindset.
“These are the individuals that can reach the people we aren’t reaching, and now these other individuals might pay attention and listen,” Coleman said. “People like Matt can bend ears and have influence in different circles. Having allies is always an asset, because they can turn to others and say what needs to be said in a way that reaches the people who may not be all in yet.”
City response
Jessop is not the only person who decided to make noise about the rejection of the flyers in the community. A multitude of people reached out to local elected officials, as well as notifying the local law enforcement, throughout the day Tuesday and again on Wednesday morning.
Early Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Tom Kuntz released an official statement, adamantly speaking out against acts of racism in Owatonna.
“The statements made in these flyers are a direct contradiction to the city of Owatonna’s mission statement: ‘The mayor and City Council shall represent the people of Owatonna by making decisions which ensure quality public services for all who live and work in the community,’” Kuntz said. “On behalf of the City Council, I can assure you the city of Owatonna has zero tolerance for racism.”
“While we support the First Amendment, we stand strongly against those who hide behind it to promote hate. Our message to those who are distributing such messages is that there’s no place for hate in Owatonna. Owatonna is a community that is becoming more diverse as it grows,” he continues. “I hope you will join me in standing up for equal rights for all who call Owatonna ‘home’. All are welcome here.” . . .
Read the rest of the article to learn what the next steps the community plans to take.
While the Owatonna People's Press notes "The editorial team at the People's Press chose not to share the contents of the flyer, the name of the website or the name of the affiliated group in this article," Bluestem suspects that the cowards who littered Owatonna used the same or similar material as that spread a year ago in Northeastern South Dakota and the Twin Cities.
Last June 30, Bluestem posted in Highland Park anti-Semitic flier drop echoes late May leafletting in Watertown, South Dakota:
An anti-Semitic lit drop in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood shares a tactic with a similar hate literature drop last month in Watertown, South Dakota: putting the fliers in bags of rice.
And use of the tactic in the two most recent incidents echo earlier incidents in Wisconsin, California, Denver, Miami and elsewhere.
Late Wednesday afternoon, James Walsh reported for the Star Tribune in Anti-Semitic fliers left near more than a dozen homes in St. Paul's Highland Park:
Nick Perin's Highland Park neighborhood near Talmud Torah's Newman School is close-knit — so much so that neighbors have set up a text chain to update each other on what's going on.
So, when Perin received a text early Monday from a neighbor who'd discovered an anti-Semitic flier behind his garage, he set out to find more before the schoolyard was full of children so "nobody else had to find them," he said.
"We probably got a good portion of them before anyone noticed them," Perin said of at least 15 fliers he collected. Other neighbors also found some near their homes, although officials had no hard numbers.
On Wednesday, St. Paul police confirmed they have assigned an investigator to the case. Talmud Torah is a Jewish school founded 66 years ago in a neighborhood long considered the center of St. Paul's Jewish community.
"If anybody does have video or if anyone knows who did this terrible thing, we would appreciate it if they got in touch with us," police spokesperson Steve Linders said.
Perin said a neighbor's security camera captured what appeared to be someone in a small, white pickup truck tossing bags early Monday.
The fliers were enclosed in sealable plastic bags and weighted with rice so they could be tossed from a car. They allege "every single aspect of gun control is Jewish" and include an illustration of the Star of David opposite a satanic pentagram.
The fliers also list the names and pictures of more than 20 Jewish lobbyists, politicians and lawyers who they say favor gun control. The name of "Goyim TV" — a video platform that streams anti-Semitic content and is associated with a California-based hate group — was also printed on the fliers. . . .
The rice-bag hate literature drops in both cities aren't isolated. We'd looked into the tactic last month in our post, News digest: SD violates voter registration laws, MN white juries, Watertown's antisemitic rice.
Just before the Watertown incident, WTMJ-TV Milwaukee's Sarah McGrew reported in 'This is not Germany in 1940': Antisemitic fliers found in Kenosha neighborhoods:
Earlier this year, NBC News reported antisemitic fliers had been found in at least three U.S. cities: Denver, San Francisco and Miami. Now, similar fliers have been found outside of Kenosha homes on at least two occasions.
- More antisemitic fliers litter Twin Cities
- Highland Park anti-Semitic flier drop echoes late May leafletting in Watertown, South Dakota
- News digest: SD violates voter registration laws, MN white juries, Watertown's antisemitic rice
Photo: "Standing alongside Owatonna’s newest mural, promoting diversity and inclusion in the community, Matt Jessop said he wants to believe the statement that accompanies the mural is what Owatonna stands for — not the hateful rhetoric found on flyers spread throughout the city at the beginning of the week. (Annie Harman/southernminn.com).
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