Would Butler Reciprocate?

Seeing uniformed Aryan Nation guards stationed at either entrance of my sociology class’s doors told me that today’s class would be one to remember. Inside, Pastor Richard Butler had made an impromptu visit to “educate” my class. My teacher, Orlando Fletcher, was the only African-American instructor employed by Spokane Falls Community College at that time. Butler and his accompanying entourage were there to enlighten us concerning the perils Orlando and his “like” posed to us.

I ended up in a heated debate outside the classroom with a shortish man, badger-faced and dressed logger-type. Our discussion raged there in the hallway until the pushing started. I do not recall who pushed first but before the situation got out of hand, I left before I gave up any more of my dignity.

That was the fall of 1982. The badger face was still etched in my memory two years later when The Spokesman-Review published the picture of Robert J. Matthews, the man who I believe chased me out of the building that day. Matthews was a member of an extremist group called The Order. He had died in a shootout with law enforcement on Whidbey Island. Revisiting his face, I knew that hate and ignorance would forever chase anyone daring to question them. Yet Fletcher did not run as I did. He faced his detractor.

How could Fletcher act as dignified as he had by allowing Butler to speak to our class without invitation - or provocation? What manner of man is capable of listening to direct assaults upon his respect and allow others to judge those assaults?

Through his own knowledge of racism, Fletcher knew that by disallowing Butler a turn at the lectern, he would be stooping to the level that Butler survives at. Fletcher knew he was no better or worse than Butler. They were equals - a dignity that Butler was given but perhaps did not deserve.< Now, as a special education teacher, my day-to-day reality is working to make life better for the kinds of people that Hitler - and Butler - deemed worthless. Therefore, I ask of Butler the same dignity that Fletcher afforded him. Allow me to come and speak to his congregation, in his church, at his lectern. He was graciously afforded the same respect from Fletcher’s students, in Fletcher’s classroom, at Fletcher’s lectern.

Do the Aryans have the strength to let me address their community. Or has ignorance truly blinded them?