KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. — Wes Human, a homeowner, said he imagines a world of love and kindness for his children.
It's now routine for him to almost every day take his son to school and walk the dog. Yet Monday morning, Human realized his neighborhood in West Knox County woke up to find anti-Semitic fliers on its streets.
"So as I came up with the dog, I noticed it was a sandwich bag filled with flyers and bird seed," Human said. "I realized that it was basically Nazi propaganda. It was anti-Jewish, filled with hate speech, disgusting stuff."
As WBIR drove in the Cedar Bluff area neighborhood, the plastic baggies sat on many driveways.
"It made me feel very mad," he said. "I didn't want hate in my neighborhood. Nobody does. And I would have hated for my kids to find it, or, you know, something like that."
Bryan Goldberg, the president of the Knoxville Jewish Alliance, said they talked to the US Attorney's office Monday morning. He said they're concerned and also nervous for the Muslim and Arab communities and they're reporting these incidents to the FBI, or local police.
While it's a rare situation here in Knoxville, Goldberg said it's still a wake-up call.
"People need to wake up," Goldberg said. "They need to call out anti-Semitism, they need to call that Islamophobia. They need to call out hate, they need to call it racism. We need to move to a better society where hate isn't allowed to exist."
The distributions that were found in West Knoxville is the third consecutive weekend of the Knoxville Jewish Alliance being aware that anti-Semitic fliers have gone out into people's neighborhoods, Goldberg said.
Goldberg said this has been going on in the state of Tennessee and across America for at least two years, with incidents rising in the last six months. It's rare in Knoxville and Goldberg believes the goal of the people who put this stuff in mailboxes or driveways is to instill fear.
"Right now, Jews in America are very afraid," he said. "What I would say to the community is if you see something, say something. It's not okay to take this and to throw it in your garbage. Call your local police department, you live in the city called KPD. You live in the county, call the sheriff's office, call the FBI. Let them know that this happened. Save the evidence. Take a picture of it."
Knoxville Police said they're aware of the anti-Semitic papers but they have not received such reports in the city.
Via a social media post, they encouraged anyone who receives such materials to contact local law enforcement.
For Wes Human, it's about humanity.
"You can't go around hating, with that hate in your heart I feel bad for the people who threw it out almost as much as any of the neighbors that are offended by it because they're so misguided," he said. "Just so upset, and with themselves and with what they see, and they think this is the way to deal with it. And it's obviously not it's, you know, it's just wrong.
Goldberg said Knoxville is a great community because regardless of faith, race, or ethnicity it's a place of love and family.
For Human, it's about staying united and open. Even though people may be different, they can coexist harmoniously.
"What we need is more kindness, more love," Human said. "We're not Jewish, we're not anything like that. However, it's still hatred. It's still on our doorstep basically... we just can't have that here. We can't have that anywhere."