Officials condemn appearance of white supremacist propaganda at V.S. train station

Local officials condemned the appearance on Jan. 19 of propaganda fliers from a white supremacist group at the Valley Stream Long Island Rail Road train station. 

The fliers promoted the New Jersey European Heritage Association, which the Anti-Defamation League regards as a  hate group, and featured slogans such as “nationalism could have prevented this” and “free Kyle Rittenhouse,” a reference to the white teenager accused of shooting and killing two protestors and injuring a third at an anti-racism protest in Kenosha Wis., this summer. By Jan. 21 the fliers had been removed. 

The ADL describes the New Jersey European Heritage Association as a “small New Jersey-based white supremacist group,” founded in 2018 that, “Espouses racism, anti-Semitism and intolerance under the guise of ‘saving’ white European peoples from purported imminent extinction.”

The group’s primary mode of activism comes in the form of distributing recruitment fliers that link to its website, much like the ones that appeared in Valley Stream.

“One of the ways that white supremacists rely on to get their message out is pretty low budget, low cost, which is create some fliers, post them online and encourage others to download them and post them on a local telephone pole, maybe at a religious institution, to try to get as much attention by relying literally on paper to spread their message,” Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the ADL told the radio station WNYC this week.

The fliers’ appearance have been mostly isolated to neighborhoods in the tri-state area, according to the ADL, including Long Island, but they have also appeared elsewhere in the country such as at the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a white mob. It was unclear whether their appearance in Valley Stream was related to either the riot or the upcoming inauguration of President Joe Biden.

County Legislator Carrié Solages said that Nassau County police were investigating the incident, and condemned the appearance of the propaganda, saying he was “outraged” at their placement in such a high-trafficked area.

State Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages and State Sen. Todd Kaminsky also released statements condemning the incident.

"White supremacy, hatred and racism have no place in our community,” Kaminsky said. “These offensive stickers and posters reek of bigotry and intolerance, and the perpetrators must be held accountable."

“Let me be clear, hate crimes and racial-based harassment will never be tolerated in our state,” Solages said. “We know how these occurrences work to divide communities and perpetuate cycles of violence and hatred.”

In addition to Nassau County police, she called on State Attorney General Letitia James to investigate the incident.