Little Adolf Campbell is only three, but this birthday may be one he'll remember. That's because his parents decided to contact their local paper and sparked an online furor after their local ShopRite supermarket refused to fulfill their order for a birthday cake with the boy's full name - Adolf Hitler Campbell - inscribed on it.
ShopRite says that their policy prohibits inappropriate messages on cakes, and that this one was pretty clearly inappropriate. Adolf's parents refused the store's compromise offer to make them a cake with space on it to write their own message, and are bewailing a world in which their little boy cannot even have his own name on his birthday cake.
The Campbells, of Holland Township, New Jersey, were eventually able to get the cake they wanted at a nearby WalMart.
Enmeshed in this tempest in a teacup are some delicate civil rights questions. The deluge of comments which greeted the story's appearance included the inevitable ones wondering why on earth anyone would saddle their offspring with the name of history's most notorious genocidal maniac, but also others echoing the Campbells' dismay that the supermarket would penalize an innocent child because of his 'inappropriate' name. Both opinions have weight, but they run up against some strong and valid objections.
Adolf's father, Heath Campbell, is a paragon of disingenuousness. He cannot understand why people are so upset over the incident and thinks they should learn to be more tolerant. He says that he is proud of his German heritage and dubbed his son thus because he thought that it would be great for him to have a name that no one else would have. Apparently he has never heard of such distinguished and almost entirely uncontroversial Germans as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schopenhauer, Otto von Bismarck, Bertolt Brecht and Franz Beckenbauer, any of whose names would seem to serve the purpose just as well. The fact that Adolf's two sisters are named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie also gives the lie to Mr Campbell's protestations of innocence.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Baronius
OK, first off, how badly was this guy rooting for a boy? He gave his girls terrible names, and probably kept trying to have children until a son came along, just so he could do the most interesting thing he'll do in his whole life.
Secondly, I say, give the kid a cake. Give it an extra layer of frosting, and sparklers that spell out his name. Adolf is going to have a tough life - at least let him have some nice birthday memories.
2 - Lisa Solod Warren
You gotta feel for this kid. Getting saddled with this kind of legacy is, in its way, as hard to get over, as any other kind of bizarre or horrible or neglectful or abusive parenting. I wish that kid and his sisters loads of luck and inner strength.
3 - Cannonshop
Well, he'll either learn to fight, or grow up to be an interior decorator.
4 - Zedd
What these parents have done by naming their child this name is put themselves on notice. It's like hanging a huge sign which says "I most apt to be abusive, keep an eye on me. My petty needs are far more important to me than those of my children. Insuring that my kids will have a good life isn't so high on my priority list."
I haven't read up on this couple but, what I find interesting about these types of White Supremacists is that they are not typically the types of people that anyone would want to be like. They are not typically wealthy, clean, sexy, smart or attractive in any way. Why they feel superior is a huge mystery and rather thrilling because its so laughable. A lot of them live in some dump with a lot of rusting automobiles in front, tires strewed around for effect, scraggly, exhausted looking dogs, weeds everywhere and a strong stale cigarette, musky, moth bally and beer stench permeating for miles.
Whats really sad though is that this white supremacy thing is the only thing that makes them feel worthwhile. These are often people who are poor and not educated. People who feel powerless and totally discounted by those in power. Everyone wants to matter. This obsession with this doctrine is just a way to feel relevant. Sad really to live one's life with such a skewed, sense of what ones purpose and significance is.
5 - Clavos
6 - Glenn Contrarian
I would disagree with Zedd. There's only one common thread I've seen with white supremicists - they're all right-wingers, every one.
7 - Clavos
Profound...
8 - Matthew T. Sussman
If there's one issue I've supported throughout my years, it's that racists need their own bakeries.
9 - Dave Nalle
Glenn, you can redefine the right wing any way you like to include any despicable group you like, I suppose.
But the truth is that there is a lunatic fringe which is beyond the right wing and beyond the left wing and shares characteristics of both, but mostly exists within its own bizarre political dimension.
