Front-yard swastika display angers El Sobrante residents again
It’s beginning to feel a bit like deja vu for El Sobrante residents who say they are in no mood for hate symbols in their neighborhood.
But Steven Johnson’s creation — a stone garden in the shape of a Nazi swastika — is back to being displayed prominently in the front yard of his home on Lindell Drive. Now, barely a year after neighbors organized to call for Johnson to remove the concrete swastika, they’re doing so again.
“I don’t think it’s ever not been offensive,” area resident Charles Erdmann said Friday. “It’s just amplified that much more now. That’s why circling back on this is so important. It’s always been the symbol of the Holocaust, and now it’s a prominent symbol for white supremacy. So in our opinion, it has no place here.”
As a result, a petition created last year by neighbors calling for Johnson to remove the stone garden had gathered nearly 48,000 signatures by Saturday morning.
Johnson found himself in the eye of the people’s wrath last June, when aerial footage first captured the swastika, which measures about 10 feet by 10 feet. He defended his decision to build the stone garden then, calling the design a “Tibetan symbol” of “peace, tranquility and harmony.”
“I like swastikas,” he said then. “I think they look cool. … I didn’t do it to get attention. I’m not a worshiper of Nazis. I just thought it’d be a cool thing to put in there.”
Days later, after the community outrage, he covered up the garden in an apparent act of contrition.
On Friday, it was on full display on the right hand side of his front yard when Johnson refused to speak with a reporter who showed up at his home to discuss the symbol.
He did address the controversy in a thread on Nextdoor, a social networking app for neighborhoods.
“Haven’t you people got a life?” he asked in the thread. “Did your soap opera’s go off the air? Whatever is in my front yard is my business. And if you don’t like it, don’t look. You don’t live on this street, and it’s a dead end, so there’s no reason to be on it. So stay on your own terf [sic] and we’ll be fine. … It’s part of my liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
That pursuit is causing great unhappiness among other residents.
“I don’t think we should be staying silent about this issue,” said resident Simr Mahal, a 27-year-old who studied peace and conflict resolution at UC Berkeley and is now studying for his law school admissions test. “If a person has a swastika and nobody says anything, it could lead to others turning up. I would rather have the bigots fear the reaction of the community then have them think it’s smooth sailing.”
Chelsea Leland, a resident of the neighborhood and registered nurse in Contra Costa County, said Johnson’s garden is especially offensive within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“As a health care provider in this community, caring for all races, ethnicities, cultures and socioecomic status, it breaks my heart that a neighbor of mine would not only feel this way, but also be confident enough to display such a blatant symbol of hate in their front yard,” she said.
Authorities have said that legally, Johnson is not violating any laws. As such, neighbors said they hope that community pressure will cause him to re-think the decision again.
“I’m committing to do something to fight racism everyday,” Erdmann said. “This is a situation where the actions of the community can really speak loudly and powerfully, and hopefully they will.”