After Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016, hate crimes incidents
rose dramatically
across the country, including in Trump’s birthplace of Queens, New York. Once an enclave for whites fleeing Manhattan, after decades of immigration, Queens is now one of the most diverse places on Earth (its slogan: “The World’s Borough”). Despite facing housing discrimination and political and economic exclusion, its non-white population has
flourished
.
But this diversification has fueled generations of white resentment across the still deeply segregated borough. Queens has seen a range of far-right groups and individuals, from the Ku Klux Klan to neo-Nazis to ultra-nationalist organizations (including from immigrants’ countries of origin), along with incidents of shocking racist brutality, such as the
1986 attack
on three Black men in Howard Beach.
August 2021 photo: A truck in Queens, NY features a 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf Nazi sticker. Source: Author.
Queens natives have played major roles in the recently resurgent far-right movement. For example, the alt-right celebrity
Joseph Jordan
(pseudonym “Eric Striker”), born in the largely Asian and Latino neighborhood of Flushing, has co-hosted a white supremacist podcast, written for the neo-Nazi website
The Daily Stormer
, and participated in the
Unite the Right rally
. According to a 2019
Southern Poverty Law Center report
, Jordan’s parents both have Latin American names, and his family still lives in Flushing.
Photo illustration of Joseph Jordan (“Eric Striker”). Source:
Southern Poverty Law Center
.
Robert Rundo
, co-founder of the Rise Against Movement (RAM), a violent white nationalist group with deep connections to the broader neo-Nazi movement, is also from Flushing. Before RAM, Rundo was in a gang called the Original Flushing Crew when he stabbed a member of an MS-13 affiliate. To produce and distribute clothing and music, RAM started the company Will2Rise, which has provided Queens
contact information
. Will2Rise now makes merchandise for
Active Club
, an international movement in which Rundo began to train white supremacists for a race war.
Robert Rundo has long posted photos of his travels in Greece across Telegram channels promoting his organizations.
More:
Travels of Hate: An American Far-Right Extremist in Greece
The neo-Nazi group Patriot Front’s Network Director,
Paul Michael Gancarz
is an NYC native who has operated out of the Queens neighborhood of
Forest Hills
. He manages Patriot Front’s mid-Atlantic activities, and often directs and participates in the group’s NYC-area activities. In June 2020, Patriot Front members
posted stickers