I mean, take a look at Lou Dobbs and the positions he holds. You'd probably call him a right-winger, but to most rational right leaning people he looks like some sort of extreme left-winger. The truth is that there's another "wing" that's not really right or left. It's dark and extreme and full of fear and hate. They hate foreigners and certain minority groups and the 'elites' and the government and the media and believe in conspiracies. That's where the Truthers and the White Supremacists and the Dominionists and the Timothy McVeigh's of the world reside, and they're not part of any of the normal 'wings' of politics.
Dave
10 - zingzing
meh. what's your bet, dave, that this guy votes republican? really, would you put any money against it?
still, you have a point. no one reasonable would assume that this guy is the "normal" anything. he's a racist, through and through, although he has pointed out that it's just his upbringing--not his son's--that's playing into this. he said, and this is not a quote, that he would not mind if his kids played with black or jewish kids, but he, himself, would not socialize with them.
so the guy is a jackass. and he made his son bear his jackassness. i wouldn't say being a jackass is a particularly republican trait.
that said, ...i'll just let it end there.
11 - Dave Nalle
Zing, I would almost guarantee that he doesn't vote at all. That's the pattern with these people. They feel that their votes are meaningless because the government is conspiring against them. He also probably thinks Bush is a race traitor and having an affair with Condi Rice, plus Bush is an elitist pawn of the Jewish conspiracy of the NWO and the Neocons and the CIA. So he certainly didn't vote Republican in 2000 and 2004. For 2008 much the same would be suspected of McCain, plus he's friends with arch-zionist Lieberman.
Dave
12 - Ruvy
I really feel sorry for this idiot's kids. He's saddled them with names that will only earn them hatred from their friends - and the desire to learn early in life the answer to two questions:
1. How soon can I divorce my parents?
2. How soon can I change my name?
13 - Dr Dreadful
I would agree with Dave that this sort of extremism is beyond right or left. (Bereft? Would that be a good word?) Since Nazi was short for national socialism, I've always been mystified as to why they were considered 'extreme right'. The only reasoning I can think of is that they let aristocrats play, whereas the communists typically liked to barbecue them.
And Zedd's stereotype (despite Clav's harsh response) is broadly correct. The Campbells certainly fit the mould, and it seems to me that most extremist movements, even if they are invented and directed by the intelligentsia, gain traction among the poor and disaffected.
Ruvy, you'll be interested in the story from New Zealand which I linked to in the article. Your two questions seem to be exactly what the girl in that case got answers to.
14 - Jet
The reason for the kid's name should be obvious; He can live on "Settled out of court" comfortably for the rest of his life!
15 - Douglas Mays
Dreadful, good article! Once the kid gets to the world history part of his schooling, I think that him and his sisters will just outright kill Mr. Campbell. Why not? Make it a class project...
I saw this comedian on TV the other day. He had a one liner: "you know, the funny thing about Hitler..."
best,
DM
16 - Dave Nalle
Ah Douglas, so naive. What makes you think that world history as we know it will be part of his schooling? He'll be home schooled and his lessons will explain how Hitler was a visionary who was destroyed by the zionist conspiracy.
Dave
17 - Zedd
Clav,
@#5
Thou dost protest a wee bit too much. Didn't mean to rag on your peeps.
Seriously, to answer your question, I live in Texas and I was born in SA. Yes, unfortunately, I know what I am talking about.
18 - Irene wagner
Zedd, so true in many cases, but still, you’ve painted them with too broad a brush. White supremacy does not necessarily preclude an appreciation for the finer things in life. Adolf Hitler--the 20th century one--and his friends had art collections. The works weren’t schlock either. Art museums all over Europe are still trying to get them back. Hitler’s home was featured in the British equivalent of Better Homes and Gardens in the late 1930’s. There is some lovely Romantic waltz music so strongly identified with Nazism that it can’t be played in Israel without giving offense.
Margaret Sanger was well-educated, cultured, founder of the Planned Parenthood movement. She was also a eugenicist. The problem, as she saw it, wasn’t unwanted children; it was the kind of people who wanted them.
There are those who would sip Couvoissier (sp. sorry: I'm a PBR gal), and then--to thin the herd for a better tomorrow--trot over to Trailer Trash Town, shoot the “exhausted looking dogs” and the owners responsible for the “tires strewn about for effect” and they’d have no more compunction than they would after participating in a fox hunt. People, even the low class ones, created in the image of God? What a quaint idea. Richard Wurmbrand wrote of the brutality suffered by his prison mates at the hands of the philosophically and scientifically sophisticated.
