Family, City Rise Above Swastika Graffiti If vandals thought a swastika would stop Wednesday June 18, 2008
By Jim Belshaw
When you consider all that has preceded the threadbare cliché now embedded in the stucco on the front of Mikey Weinstein's house, it's something of a surprise that it took this long to happen. Three years ago, he sued the Air Force Academy, accusing it of imposing evangelical Christianity on cadets, including his two AFA cadet sons. I would have thought a swastika (and in this case, a cross, too) would have been the first thing to occur to somebody with a can of spray paint and a complaint. When I spoke with Weinstein in 2007, he sent me a copy of an e-mail he received: "A jew lawyer ... pushy ... parasite ..." Well, you get the drift. Wouldn't a mind-set like that have called for a swastika long before last weekend, when someone slopped one on his house? It makes you wonder what kind of slackers have taken over the swastika lobby. None of this is new to Weinstein. None of it will change what he is doing. Weinstein served in the Air Force for 10 years and worked in the Reagan White House. Three years ago, he took on the Air Force when one of his sons reported anti-Semitic slurs. "When I started this fight, I knew it wasn't going to be like riding a unicorn through a cotton candy forest handing out lollipops to the animals in the forest," he said. "This is blood sport." He sued the AFA. The suit was thrown out. He formed the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, saying its 8,200 members are "96 percent Christians who are junior officers and enlisted." He says the fight is about the law, not religion. "I'm thrilled by the response of the Albuquerque community," he said of the weekend graffiti. "The mayor sent out his graffiti removal team, and I've heard from several religious leaders around town. If this was an attempt to stop us from what we're doing, it had the exact opposite effect." His wife was out of town when the graffiti visitors came to call. But his daughter, Amber, was home. She wrote to family members. Here's what a symbol with a long history of evil looks like to a daughter: "I am living my own horror story," she begins. "I can feel my heart in my throat. My emotions are becoming vulnerable. The tears are flooding my entire face as I am filled with anger. I can't seem to grasp any sense of reality. "I don't want to face what's in front of me, but I have to. I must. I will be strong for myself and for my family. But why would someone do this? "It's astounding how much this drawing has affected me. It feels like it literally drank the life out of me. I can't concentrate. I can only wonder why this happened. "This isn't a dream, this is real. People filled with enmity still exist; they always will. I wish I could look at whoever did this straight in the eye and let them feel my internal pain and my family's internal pain. "I want them to understand the enormity of what they did. I will never be able to remove this picture from my memory. I will not forget the look on my father's face, the look of complete disgust. "I felt such tremendous amount of fear that night, but I will not forget how safe my father made me feel. It was as though his hug for that particular moment in time took all the pain and fear away. I won't forget the person who did this to our home. The person engorged with such hate. I know somehow this person will pay for their act of malignity, somehow, some way." Write to Jim Belshaw at The Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, NM 87103; telephone— 823-3930; e-mail— [email protected].
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