Fargo father denounces white nationalist son in letter

A letter in a Fargo newspaper in which a father denounces his son for attending the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is quickly making its way around the internet today.

The letter, printed Monday in the Fargo Forum, is penned by Pearce Tefft, and directed at his son, Peter Tefft.

Peter Tefft was the subject of a tweet from the Twitter account "Yes, You're Racist," which attempted to crowdsource the identities of the attendees of the march.

In the letter, Pearce Tefft writes that he and his family "wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions," and that "I have taught all of my children that all men and women are created equal. That we must love each other all the same."

"Evidently," Pearce Tefft continues, "Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his family’s heartbreak and distress. We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake.

"It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now."

In a post on his Facebook page, Peter Teftt referenced his attendance at the rally, quoting an article from the site "Altright.com."

The article discusses — among other things — the rally as "the beginning of the White Civil Rights movement," and claims that the disorder at the rally was an organized plot by the mayor to end the movement.

It also theorizes that James Fields, charged with murder after driving his car into a crowd of people at the rally, was not part of the alt-right, primarily because his mother has "a very Jewish name."

His Facebook posts remain public, and are now largely filled with comments mocking him with various vulgarities.

But none of the comments come close to the final line of Pearce Tefft's letter to his son.

"He once joked," Pearce Teftt writes, "'The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven.'

"Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all."

Read the full letter here.