Hate Takes a Stab at New Haven

We like to think “It can’t happen here.” Not in our neighborhood.

If we, or you, still believe that, we’re wrong. And here came the sickening evidence over the past week in my hometown, New Haven, and indeed in my neighborhood, East Rock.

The lead in the New Haven Register story, by Mark Zaretsky: “It didn’t take long after newly inaugurated President Donald Trump began issuing executive orders seeking to shut the faucets on undocumented immigration for someone to run or drive through the East Rock section distributing anti-immigrant flyers.”

One of them read: “GET OUT. Nobody wants you here” in English, Spanish and several other languages. Below that: “Mayor Elicker and Attorney General Tong can’t protect you and your family from being locked up in jail.”

The other side read: “DEPORTATION NOW,” along with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tip line and “Report all illegal immigrants and those harboring them.”

These hateful messages were scattered along the sidewalks of multiple streets in East Rock, which probably has more Democratic voters and Yale affiliated residents than any other neighborhood in New Haven. It’s also where Mayor Justin Elicker lives and where you’ll find the headquarters of Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services.

Both Elicker and Connecticut’s Attorney General William Tong have vowed to oppose raids by ICE agents who swoop into New Haven or anywhere else in Connecticut to arrest undocumented residents.

Those agents, and the coward who distributed the flyers, will learn that New Haveners will not be silent nor compliant. We will fight back.

We already have; East Rockers who saw the flyers picked them up and threw them in the trash. A high school student collected and discarded 30 of them.

Kica Matos, who lives in New Haven and is president of the National Immigration Law Center, told the Register: “The flyers were a cowardly act by someone who does not get New Haven. We are a city built in part by immigrants and we are proud of that. Hate is not welcome here.”

The New Haven Independent also quoted Matos: “Hate has no place in New Haven. We will continue to welcome all, including immigrants. It is part of what makes us such a beloved community.”

The Register’s Zaretsky spoke with an East Rocker, Sarah Brown, who encountered the flyers while walking her dog on her block. This was her message to the jerk behind it all: “It’s not too late to get help. Please make new friends. Nobody wants to see this.”

But the hateful messages continued this week, on the other side of New Haven, in the Westville neighborhood. The New Haven Independent reported that Frank and Paula Panzarella, longtime peace activists, found a disturbing piece of paper lying on their front lawn — next to their “Black Lives Matter” sign. It was a depiction of a human-shaped figure, a target with more than a dozen BB gun bullet-sized holes piercing the neck, heart and stomach.

“I take this to be a threat,” Frank Panzarella said.

When Elicker was shown the target paper, he cited the East Rock flyers and noted both actions appear to be part of a trend of rising hate speech. He said Trump is “emboldening people.”

Panzarella said his “Black Lives Matter” sign will remain on his front lawn. “I’m not gonna be intimidated by such things.”

Nor will the rest of us. Soon after Trump took over our country, he shut off $4 million in aid that IRIS had relied on to help refugees settle here. Our community has responded with a large infusion of donations to IRIS. In addition to contributions by individuals, Christian and Jewish groups banded together to donate $10,000.

IRIS is a treasure, and most of us here embrace it. My wife and I make monthly food donations to the group and I’ll be one of thousands of participants in IRIS’ annual Run For the Refugees on Feb. 9. If you want to help IRIS, go to irisct.org.

“Woke”? We’re wide awake now! The fight is on.