Immigrants Targeted: Extremist Rhetoric Moves into the Mainstream
ADL here [1]
ADL press release here. [2]
Groups: The Dustin Inman Society – Georgia
Donald Arthur (D.A.) King is the founder and leader of the Marietta, Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society (DIS), a group that focuses entirely on opposing immigration [3]of Hispanics to the United States (Dustin Inman [4]was a 16-year-old boy who was killed when an alleged undocumented immigrant crashed into the back of the Inman car in 2000). King has described the United States as a country “being invaded and colonized [5],” and its “way of life” destroyed with the “Hispandering [6]” of his state, which he has taken to calling “Georgiafornia.” [7]
King routinely makes derogatory statements about Mexican immigrants, equating them to criminals [8]. In a July 2004 article, he wrote, “We have become sadly acquainted with the absolute and brazen disregard for the law that comes from the third world horde that is allowed to swarm over our border with Mexico…It is clear that when the mostly Mexican mob illegally ‘migrates’ into our nation, it brings with it the culture of lawlessness and chaos that is responsible for the very conditions that they flee in the rapidly deteriorating example of Democracy without the rule of law [9]that is Mexico.” Commenting on Hispanic immigrants in a May 2004 article, King asked, “Must the United States silently suffer the incursion of one million people a year because they are brown?”
Drawing on the vocabulary of anti-government extremist groups, King claims that there are designs by “the Globalist elite” to form a “new America” that would eliminate American sovereignty [10]to create a “New World Order.” In a June 2006 article on VDare, a Website that publishes racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant articles authored by extremists [11], he described the ABC network’s airing of an award show hosted by the National Council of La Raza [12], a Hispanic advocacy group, as “Reconquista TV,” referring to the conspiracy theory [13]that Mexicans are allegedly plotting to conquer [14]the Southwestern United States.
King also maintained a blog on VDare, which also posted many of his articles. In one blog entry, he discussed his experience at a March for Dignity, comprised of, in King’s words, “mostly Hispanic demonstrators.” He wrote, “I got the sense that I had left the country of my birth and been transported to some Mexican village, completely taken over by an angry, barely restrained mob….My first act on a safe return home was to take a shower.”
In September 2006, he attempted to distance himself from VDare [15]. The Dustin Inman Society Website states, “D.A. King demanded that [VDare] remove his name from the VDARE Editorial Collective.” However, King also requested the VDare “archive his writings along with other past authors.”
Despite King’s numerous other inflammatory statements, the national media [16]and elected officials have provided King with a mainstream platform. He has toned down his rhetoric in mainstream television and print media and his statements and articles now reach millions of Americans. In May 2007, Anderson Cooper interviewed King on CNN Today, introducing him as a “columnist” and “activist.” Twelve mainstream newspapers have printed King’s articles, most notably The Washington Times [17], which neutrally describes the Dustin Inman Society as “a Georgia-based coalition of citizens with the goal of educating the public on the consequences of illegal immigration.” King’s pieces, mostly discussing immigration, are also featured regularly in Georgia in The Marietta Daily Journal [18].
On the political front, in August 2006, King served as a witness at a Gainesville, Georgia, field hearing of the House of Representatives Education and the Workforce Subcommittee. As participants entered the building, Dustin Inman Society members greeted them [19]. Though King softened his language during his testimony [20], he had secured a permit for his group to demonstrate. One person held up a sign saying “Stop the Invasion.”
King has not, however, completely abandoned his problematic rhetoric, actions, and affiliations. Speaking at a Newton County (Georgia) Republican Party meeting [21]in April 2007, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, King reportedly told attendees that undocumented immigrants are “not here to mow your lawn – they’re here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me.” [22]
That same month, King organized a kick-off rally [23] for “Hold Their Feet to the Fire,” a series of anti-immigrant events held in Washington, D.C. He brought together anti-immigrant speakers from around the country, including his self-described “personal friend” Terry Anderson, Rick Oltman, and William Gheen, all prominent anti-immigrant activists. The Dustin Inman Society organized a similar rally in 2005 [24], featuring Chris Simcox, currently the leader of the border vigilante Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which encourages armed patrols and surveillance by volunteers to prevent Mexicans from crossing the border into the United States. In 2005, Simcox co-founded the Minuteman Project, which had a similar agenda. Today, the Minutemen are a loose network of local chapters around the country, whose primary goal is to keep undocumented immigrants from Mexico out of the United States. The more extreme Minutemen chapters continue to advocate patrols of the Mexican-American border by armed volunteers.