Followup articles about Hunter Forsyth, the neo-Nazi former (because fired) firefighter in Coweta County, show how comfortable far right "extremists" can get when embedded in a culture of "good ole boy" reactionary conservatism. (While we're using a southern term for it, this doesn't mean a similar culture of patriarchy and white supremacy doesn't exist outside the South).
https://web.archive.org/web/20221222002538/https://www.ajc.com/news/investigations/coweta-fire-department-dogged-by-race-issues/XCFHTAB4YZE5DLJPTI53GIT5C4/
https://web.archive.org/web/20221222002505/https://www.ajc.com/news/report-fired-georgia-firefighter-regretted-extremist-ties/YLTWMTV6SVAC3HRKN3W4FHKF6Q/
To summarize, the Coweta County Fire Department was rotten from the top down. As soon as we published our piece on the Nazi firefighter, we got emails from people in the department telling us there were systematic problems. We couldn't do much on our own to follow up, but we did our best to get these people in touch with mainstream journalists. Luckily at least one of them followed up, and you can see the results in the two links above.
This is an absolutely vile comment from the Fire Chief:
"The documents show minority recruits took their complaints to the county’s head of human resources after Fire Chief Robby Flanagan ostensibly tried to ease tensions last spring, but made them worse. During a meeting in April in which the department leaders were trying to build team camaraderie among the recruits, the chief told the group he didn’t like responding to calls where the victims are Black women because they “are hard to deal with cause they don’t (shut) up,” according to documents.""
The Black firefighters were, obviously, shocked. The Nazi firefighter we outed took it as encouragement:
"One of the longer statements came from Forsyth, who was fired last week after a left-wing activist group published its report linking him to the far-right group White Lives Matter, which advocates for a whites-only government. In his written statement, Forsyth recalled that one of the chief’s comments “was on how different races react to different scenarios and situations.”
“The story elaborates on how African American women are more talkative and willing to assert their opinion and may or may not listen to EMS or fire personnel,” Forsyth wrote. “Many other stories were shared and I feel that Class 739 learned a lot of valuable lessons that day.”"
Our commentary is that reactionary conservatism forms the bedrock without which Nazism could not support itself or even exist. They are not the same ideology, and Nazis are willing to break certain social codes that conservatives are not, but they have a highly symbiotic relationship. Nazis hide among reactionary conservatives and use them as cover: reactionary conservatives both protect Nazis and use Nazis as a shield against accusations of bigotry ("you call EVERYONE you don't like a Nazi"!)
In this case, Forsyth's Nazism was so flagrant, he lost his protection. But there are many like him embedded in state institutions who keep their cover because they know how to hide themselves better.
Hopefully the Black firefighters affected by Flanagan's disgusting anti-Black racism and misogynoir will begin to get some kind of justice now that their stories are being told. And Flanagan needs to be ousted immediately for the sake of all inhabitants of Coweta County (which according to the latest statistics includes more than 25,000 Black people).
#CowetaCounty #Georgia #antifascism #coweta #RobbyFlanagan #BlackFirefighters #HunterForsyth #Newnan #Nazi #WhiteLivesMatter
