White supremacists protest bookstore

Students stared and whispered as the four white supremacist protestors marched through campus.

“Racist, fascist, anti-gay, Trad Youth Network here to stay,” the protestors chanted loudly, walking quickly past Rose Well House and the statue of Herman B Wells, carrying black and white signs.

All affiliated with the Traditionalist Youth Network, a national organization with a mission to encourage high school and college-aged students to band together under “tradition and tribe,” the four men stopped for a photo opportunity in front of Sample Gates. Only one of the protestors, Thomas Buhls, 30, is an IU student. He founded the IU chapter of TYN in July.

While they posed with signs denouncing communism, zionism and modernity, the four protestors shouted back and forth with an angry IU graduate student who followed them from the center of campus all the way to their destination, Boxcar Books on Sixth Street.

“They shouted some bullshit rhetoric, and I countered it,” said the angry graduate student, who wouldn’t give his name. “I hate all the violent oppressive bullshit they stand for.”

As the men approached Boxcar Books, the graduate student retreated back to campus.

But a swarm of nearly 50 counterprotestors picked up where he left off.

“Go the fuck home!” one counterprotestor yelled as TYN protestors approached and stood on the sidewalk outside the business.

“You ask us to go home?” one of the protestors said calmly. “Could we ask all the third world immigrants to go home?”

It was just after 2 p.m., but those at Boxcar Books had been waiting several hours for the TYN protestors, who were “picketing Boxcar Books because of the store’s support for Leftist terrorists, communism and violent anarchists.”

“Why don’t you do what your leader did and put a fucking gun in your mouth like the rest of the fucking Nazis,” another counterprotestor screamed.

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Thomas Buhls is a racist, but he prefers not to discuss the semantics of the word.
“I feel it’s kind of silly to argue about the definition of racist,” Buhls said before the protest yesterday. “I’ll tell you straight up, of course I am.”

A former Marine, Buhls, 30, said he served three tours in Iraq over the course of nine years before coming to IU in the summer of 2011 to pursue a degree in communications and culture.

“I’ve always thought of myself to be something of a white nationalist,” Buhls said. “I’ve always had that sentiment and that feeling.”

He has been involved with the White Nationalist Movement, he said, and has been a longtime member of the Knights Party, an organization associated with the Ku Klux Klan.

“That’s what brought me to the Traditionalist Youth Network because I see a lot of movements out there that have really strong opinions and a lot of active members, but their platform, it just doesn’t get them anywhere,” Buhls said. “That’s what the Traditionalist Youth Network has. Our platform, this is taking us places.”

The national organization was founded by Matthew Heimbach, 22, a recent graduate of Towson University in Maryland, and Matthew Parrott, 31, a resident of Paoli, Ind., who dropped out of IU more than 10 years ago.

Heimbach was president of the White Student Union at Towson before he graduated last spring. He and Parrott had interacted on social media and decided about three months ago to form TYN.

They joined Buhls for the protest yesterday, Heimbach said, to show him that the national chapter supported his efforts at IU. There was one other protestor, John King, 45, of Jasper, Ind., but no other IU students.

“I don’t like to talk about the numbers because it’s not about the numbers,” Buhls said.

Buhls said his organization has more members than were present at the protest, but said they weren’t comfortable being publicly affiliated with TYN.

Buhls and his fellow protestors spent Sunday night and Monday morning painting the bridge across from the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center and chalking across campus. He said this demonstration was an attempt to educate campus about the organization.

Yesterday’s protest was not Buhls’ first. In April 2012, he was involved in a similiar protest that drew violent counterprotestors to his location outside the Monroe County Courthouse in downtown Bloomington. That time, though, he was alone.

In 2011, Buhls was arrested after leaving copies of a KKK publication at a Martinsville appliance store, according to the Associated Press. But a Martinsville City Court judge later found Buhls not guilty on the basis that the law allows people to hand out material regardless of its content.

In early August, Buhls was charged with violating the Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct for posting Traditionalist Youth Network flyers in academic buildings covering windows, doors and the ground, according to a document from the Office of Student Ethics and Anti-Harassment Programs that Buhls provided the IDS. The document says Buhls also chalked in prohibited areas.

Jason Casares, associate dean of students and director of the office of student ethics, said he could not comment specifically on Buhls’ case, but said that generally his office does not censor student messages. Rather, he said, any citation from his office would be related to the method the message was delivered.

“We’re looking more at what manner did you use to voice your opinion,” Casares said. “It’s not going to be about the speech, it’s going to be about you defacing the property.”

***

IU sophomores Jon Cohen and Lexie Heinemann had just come from Village Deli when they saw the protestors waving signs and heard them chanting.

Holding hands, the two were standing in an alley beside Boxcar Books contemplating whether or not to go inside. Cohen needed to pick up a book for his anthropology class.

“I don’t know if this is the best way to get your message across,” Cohen said. “I understand that everyone has the right to express themselves, and even though what they’re saying most of the people would disagree with it, but it can’t be a one-way street. If we have a right to live our lives they have a right, too, but it’s just like, seriously?”

Heinemann said she felt confused, intrigued and even a little scared.

“Look at these two guys,” Cohen said, pointed to Buhls and a counterprotestor, yelling only inches from each other’s faces. “These are two men yelling at each other. They’re fighting fire with fire.”

After more than 30 minutes of protesting, the four TYN supporters left as counterprotestors sprayed them with a garden hose.

Follow reporter Katie Mettler on Twitter at @kemettler.