Author: Brett Fujioka
My initial reaction when I saw Tom “TJ” Leyden’s presentation as part of the First Tuesday Speaker Series was that he didn’t strike me as a racist, let alone a former white supremacist. It wasn’t until he told his life story in all its raw honesty that I digested these facts and felt an immediate discomfort in knowing that I was in the presence of someone who contributed to one of America’s most despicable movements. He didn’t teach me anything that I didn’t learn from the various documentaries aired on the History and Discovery channels, but he did offer some insight into the ways in which both the government and the American public overlooks and even ignores the White supremacy movement.
In his speech, Leyden emphasized how suspiciously incredulous it was that the United States Army inducted him into the Marines without the knowledge that he was a White Supremacist. This led me to conclude that the military either didn’t know or didn’t care, both of which were equally disturbing.
Both apathy and ignorance to the prominence of the White supremacist cause have penetrated not only the institutional government but also the mindsets of the American voter. There’s a reason why I have a difficult time taking Congressman Ron Paul supporters seriously. It’s not just because he had less of a chance of winning the Republican primary than Ralph Nader does in the general election, but the notion that he has White supremacist ties.
Throughout the Republican primary, Ron Paul gathered steam through devotion on the internet that bordered on the status of a memo. Despite this, his adoring voters are quick to dismiss previous comments made in his newsletter, “The Ron Paul Survival Report.” “Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions,” it said in his 1992 newsletter. He made several identical remarks that could take up the rest of this article.
“It was composed by a ghostwriter, and then sent out with Dr. Paul’s name attached to it,” said Ron Paul’s spokesman Michael Krekel. I find it hard to accept that Ron Paul was lazy enough not to read his own newsletter. With this in mind, take note that Ron Paul never denounced former KKK leader David Duke’s endorsement, nor did he reject Don Black’s $500 donation. Black runs a White Nationalist website called Stormfront.
On a related note, a Ron Paul supporter named Bill Johnson who lives near Oxy in La Cañada ran against James Bianco for a seat in the Los Angeles Superior Court over the summer. Johnson also wrote a book in 1989 under the name “James O. Pace” titled Amendment to the Constitution. “No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race,” he said in his book.
James Bianco won with more than 73% of the vote. This means 25% of the people who voted for Johnson were either die-hard Ron Paulers, racists, or completely ignorant of his past and merely bubbled in his name because it sounded pretty.
One of the final reasons why I believe people are apathetically ignorant towards the White supremacist movement is that there’s a misconception that all racists are mentally challenged. Ron Paul is a doctor and politician. Bill Johnson, himself, is an attorney and even David Duke received a doctorate. T.J. Leyden also didn’t strike me as unintelligent. The misconception that racism is a product of stupidity is ignorant in itself. Racism is a sickness, not a mental deficiency. Its something that T.J. Leyden has fought hard to try and cure himself of.
Brett Fujiokia is a senior ECLS major. He can be reached at bfujioka@oxy.edu.
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