April 16, 2020 – At a protest yesterday in Lansing, several people demonstrating as part of “Operation Gridlock” used flags and posters featuring swastikas and verbiage comparing Governor Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler, as well as the Confederate battle flag. Regardless of one’s political views, the use of such imagery and symbolism is inexcusable. The Nazi imagery is particularly galling as it comes only days before Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), which begins on Monday night.
It is the position of the Jewish Community Relations Council/AJC (JCRC/AJC) that the use of symbols of hate are never appropriate as part of political discourse. The JCRC/AJC condemns these actions and asks the organizers of the protest, the Michigan Conservative Coalition, to immediately condemn the use of all hate speech and, specifically, the imagery used at yesterday’s rally.