You may have heard the news that posters promoting white supremacy were recently posted around campus. While other similar messages have been appearing on campus — such as the Confederate flag painted on the Rock and a hateful message left on a black student’s door — these are the first ones to be linked to an organization.

The Alestle reported that these posters promote the hate group Identity Evropa, a rapidly growing white supremacist organization that is currently recruiting new members to their cause. Their main recruitment campaign, #Projectsiege, targets college students by posting flyers on university campuses nationwide.

The organization labels itself as a “fraternal organization for people of European Heritage." Their ideology, as explained in a YouTube video narrated by the white supremacist Richard Spencer, is that white Americans must base their identity on their “European heritage,” as otherwise they will be overcome by minorities, who unfairly benefit from a multicultural society and "cultural Marxism."

Their main mission is to stop immigration of non-European people to America and to refocus the identity of “being American” into a race-based identity, rather than an identity based on abstract values such as freedom and democracy, which they believe are not concrete enough to build a country upon, despite working rather well historically.

They would prefer to base our country on much more concrete things, which include “beauty and the power of being part of something bigger than oneself", aka “European heritage,” which, judging by the images in the video, consists of the Ancient Greeks, Italians during the Renaissance and some Saxons and Vikings. The intended utopian goal seems to be a world of manly men, blue-eyed children and slender white women walking through fields of wheat.

They should stick to celebrating their heritage by eating cannoli or getting drunk on St. Patrick’s day as most people do, because their insistence on a unified European identity actually erases much of their beloved heritage, as it only works by lumping many diverse cultures, religions, and peoples into one group, one history. They also ignore all Jewish contributions to Western Culture, because they are cheerfully anti-Semitic, of course.

“Are you of European, non-Semitic heritage?" is one of the questions asked of prospective members, along with “Do you have any visible tattoos?” And “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” (The last one is presumably the least important of the three, as Identity Evropa’s founder Nathan Damigo was convicted of armed robbery.)

The demographics of the group consist primarily of young white men, although the website welcomes both women and older people to join. As of February, they could only boast of 300 members but currently have around 21,000 twitter followers.

In addition to their enthusiastic flyer spreading efforts, the organization has also been involved in protests and other demonstrations, including the recent protests in Charlottesville, which led to 19 counter protestors being injured and one, Heather Hyer, being killed. They have not taken any blame for the violence, instead pointing the finger at “malicious authorities” and “Anarcho-terrorists. Indeed, the group thinks of itself as being quite peaceful and having undeniable “heart and caring,” even as it pursues an ideology that is well decorated with a past of genocides, hate crimes, wars and the oppression of minorities.

However, it is also important to remember that along with its association with violent protests, this organization is also absolutely pathetic. This is well-demonstrated in the recounting of one of their missions, “Operation Tunnel Rats” — an impressive feat in which they spray-painted “Identity Evropa” on North Carolina State University’s Freedom of Expression Tunnel (an equivalent to SIUE’s Rock). This operation required an entire week of planning, a medic and several sentries.

Luckily, the reporter for this event wrote about it with all due gravitas, which is almost too dramatic to be summarized:

“We continued down the road in the quiet, still air of the Carolina night. Our dark path only interrupted by the emerging skyline of Raleigh, the capitol of North Carolina. The excitement was mounting as the men began to prepare themselves mentally for the operation we had prepared so hard for. Only now, on the crest of the moment, did we begin to understand the impact our message was about to have.”

What a bunch of dorks.

When it comes down to it, Identity Evropa is an organization of people who have nothing better to offer the world than their skin color. They are deeply delusional and are fixated on a mixed history that never truly existed. They are terrified of the present and are dreaming of an impossible future.

However, they are a growing group and have already been associated with a group protest that caused one death.

Their current posters have been taken down, but they will likely put up more.

If you see any, then you can contact the vice chancellor for student affairs at 650-2020 or email Dr. Jeffrey Waple at jwaple@siue.edu.

Don’t be lured in by Identity Evropa’s fear-mongering, but instead celebrate our country’s diversity, which is its strength.