We Must Stand Up to Hate Masquerading as Vandalism

When self-proclaimed white nationalists spray painted over a mural of Arthur Ashe in Richmond, Va., in the fall of 2021, it wasn’t just another act of vandalism. It was an American-born form of terrorism that needs to be put down before it spreads to your community.

The stenciled slogans that covered Ashe’s face were meant to intimidate the historically Black neighborhood surrounding Battery Park, and they did. Some residents stopped using the popular park altogether. Others removed Black Lives Matter signs from their lawns or windows. The neighborhood was nervous. No one wanted to become the next target.

That was and is the point of the “vandalism”: to instill panic, to cow people into silence, and to make the perpetrators’ hate more widely known. Missouri, Vermont, Idaho, and several other states have all had similar fliers, stickers and stencils show up in their communities.

The group behind them is known as the Patriot Front, which so far has mostly targeted locations and businesses frequented by people of color and the LGBTQ community. And by and large it has gotten away with it.

Not anymore. Two brave Richmond residents have decided to stand up and hold the group accountable in court. If federal, state, or local governments can’t or won’t do anything, if graffiti seems too inconsequential for them to pursue, the victims and targets of these acts will have to do it themselves.

Each insignia stenciled without a fight, each obnoxious claim tacked to a telephone pole, makes the next one more likely, and the one after that, until an entire community is subdued, and the perpetrators have gained in strength and power.

Some background: Headquartered in Texas and spun off from a group known as Vanguard America following the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the Patriot Front maintains its white members are descended from America’s conquerors, who left the country to them (and only them). Apparently, their birthright is to be our betters.

As ridiculous as their beliefs sound, the chaos they cause is no laughing matter. That’s why we must not write Richmond off as one park or one isolated act of property defacement. We have to take it seriously each time the Patriot Front strikes.

Each insignia stenciled without a fight, each obnoxious claim tacked to a telephone pole, makes the next one more likely, and the one after that, until an entire community is subdued, and the perpetrators have gained in strength and power.

Their methods may seem desperate and crazy, but that doesn’t mean they’re benign or ineffective. The number of hate-motivated crimes — against people of color, Jewish people, LGBTQ people, and too many others — are on the rise, according to organizations that track them. We cannot allow this hate to continue to metastasize.

While extremist groups — white nationalists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, whatever they’re calling themselves — may appear to us to be fools, they aren’t stupid. They are sowing chaos and rarely facing consequences. And their numbers are growing because of it.. This is where civil lawsuits come in.

The Patriot Front appears to know exactly what it’s doing - and not doing. By attacking property and buildings rather than people, the Patriot Front makes it harder to hold either its leadership or members criminally accountable. They are betting that their “vandalism” is not worth the time and effort it would take to investigate and prosecute. And they’re relying on their group’s broad reach, reputation for violence and intimidation, and covert nature to dissuade private citizens from doing anything about it..

That leaves us with civil litigation. It’s essential that the Patriot Front and its members face financial consequences for the harm they impose.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law recently fired the first salvo in this counterattack. Working with two prominent law firms, the group filed suit on behalf of two Richmond residents against 23 members of the Patriot Front, from its leader on down to the taggers. The plaintiffs felt the fear the Patriot Front wanted them to feel and experienced a real sense of loss as a result—and they are willing to fight back.

The Lawyers’ Committee lawsuit against the Patriot Front invokes the KKK Act of 1871 — a fitting means for repulsing a group hellbent on terrifying diverse people and communities. But it also draws on other arguments about the spread of fear and how a couple of masked terrorists holding spray cans can cut a community off from a beloved park, how stencils on a wall can signal to locals that they aren’t safe anymore.

While the Richmond lawsuit is an important first step, it must not be the last. Attorneys and law firms need to step in to protect people and communities across the country. These cases require time and resources — including security measures to protect brave plaintiffs — that individuals often lack.

But private citizens and private attorneys alone are not enough. Governments at every level need to recognize the threat Patriot Front—and similar white nationalist groups—pose to their communities. They need to investigate and prosecute every act of white-supremacist vandalism and keep this movement from growing further. Policymakers need to act as well. Private plaintiffs brave enough to step forward need more apt tools designed to combat modern terror groups.