Groups of neo-Nazis and white supremacists spread antisemitic, white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ messages outside Disney World and in the nearby Orlando, Florida, area Saturday in the latest examples of rising antisemitism in the U.S., officials said.
About 15 people wearing clothing and bearing flags emblazoned with Nazi insignia demonstrated outside the entrance to the Disney Springs shopping center, said the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, which said deputies were dispatched around 10:40 a.m.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization dedicated to countering extremism, participants carried antisemitic, white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ flags and signs. The group consisted of members of the neo-Nazi groups Order of the Black Sun, Aryan Freedom Network and 14 First, a now disbanded group that has been absorbed into the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi group in the U.S., according to the ADL.
It doesn’t make sense when you look at it through the lens of “violence is a bad thing”, which is what we’re generally led to believe it is about. It does make sense when you look at it through the lens of “xenophobia personally benefits/ed me and my other friends currently in power and I would like to keep it that way but I don’t want to do the dirty work myself”.
Unfortunately most places have a history of the people in power exploiting other groups of people for their benefit, and this is just one way in which it manifests. It feels weird because we know it isn’t congruent with what we’re taught about how people in a society should behave.