The Pacific Northwest is known as a destination for skinheads and other racism-promoting groups. And it appears someone wants to instill that ideology in North Bend.

While most residents might not realize it, the community is being advertised as the state headquarters for the Aryan Nations Church of Jesus Christ Christian on the group's U.S. Web site.

Over the past week, the group's point of view became more apparent as someone papered cars and newspaper boxes in North Bend, Coos Bay and the rural Bandon area with flyers advertising the Aryan Nations.

They were blunt in their proclamation.

"WHITE PEOPLE WAKE UP!

"We face extinction as a people if we don't get organized!

"Whites are less than 10% of the world's population ..."

North Bend residents reported to police the flyers were found on eight to 10 cars. Coos Bay police received similar reports. There were flyers downtown and security workers picked up leaflets on the Southwestern Oregon Community College campus. In the Bandon area, flyers were placed in newspaper boxes.

"Obviously, people have a right to their own opinion," North Bend Police Chief Steve Scibelli said Friday.

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People have a right to print those opinions, too. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees it. But it can be a short step from exercising one's constitutional liberties into violating others' rights.

While placing the flyers on cars in North Bend violated a city ordinance - a misdemeanor offense - in Coos Bay the action was legal, city officials said. Had those flyers been placed only on cars belonging to racially mixed couples, homosexuals or other minorities, law enforcement would consider the action a hate crime, Scibelli said.

The photocopied flyers disturbed some people with their message in black and white:if offends some people that African-Americans, Hispanic and Jewish people live in America.

"The main goal of these groups is not to commit hate attacks, but to get people talking," Portland State University's Dr. Randy Blazak said Friday.

The sociology professor has made it his career to research and track such organizations dubbed "hate groups." There are hundreds of them, and as many as 14 have been noted in Oregon.

Blazak, who oversees the university's Hate Crime Research Network, said flyers are an old tactic. It's not unusual to see the same leaflets for such groups as the Aryan Nations circulated 20 years ago turning up now.

"It's a little PR for themselves and of course it gets news," Blazak said.

Sometimes the organizations are long defunct. The flyers might just be the effort of one person trolling, in a sense, to see what happens. That is key to understanding how the culture survives and thrives. A group or an individual will watch the community to see how people respond. And silence can be problematic.

A white supremacist would think, "The fact that they're not opposing us is proof they support us," Blazak said.

When there's silence, a dedicated individual or group may go to work trying to make contacts in the community, trying to recruit members.

Locally, the flyers advised interested people to write to a post office box in Hayden Lake, Idaho, site of the group's former headquarters.

Ironically, according to Blazak, the Aryan Nations is not the white powerhouse it once was.

"The Aryan Nations has gone through a big division," he said.

It was essentially bankrupted after losing a civil lawsuit to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The Neo-Nazi band was forced to give up its land, which was developed into a park promoting peace. The group split into two: the older Christian-identity folks continued to follow the racist ideology that white people are the lost tribe of Israel. The younger religiously based, militant members moved their base to Pennsylvania, though they have ties to Oregon in Sandy. It's the old guard that traditionally had ties to the Northwest, Blazak said.

There's a danger, too, in defining who belongs to these groups.

"You don't want to fall into the habit of generalizing any type of people," he said.

However, the followers often are characterized as white men who feel their world is changing. They are disturbed by immigrants and women moving into visible roles.

"That's a mentality that appeals to people in the mainstream right," he added. "It's not an extremist ideology by any means."

The groups tend to find more support in communities with increasing unemployment and high taxes. They also find followers among young people, individuals born after the U.S. civil rights era.

"They have no historical reference point about overt racism," he said.

To them, the problem appears to have been solved. If anything, young people can be envious about talk and events celebrating Black History Month or other ethnically focused issues. It's up to the education system to place those issues in context.

"Teachers need to give a human face to racism," Blazak said.

The discussion needs to focus on more than the "isms."

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The flyers distributed in this informational bombardment isn't the norm in Oregon right now, according to Marcy Westerling, director of the Rural Organizing Project, a statewide grass-roots network of human rights organizations.

"Right now, we're not hearing a whole lot of references to Aryan Nations' recruitment activities," Westerling said.

But, Westerling cautioned, that doesn't mean activity isn't under way.

"Seeing little in the way of overt recruitment speaks a lot to how underground these activity cells have become," she said.

Westerling said this low-key activity has been the norm for some time.

"Ever since Timothy McVeigh and the bombing in Oklahoma City, there has been less declared organizational strategy," she said.

And, she added, access to the Internet makes spreading the white supremacists' word much easier.

"The Internet absolutely feeds this kind of activity," Westerling said. "By its very nature it provides the safety and security they need to work" outside of public scrutiny.

Although Westerling said there hasn't been much evidence of the Aryan Nations in the state, she said she wasn't surprised to see it surface in Coos County.

"It's not shocking to see it there," she said, "or anywhere where there is hunger and high unemployment. Those are disturbing benchmarks and where we see them, it's not unusual to find people who utilize hateful or racist information to demonstrate their discontent."

But it's discontent of another sort that Westerling said is of more importance now. As disturbing as the flyers are, Westerling said they're less important than how the community reacts to them.

"Having a police chief, a paper and human rights activists all willing to say, 'This is not OK,' is exactly the community response that's going to shut this back down," Westerling said.

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In the Bay Area, that community response is likely to be led by the Human Rights Advocates of Coos County (see sidebar). The ROP member organization comprises a group of people who advocate locally for equal rights and justice. The group is aware of the recent spate of Aryan Nations flyer distributions and its membership was quick to speak up.

"This is not something we will tolerate, this separation in our community," said Donna Pouliot, Human Rights Advocates chairwoman.

She agreed with Westerling about why the racist organization was attempting to recruit on the South Coast.

"The Aryan Nations will look for places with high unemployment and target those particular areas to gain a foothold to expand their hatred," the 45-year-old Pouliot said, "and if no one speaks out, they will say this is a prime area."

The tall, bespectacled African-American woman is no stranger to racism.

"I'm originally from Chicago and I've traveled all over the world," she said. "I've personally experienced discrimination."

But not here.

Although she's a relative newcomer to the South Coast, she said in the four years she's lived in Coos Bay, she's never experienced any racism or discrimination in the Bay Area.

"This community is not like that!" Pouliot insisted. "This is an aberration."

Pouliot said the influx of Aryan Nations recruitment literature makes her angry, but not afraid.

"I'm not going to allow anyone to make me feel unsafe," she vowed.

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Ironically, 5 percent of hate crimes are committed by organized hate groups. That's not to say the other people haven't been influenced by the organizations' advertising. And that advertising has become much more sophisticated, more politically correct.

"Instead of burning a cross or beating somebody up, they talk about immigration or the homosexual agenda and family values," he said.

When a person digs a little deeper, the hatred bubbles up, with rhetoric about Jews, African-Americans and others.

The true danger begins when people carry those racist viewpoints into violence or intimidation.

"Hate crimes are like rape. They're hugely underreported," Blazak said.

Few such crimes are reported locally, but there are some. And all hate crimes will be prosecuted to the full extent, North Bend's police chief said.

"I want to reassure people that North Bend is a safe community," Scibelli added.

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On the Net:

Hate Crime Research Network

http://www.hcrn.pdx.edu

Aryan Nations World Headquarters

http://www.twelvearyannations.com

Oregon Spotlight

http://www.oregonspotlight.org

Southern Poverty Law Center

http://www.splcenter.org