January 2, 2007
by John Sullivan
In Ithaca many people consider the consequences of how and where they spend their money. My wife and I have friends who can tell you why they refuse to buy products from several manufacturers as well as from a local big-box retailer or two.
So last summer, when we learned about the history, beliefs and practices of the Twelve Tribes religious group that owns and operates the Maté Factor on the Commons, we were surprised that fellow Ithacans hadn’t organized a public awareness campaign. Knowing little about the Twelve Tribes, we’d eaten there several times and had enjoyed the experience. The proprietors, who in appearance resemble a cross between flower children and the Amish, seemed harmless enough. The food was good, the décor interesting and the ambience inviting.
I’d like to explain why we with other Ithacans have since begun an organized boycott of Maté Factor and why we invite you to join us in this effort.
For some background on the group and its religious leader, Eugene Spriggs, you can click on this link.
Our objections to Spriggs and the Twelve Tribes are two-fold and have nothing to do with their beliefs about who they are, about God, and about an approaching apocalypse.
Firstly, we object to their promotion of racist doctrines that have a long history of hurting people, doctrines that are in fact at the root of the greatest modern crimes against humanity.
Secondly, we object to their exploitation of young adults and, most disturbingly, to their advocacy of child mistreatment.
Spriggs, known as “Yoneq” inside the group, teaches that slavery of people of African descent and the social order of the Jim Crow South were ordained by God, a result of the biblical curse of Canaan. According to Spriggs, “Martin Luther King could not offer true freedom to [African-Americans] when he was a slave of the curse himself.” Spriggs, no fan of King, has said: “Martin Luther King was filled with every evil spirit there is to say [blacks don’t] have to serve [whites]…All manner of evil filled that man.” Race mixing and multicultural society are anathema to Spriggs.
Literature the Twelve Tribes disseminates for the public and potential recruits only slightly softens Spriggs’ teachings with more veiled references to race. For instance, in their publication “Multicultural Madness” you will read:
“Let's face it. It is just not reasonable to expect people to live contentedly alongside of others who are culturally and racially different. This is unnatural, and sometimes forces people to go against what they instinctively know in their conscience.”
From another entitled "Alien Ant":
“Multiculturalism increases murder, crime and prejudice. It goes against the way man is. It places impossible demands on people to love others who are culturally and racially different. This is unnatural, like trying to love sodomites.”
Spriggs has written that (real) Jews suffer under their own curse for crucifying Jesus and that homosexuals “deserve the death penalty.” He is adamant that women unquestioningly submit to the authority of their husbands. But central in Spriggs’ teachings concern their children. On them all their hopes depend since in a generation or two they must produce 144,000 pure and virginal boys to be the bride of the
Children in the Twelve Tribes are home-schooled to only a rudimentary level and are prohibited from acquiring a high school diploma or G.E.D. (After all, what use have breeding stock for an education?) They are put to work at an early age in the group’s cottage industries. We have no information on how children are treated in the Ithaca community other than what the parents tell us. Normally, no one mandated by New York state law to report signs of abuse—doctors, teachers, social workers—ever see the children. However, none of the local Twelve Tribes adults with whom I have spoken have disowned Spriggs’ teachings on child discipline (or those on any other subjects). On the occasions I went to the restaurant, I regularly saw children working behind the counter. New York State fined two Greene County Twelve Tribes businesses for child labor law violations in 2001.
The group largely recruits directionless (but fertile) twenty-somethings, often at rock concerts. They take, and under no conditions return, all the financial resources of those who have any. Accounts from people who have left Twelve Tribes describe a culture based on psychological manipulation, suspension of individuality, and total dependency on “elders,” all of who are male.
Somehow, because their doctrines and practices come wrapped in religious convictions, they have been immune from the kind of criticism that would otherwise be marshaled against them. We suspect most people eating at Maté Factor on any given day would say that they find nostalgia for slavery and patriarchy, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and child beating rather revolting. We think most would choose to spend their money elsewhere if they were aware that Twelve Tribes exploits people and promotes these things.
Our group, Ithacans Opposed to the Twelve Tribes Cult (IOTTC), came together initially to counter a Twelve Tribes recruiting rally on the Commons last August 12. At that surreal event were treated to a black Twelve Tribesperson (yes, there are a few) explain how the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott of 1955-56 was a misguided effort, among other things. We handed out a pamphlet containing the words of Eugene Spriggs to over 300 passers-by that day and, I think, successfully frustrated their efforts.
The members of the Twelve Tribes who have settled in Ithaca and work at the Maté Factor should not be insulted or harassed. Many are themselves victims and may have not fully understood all of the Spriggs’ teachings when they joined. As one ex-Twelve Tribesperson wrote us “a lot of them have a hard time stomaching the teachings like the Ham teaching [on race] and the child discipline stuff, however they are between a rock and a hard place, and it's not worth it for them to rebel against those teachings because their survival depends on their submission to authority.” These individuals will need our assistance to leave the group, should they choose to. When you give Maté Factor your dollars you empower the Twelve Tribes organization to maintain their hold on these adults and children, and to recruit others.
It is a mistake to confuse the right to free speech and belief, to which we are all entitled, with a nonexistent prohibition against ever challenging others’ speech, doctrines and practices. When these promote hate ideology and mistreatment of children we have an absolute obligation to do so. Yes, the Twelve Tribes are for now a small group with fringe beliefs. You and I have a real interest in keeping things that way. Please help us boycott Maté Factor.
For more information, visit our web site: http://www.iottc.blogspot.com. Here you’ll find our pamphlet in downloadable form and links to much more information on Twelve Tribes.
Copyright Ithaca Community News. View online at www.IthacaNews.org.