There Goes the Neighborhood is a weekly series from Imagine 2050 staff highlighting upcoming nativist events.
This week, events in South Dakota, California, Montana, and New York.
On Saturday, April 29, the state chapter of anti-Muslim grassroots group ACT for America will host a presentation by anti-Muslim pseudo historian William Federer in Rapid City, South Dakota. Federer’s biased presentations frequently paint Islam as a monolith waging a 1,400 year war against western civilization. Last year, he co-headlined a law enforcement training session with disgraced former FBI agent and anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist John Guandolo. The Flathead County chapter of ACT for America will also host Federer on Thursday, April 4 in Kalispell, Montana.
On Sunday, April 30, California nativist coalition Unite Inland Empire will hold its annual conference in Riverside, California. According to a flyer for the event, this year’s conference will feature “a lively disucssion [sic] about President Trump’s First 100 Days” with far-right radio personalities Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Larry Elder, and Breitbart News’s Joel Pollak. The annual event, now in its fourth year, has previously attracted nativist demagogues like Frank Gaffney, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and Ann Coulter.
On Tuesday, May 2, The Conservative Forum of Silicon Valley (CFSV) will host a presentation by British anti-Muslim writer Melanie Phillips in Mountain View, California. Phillips has defended U.S. anti-Muslim figures Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer and spoke at events hosted by the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Her work was also cited in the manifesto of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. Earlier this month, CFSV hosted the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s Bruce Thornton.
Finally, on Thursday, April 4, the local Long Island ACT for America chapter will host Ryan Mauro, of the anti-Muslim Clarion Project, in Hauppauge, New York. Mauro has egregiously claimed that Muslims are “hard at work creating Muslim states-within-states in the U.S” and propagates the thoroughly debunked myth of so-called “no-go zones.” As the Center for New Community’s Islamophobia Academy report notes, Mauro is also one of the most prominent anti-Muslim activists in the country leading training sessions for law enforcement.
Additional information on these events and others can be found in the map below. A red star indicates events scheduled for next week.
Know of any nativist events not located on this map? Please contact us or fill out this form: