No, I Won’t “Ignore” the Alt-Right.
At 7:40 p.m. on the evening of Saturday, October 7, 2017, I was leaving Charlottesville, Virginia’s Downtown Mall after meeting a friend. It was already dark as I walked up 2nd Street NE toward Market Street, the intersection where, two months before, white supremacists assaulted anti-racist counter-demonstrators — including a group of clergy — during the 12 August 2017, Unite the Right rally. Then I saw torches filing into Emancipation Park in front of the shrouded statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. My heart sank, while my anger welled. I felt sick to my stomach, and ran across Market Street and into the park while shouting “No!”
It would have been safer for me, the only person of color, and ultimately, one of few non-press, anti-alt-right residents who witnessed the 7 October 2017 gathering, to have ignored the short white supremacist rally and walked in the opposite direction. (Activists who arrived after the fash flash mob concluded adhered to the activist community defense maxim, “We keep us safe,” and scurried to the nearby Jewish synagogue to form a civilian defense of the congregation’s outdoor Sukkot celebration.) I was emboldened by the example of my former University of Virginia students, who on the night of 11 August 2017, had bravely surrounded UVA’s Thomas Jefferson statue as torch-wielding Nazis menaced and assaulted them. Gleeful alt-right commentary after this 11 August 2017 UVA torch rally revealed that they considered it a success: hundreds of them had streamed onto the UVA Grounds and marched up the UVA Lawn to the Rotunda without any resistance, and the footage of their victorious invasion of this UNESCO World Heritage Site played online in an endless loop. When I hear the admonishments by officials to avoid hate rallies, and instead attend diversionary counter-programming (the path of least resistance which is recommended by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and UVA), I ask, incredulously: Do you prefer the optics of a group of torch-bearing Nazis gathering unopposed? Because that’s what the “just ignore them” advice leads to: public spaces overrun with Nazis. If, God forbid, the time ever arrives when their flags unfurl from our buildings, it will be too late to protest then — whether in the streets, or in teach-in seminars held in the safe remove of UVA panel discussions or music performance venues. And by then, we will have lost the will and courage to protest.
As I ran across Market Street and into Emancipation Park on the night of October 7, 2017, the group’s chilling slogans began: “You. Will not. Replace us!” My heart was pounding as I approached, but I did not engage them at all, because I feared being assaulted if I did. Wordlessly, I stood 10 feet away from their twisted torch-lit faces, and began snapping pictures and tweeting images of Richard Spencer, Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, Eli Mosley, Greg Conte, and several other middle-aged alpha-male leaders, and the crowd of 40–50 young haters who stood in the background. In addition to khaki pants and polo shirt clad attendees, the alt-right rally-goers had what appeared to be their own in-house media team, who were presumably live-streaming to an internet audience what had the distinct feel of a recruiting event: the young men in the back row chanted in unison, straightened their spines and jutted their chins when speakers spoke of their “white identitarian” movement. Richard Spencer proudly mentioned his UVA degree, and that he felt “at home” in Charlottesville. There are those who denounce the alt-right by telling them to “Go home!” (A terrible curse for these “home” communities.) But this denunciation fundamentally misunderstands the alt-right, their origins and appeal (many in the October 7, 2017 crowd were Virginians), and the white supremacist history and present of Charlottesville, and Virginia, and the United States: they *are* at home. We must not “tolerate” them, or look away or cower in fear.
The most memorable moment of the October 7, 2017 citronella Nazi rally for me was when an alt-right demagogue, amplified through a bullhorn, bellowed: “Liberal Charlottesville [sic] has no sense of community! You don’t even know your neighbors!” A young white man who was standing beside me obviously abhorred what Spencer’s tiki torch mob represented. Fortunately, the young man did not follow the fatuous, but frequently promoted, advice of First Amendment fetishists to simply allow “free speech” to run its course and “pursue dialogue.” (As if thoughtful conversation can and should be pursued with genocidal haters whose premise is the displacement and death of their interlocutor. The alt-right is explicitly autocratic and anti-democratic. To “dialogue” with them in the name of promoting debate within a robust “marketplace of ideas” betrays vulnerable communities who need unequivocal solidarity, and makes a mockery of the liberal democratic norms the alt-right aims to destroy.) The young man interrupted the white supremacist speaker by interjecting, “I live here. This is my town. We do too have a sense of community.” The speaker challenged him, and there was a back-and-forth argument which disrupted the flow of what was surely intended to be a seamless video broadcast. Some of the alt-right goons got antsy, and started admonishing their distracted speaker, now testy, to ignore the anti-racist heckler, and to stay on message. But the smooth promotional tableau had been disturbed.
We’ve seen what happens in history when the growth of fascism is ignored and its threat is not taken seriously. The National Socialists began as a fringe party in the Weimar Republic, and Spencer revealed his affinity with them at his infamous November 2016 post-election, “Hail Trump!” Nazi-salute press conference. I am on guard for a Reichstag Fire-type provocation which Trump — who has cut the Department of Homeland Security’s budget for monitoring domestic alt-right extremists — could use as a pretext to enact more authoritarian initiatives. This could further fuel his street-level vigilante political enforcers (i.e., the “alt-right” organizations), in a context in which a mendacious, open racist leads the Department of “Justice,” under which the FBI has already labeled Black Lives Matter as “Black Identity Extremists.” We simply *cannot* ignore the alt-right as they coalesce in public under our noses. To shrug one’s shoulders at alt-right “free speech” activities which bolster their threats of violence which they have uttered online — while steering anti-racist citizens toward diversionary activities, and away from direct action which publicly confronts the alt-right — actually plays into the alt-right’s hands.
In all my research about the rise of the KKK in 1920s Charlottesville, I found no record of any objection by any white Charlottesvillians. Perhaps those who disagreed with the Klan chose to just ignore them. In any case, KKK parades filled Charlottesville’s streets, Klan-sponsored events were popular diversions, Klansmen occupied positions of influence (e.g., the sheriff), and visiting Klan figures held “free speech” presentations inside the Albemarle County Courthouse, which, fittingly, is nestled between two Confederate monuments. (According to glowing front-page, above-the-fold reports in Charlottesville’s Daily Progress newspaper, audience members listened with rapt attention to Klan speakers, no one disrupted the kourthouse klavern, and all applauded at the conclusion.) African-Americans were driven away from Charlottesville, and many other Southern towns, during the Great Migration — the early 20th century refugee crisis which resulted in black re-settlement in Northern urban areas.
In 2017, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is occurring in Charlottesville and other towns across the nation with respect to the rise of the so-called “alt-right.” We are advised to “ignore them, they just want attention,” as if the alt-right were an unruly toddler from whom attention is withheld in order not to indulge their behavior.
Officials are addressing the “alt-right” threat with pages from an outdated playbook that is inattentive to today’s ideological climate.
Officials’ oft-cited example is that of the 30-person KKK march in Skokie, Illinois, in 1978, which sparked a First Amendment debate and landmark Supreme Court ruling. But in that instance, while the KKK did have the legal support of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Klan did not enjoy government officials’ ideological support. The difference now is that the alt-right — which regularly announces its loyalties with their creepy chant, “Russia is our friend!” — has (again) the ACLU’s legal defense, counts political supporters in the Oval Office and the Department of Justice, and has sympathizers in Congress.
Those of us who are members of marginalized communities don’t have the luxury of ignoring the alt-right. The alt-right doesn’t “just want attention.” I take them at their word when they announce their intentions to create a white ethno-state. What they actually want is uncontested dominance: law enforcement that doesn’t intervene to stop their illegal torch rallies and street violence suits their goals perfectly. They are already well on their way to a white ethno-state: police are not held accountable for their disproportionate stop-and-frisk rates and violence against black and brown civilians, sentencing disparities against blacks lead to ex-felon disenfranchisement that removes 25% of the black community from the voting rolls, and government-led voter suppression efforts and gerrymandering are working with pin-point accuracy. The alt-right’s allies in the Trump regime are already creating a de facto white ethno-state.
The “alt-right” wants to beam slick propaganda videos of “white identitarian” men with fashy haircuts into the smart phones of impressionable Americans in order to grow their movement.
The overwhelming rejection that the “alt-right” met from anti-racist activists in the streets of Charlottesville, of Boston, of Gainesville, Florida, and inside the auditorium at the University of Florida is precisely the reception that they merit. Rather than officials’ sponsored diversionary activities and discouragement of activism that urges anti-racists to abandon the streets and “just ignore them,” presence in the streets is a necessary response in order to repel them from the public square, mute their influence in public discourse, and drive them back under their rocks on The Daily Stormer, 4chan /pol/ and 8chan — their rightful “home.”
Speaking of alt-right internet cesspools, on-line chatter by the alt-right in the wake of the August 12, 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville revealed Monday-morning quarterbacking, second-guessing, and bitter infighting in their movement, as leaders deflected blame on one another and fractures grew in their ranks. August 12, 2017 in Charlottesville was a public relations disaster for the alt-right. But it was not a PR disaster because of diversionary activities — again, the empty streets preferred by state officials are also, ultimately, the preference of the alt-right. An unimpeded takeover of public spaces makes for much more compelling propaganda videos — which they are delighted to transmit to eager Twitter, Facebook and Periscope followers, as they did on the occasions of the August 11 torch rally at UVA the night before the Unite the Right debacle, and the May 13 torch rally at Charlottesville’s Lee statue earlier that spring. Clean, unobstructed sight-lines actually thrill them and their audience. Particularly, they promote images of themselves with iconic emblems (monuments for Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson), in familiar settings (university auditoriums, the Oval Office), and consuming popular product brands (Papa John’s Pizza, Fred Perry polo shirts), which normalize them, thus making it easier to market their ideology. August 12 in Charlottesville was an alt-right PR disaster because anti-racist demonstrators refused to cede the streets and parks, the police were incompetent, and the alt-right publicly revealed their violent, murderous nature.
Subsequent attempted “alt-right” rallies in Shelbyville and Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in late October 2017 were also a disappointment for these white supremacist organizations. At the last moment, as 1,000 anti-racist counter-demonstrators gathered in the streets of Murfreesboro, the alt-right decided to cancel this second rally, as they feared it would be a “lawsuit trap.” What is needed to deflate the alt-right is *more* not less direct action by anti-racist citizens. The thousand-to-one ratio advantage (30,000 versus 30) of anti-racist counter-demonstrators who outnumbered the alt-right rally attendees in Boston is the message which is needed — there is greater safety in numbers. But it takes massive mobilization to get passive anti-racist “slacktivists” off the fence and out of Facebook comment threads and into the streets or to take other actions.
To be clear: I am not calling for violence. What I am calling for is physical presence and vocal resistance. And if physical or emotional vulnerability make it difficult for you to engage in direct action, don’t go. By all means, self-care must be your first priority. Contribute instead to the many background infrastructure roles which are crucial to the resistance: lend moral encouragement and material support to activists by donating to the bail fund or to pay non-violent direct action trainers, monitor “alt-right” social media accounts and disseminate this intelligence, make phone calls to commercial establishments (conference centers, restaurants) that are serving Nazis and tell them that hate isn’t a good look for their business — and then call the press, bring a casserole to or volunteer to host or babysit for activists’ meetings, offer your pro bono professional services — counseling, pastoral, IT, legal — to those who are out there. Challenge respectable, establishment doubters — they often present themselves as the moderate voice of reason — who dismiss direct action as “divisive” or indecorous, and thus unwittingly allow public spaces to be overrun by Nazis that endanger our common life and well-being.
Although they were present at Emancipation Park in substantial numbers on the night of October 7, 2017, the Charlottesville police ignored the alt-right’s flouting of the open flame fire code (repeating their UVA Police colleagues’ inaction at the Jefferson statue torch rally of August 11, 2017), and allowed the alt-right to hold their tiki torch rally. Nor did the police appear to be conducting any intelligence-gathering at the October 7, 2017 event, although it would have yielded a bonanza of data if they had. Instead, afterward, flailing city officials belatedly implored the public to submit any images and names of the alt-right individuals who were present. (Pathetic! They appeal for information from a rally that police effectively ignored, but activists didn’t ignore?) I direct such officials to my Twitter timeline. We identified 6 of their leaders. And they have vowed to return. (“We. Will. Be back!” was their parting salvo.) Since law enforcement, whose salaries are paid by our tax dollars, do not do the basics to protect the public by tracking dangerous individuals in our midst (unless it is to kindly escort them to and from the scenes of their hate rallies), it falls to civilians with day jobs to fill in this gap. The feckless local prosecutor (who doggedly pursued trumped-up, later largely dismissed charges against anti-racism activists arrested at Charlottesville’s July 8 KKK rally) announced he had no plans to enforce the open flame ban anyway. On the night of the October 7, 2017 torch rally, anti-racist activists quickly organized a counter-protest, which was disbanded by police as an “unlawful assembly.” Thus the frustrated refrain of anti-racism activists: “Kops and Klan go hand-in-hand!”
I am glad that I did not ignore the alt-right rally on the night of October 7, 2017. Those photos that I tweeted out? Internet crowd-sourcing (otherwise known as naming and shaming) works wonders: a random 20-year old woman from Washington state did not ignore what she saw, and identified one of the Nazis (that is no hyperbole; he is an actual neo-Nazi) who I photographed as Brian Brathovd, a National Guardsman from Alabama. The Alabama National Guard was informed, confirmed that Brathovd was a member, that guardsmen’s participation in or advocacy for alt-right organizations is forbidden by military code and can lead to expulsion, and that they have begun an investigation. The Alabama National Guard did not ignore this alert — which was supplied by civilians who did not ignore the dangerous presence of the alt-right in our midst. Proponents of the “alt-right” should not be serving in public institutions — whether law enforcement, the armed services, or the White House — from which they can normalize, spread, and enforce their divisive ideology which threatens everyone. Not on my watch.
Public officials should quit giving naive advice to ignore the alt-right. As long as I am able, I will not ignore them.
(UPDATE: When it became known that Greg Conte (who went by the online name Greg Ritter and who also worked for Richard Spencer’s innocuously-titled but toxic National Policy Institute) attended this October 7, 2017 “Charlottesville 3.0” torch rally, concerned citizens alerted his Bethesda, Maryland employer, a Catholic girls school which bills itself as “a Christ-centered community which values diversity.” The good Sisters of the Holy Cross did the Lord’s Work and immediately fired Conte. Previously, Conte had been expelled from the ROTC program at Georgetown University for painting a swastika on school property. We’re #takingnames in order to expose and shun the so-called “alt-right,” so that they can be removed, root and branch, from our institutions before they rot them from the inside out. Make Nazis afraid again.)
