By Khalida Sarwari
A Saratoga resident reported spotting several white nationalist posters plastered on the sides of newspaper bins around downtown Tuesday. He said he tore them all down.
One poster reads: “Money does not rule you,” while another states: “Keep America American” and implores the reader to report “illegal aliens” to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, followed by the agency’s phone number. “They are criminals” the flier reads in bold red and black print.
Both posters have a website at the bottom: bloodandsoil.org. “Blood and soil” was a key slogan of Nazi ideology. The webpage leads to Patriot Front, a Texas-based white nationalist group led by a 19-year-old white man that the Anti-Defamation League has labeled as an extremist group.
The resident, who didn’t want to be named, but identified himself as a 60-year-old retired software engineering manager who has lived in Saratoga for 25 years, said he saw the posters while taking a walk on Big Basin Way on Tuesday morning. They were plastered on the side of newspaper bins across from Blue Rock Shoot and Big Basin Cafe and on the back of a sign on the corner of 3rd Street.
“I was completely angry,” he said. “My reaction was, ‘Are we living in “Cabaret” times? Are people walking around thinking this doesn’t happen here?’ This stuff happens and here’s a very visible manifestation of a subhuman part of our community that is around and we need to forcefully react against that; we can’t have that stuff in our country.”
The resident said he tore down every one of the seven or eight fliers he saw and chucked them in a garbage can. He also reported the incident to the city manager’s office.
The account caught both Mayor Mary-Lynne Bernald and Vice Mayor Manny Cappello by surprise, with Bernald calling the incident “awful.”
“This is a sad, sad occurrence and not representative of all that Saratoga stands for,” she told Bay Area News Group.
Caron Luddy Whitacre, 64, a Saratoga resident of 34 years, said she was saddened and surprised to hear about the unsavory posters.
“I thought we as a society were above all of that,” she said. “I just don’t like to think anyone with that kind of mentality lives in my community. We are a pretty diverse area and there is no place for hatred here or anywhere.”
Shamik Mehta, a 51-year-old senior product marketing manager who has called Saratoga home since 2007, said he feels disappointed and frustrated about the fliers appearing in his hometown.
“I am not too surprised these posters showed up in Saratoga, but I am extremely disappointed,” he said.
This was the second reported sighting of racist posters in the West Valley region over the past week. On June 26, Campbell city officials removed posters by Identity Evropa, identified as a white nationalist group by civil rights organizations.
The posters advertised Identity Evropa and its website with “Our generation, Our Future, Our Last Chance” over a picture of white men. The incident drew condemnation from Campbell Mayor Paul Resnikoff, Assemblyman and former Mayor Evan Low and Orchard City Indivisible, the Campbell chapter of a national progressive movement resisting President Donald Trump.