Dr. D. I enjoyed this article, especially since it went beyond the “ain’t it awful?” reaction and included a discussion of the conflicts personal freedom and public sensibilities. You mention countries in which parents are legally required to select government-approved names for their children. A northern European country has “Hedda” on such a list, I believe. I’d give that one to my daughter, just so that I could move out of the country, change my family’s last name to Cabbage, then move back in.
19 - Douglas Mays
Dave (#16), yup, the home schooling trick. Hopefully the kids have cable TV to watch. They may stroll across the Hitler Channel.
DM
20 - Zedd
Irene,
You are right White Supremacist ideology is even more entrenched in our society much deeper than you articulated. I'm not sure if I said anything about their appreciation of art or the "finer things". Not sure what that has to do with anything. I personally see beauty in all things and believe the categorization of some art as finer than other types as a crock. A way for people to set themselves apart. My point was about education, class and economics. I think however you understand that I was highlighting the fact that most Neo-Nazis today would fall into what you may call the "white trash" category.
Not so sure if Hitler was to the manor born.... He was the son of a customs worker who upon his third marriage wed Hitlers mom (his niece), who he beat regularly along with his son Adolf and daughter (who were the only two kids to reach adulthood of six born to the mom). Hitler moved often and did poorly in school. Not an example of a family of the elites.
The point that I was trying to make is that everyone wants to matter and they will look to all sorts of things to seem more relevant than they feel they are.
When I first entered BC so many on this site held tight to the ridiculouls claims of The Bell Curve. So yes you are right, White Supremacy runs deep and is not just the sad fantacies of the poor and hopeless. But you'd agree that a lot who espouse those ideas and express them more overtly, come from meager beginings.
21 - Zedd
Glenn,
I don't think that this ideology has a Democratic or Republican root.
I do think that these guys may feel more at home in the Republican party (post Reagan) because of the opportunistic mischaracterization that took place about Blacks during the Reagan administration. Also Kennedy and Johnson's role with civil rights didn't help.
22 - Zedd
Speaking about crazy supremacist notions, I always find it funny when Whites say "we", speaking about the accomplishments of the West.
The chances of ones ancestor to have played a pivotal role in the advancement of European civilization are very slim (regardless of the assorted claims). It's more likely that an individual's ancestors were one of multitudes who cluttered the rat and disease infested streets of the illiterate or struggled as poor, toothless peasants in generations past and it is okay. It's perfect. It is beautiful just as messy and uneducated and rough around the edges as it all is. The air of superiority is eye rolling. What is relevant is now, today, what you do with your life; how you use your mind and how you treat others. It matters that you do the best and the most with what is before you today. I can't tisk tisk at a person in Darfur and claim some sort of superiority. It's ridiculous. My great great great great grands would be ridiculous to finger wag at whomever would reside in whichever land that will be less developed at that time or visa-verse if America is the less developed during that time.
However in my case being a Zulu and all there is always an exception. You may rise.
23 - Glenn Contrarian
Zedd -
I don't think white supremacists have Republican 'roots', but that they find much more common ground with Republicans than with Democrats, to wit:
little or no regulation of guns
against affirmative action
against unions
distrust or outright hatred of the government
belief that taxes are government-sponsored robbery
often (but not always) highly religious
distrust or outright hatred of non-'Christian' religions
hatred of legalized abortion
I mean, can you really imagine a scenario where an honest-to-evil white supremacist group would support the Democrats? I don't think so.
24 - Dave Nalle
Glenn, in my contacts with white supremacists I haven't found them to necessarily be anti-union, anti-abortion or highly religious. A fair number of them are pro-union, populist, socialistic and secularist. I refer you to Lyndon Larouche and his followers for an example, and they definitely came out of roots in the Democratic party.
Dave
25 - Zedd
Dave,
You are making my point. Yes, if they were not afflicted by this weird cultish obsession, they would be Democrats but they feel more at home in the Republican party because of the reasons that I stated above.