Recently on Kutztown’s campus, there have been posters hung up with sayings on them such as, “Protect Our Heritage” or “Let’s Become Great Again” or “Our Destiny is Ours”. At first glance, these posters seem beneficial to society and students but when finding out what these posters actually were, I was appalled. The posters represent a group called “Identity Evropa”. This group was created by a bunch of white supremacist men who want to make America great again. They sound like a bunch of Donald Trumps if you ask me. Anyway, what made me so enraged about this group was the fact that these people want to basically take back “their” land and make it a great place to be when it was never “theirs” from the start. All of history revolves around the white man coming along and taking, taking, taking everything and anything he possibly can. On this note, in history Natives were referred to as “savages” but in actuality the white man is the savage and the idea of a savage has transformed. Today, a savage is a white man in a business suit thinking he has power and privilege over anything and everything.
What I think is so hilarious about this whole thing is the fact that if you look on this groups website, the first image seen is a giant castle. This castle clearly isn’t anywhere in America. It’s somewhere in Europe where castles were built throughout history. What makes me so upset about things like this is that people constantly feel their white privilege, but never look to history and why they’re here. When I started doing my research on Native Americans and white settlers, it made me realize all that has happened on the grounds I walk on every day.
It’s very upsetting that groups like “Identity Evropa” still exist. Sometimes I have so much hope for our world, but then groups like this turn up. While doing some research on this organization, I looked on their Facebook page. On the wall, I viewed comments that people wrote and these comments made my stomach turn. The things people wrote were, “This is God’s work” and “Thank you for putting in God’s work”. The fact that people think discrimination and hate crimes are God’s work makes me sick.
On an end note, the project “Identity Evropa” is running is called #ProjectSiege. Siege is a violent movement and the fact this group calls the project a siege scares me deeply because I don’t know what they are capable of. If you see these posters, please remove them and educate your friends and family so we can protect ourselves and all the work we have accomplished in the past. And of course, remember this was not our land first. Be thankful for all you have, but remember the history of where you walk.