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Hardcore Legends Sheer Terror Take the Proud Boys Down a Notch

Landon Shroder | September 26, 2018

Topics: alt-right, CBGB, Gavin McInnes, hardcore, NYCHC, Proud Boys, punk, Sheer Terror, SPLC

NYCHC legends Sheer Terror have just taken the Proud Boys founder, Gavin McInnes, down a proverbial notch. In a Facebook post from Monday, Sheer Terror singer Paul Bearer wrote on the band’s page:

“It’s been brought to our attention that Gavin McInnes was speaking favorably about us on his podcast… Just to make things as clear as possible so there is no mistaking where we stand: ‘PROUD BOYS’ ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, OR ANYWHERE WE MIGHT BE.’” 

McInnes, a former founder of VICE, has been an influential figure in the alt-right community. His brand of western identity politics and chauvinism has been on the forefront of a contemporary white nationalist movement that uses coded language to mask an agenda, which according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “maintain[s] affiliations with known extremists.” This includes known anti-Muslim and anti-immigration groups. 

McInnes was quoted in June of this year saying, “It’s such a rape culture with these immigrants, I don’t even think these women see it as rape. They see it as just like having a teeth [sic] pulled. ‘It’s a Monday. I don’t really enjoy it,’ but that’s what you do. I wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t have the same trauma as it would for a middle-class white girl in the suburbs because it’s so entrenched into their culture.” 

His group, known simply as the Proud Boys, proclaim that they are “proud Western chauvinists” and were present in support of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in August 2017. The organizer of Unite the Right, Jason Kessler, was seen in a Periscope video being jumped into a Proud Boys group in June of the same year. The are identifiable by their black and yellow Fred Perry shirts and have chapters in the UK, Australia, and Canada. 

Sheer Terror, a staple of New York City Hardcore in the 80s and 90s, has maintained a consistent following since then with its brand of tough guy hardcore, also known for its humor, irony, and a pervasive sarcasm. The band’s Ugly and Proud remains one of the staples of hardcore music 21 years after its release.

RVA Mag caught up with singer Paul Bearer about the band’s post and how white nationalist groups have been touting their love for punk and hardcore bands.

“They must not be listening to the lyrics to some of these bands. I can’t speak for all of them,” Bearer said. “The whole ‘Conservatism Is The New Punk’ thought is a fucking travesty, and a sad joke. I don’t want to hear about how you’ve ‘grown up, and have kids and a mortgage.’ You don’t eat shit just because the toilet’s closer than the fridge.”

And it is precisely Bearer’s humor and sarcasm that was on display in the heated Facebook exchange, which has now been shared 278 times with over 385 comments. More so, since self-identified members of the Proud Boys have been quick to defend their eponymous leader on the thread. One commenter attempted to call out Bearer for “virtue signaling,” while simultaneously referring to the Proud Boys as a “multi-racial men’s club.” Another commenter said, “Sheer Terror, I suppose you support Socialism and the destruction of American principles and family values too? That’s pretty American these days.”

As the back and forth picked up momentum, Bearer finally said what everyone knows, “…they imply racism. Without actually calling it ‘racism’.”

He then went on to tell the Proud Boy defenders, “Fuck you where you breathe [sic] with your smarmy comebacks. You want nothing to do with me? Then, walk son.” 

The response was a classic retort, which echoes one of their classic songs, “I Spoiler (Bulldog Edition),” where mid-song, he tells someone to fuck off by saying,”Why don’t you hightail your ass back to Toronto, you lousy Canadian scumbag.” 

Not long after he changed tactics, he offered to put Proud Boys and their defenders on the guest list to their next show. “I take it all back. Proud Boys are VERY welcome to come see us play,” Bearer said. “Let’s see how that works out for you,OK? Is that fair? Come run your mouths. Please. I’ll even put you on the guest list. OK? Is that cool? I personally invite you to any show that we’re playing. Don’t disappoint me, now…” 

While Bearer makes it clear that he is not necessarily down with “AntiFA,” he supports anti-fascism overall, saying, “I stand with and for the working men & women, the downtrodden, the voiceless, the underdog, the AMERICAN PEOPLE, no matter what color, creed, or religion,” proving once and for all, old hardcore dudes can still kick it with the best of them.

 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

RVA Global: No Need to Punch Nazis: Lessons From Berlin

Wyatt Gordon | August 6, 2018

Topics: AFD, alt-right, Angela Merkel, Berlin, Charlottesville, Donald Trump, Germany, Nazis, neo-Confederate, politics, RVA Global, unite the right rally

Just a couple years ago, most Americans assumed that Nazis had been firmly relegated to the past, never to reappear outside the confines of history books. When Nazis did preoccupy the American mind they kindly restricted themselves to playing the role of evil villains in video games or on the silver screen. Unlike the fictitious Nazis of our entertainment media whose escapades always ended in defeat, the explosion of neo-Nazis after the electoral victory of Donald Trump mainstreamed the alt-right two years ago presents the first real chance for the vast majority of Americans to confront a Nazi in person. After the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville last summer ended with a white supremacist murdering a peaceful protester, the question of how to deal with Nazis has rebounded back to relevance for the first time in over seven decades.

The far-right loves to provoke. They live off of alarming and outraging headlines that win them the publicity they use to fundraise and recruit. Anyone who has ever listened to American intelligence officials talk about Al-Qaeda or Islamic State will recognize this is the go-to strategy of any extremist group. Most far-right provocations in America take place online through racist, neo-Confederate, and anti-semitic Facebook groups or Twitter rants. However, these movements of hate also frequently spill over into the real world. A prime example of such childish provocation came last September when a neo-Nazi walked around downtown Seattle in a leather jacket and a swastika armband “spewing racist vitriol” and hoping to get a reaction. By the time police arrived, the neo-Nazi had been punched to the ground and America was once again convulsed with the debate of whether one should or should not punch Nazis.

Germans have been grappling with their own far-right populist insurgency ever since the AFD, short for die Alternative für Deutschland / “the Alternative for Germany,” metastasized from an austerity-minded, anti-Euro movement to a party of xenophobic, homophobic, and pro-Putin trolls. Since the 2015 wave of refugees who fled Syria’s civil war and sought asylum in Europe, the normally bland world of German politics has been set ablaze by questions of how to differentiate between economic immigrants and fleeing refugees, whether Islam has a place in German society, and how a country that has spent the last 70 years atoning for Nazism should handle the resurgence of a far-right political party.

The people of Berlin have the answer.

Seeking to show off its newfound power after becoming the main opposition party in Germany’s Bundestag, or parliament, in 2017, the AFD declared it would host a march on the capital and invited its supporters to flood Berlin on May 27. In response 70 of Berlin’s most beloved clubs decided to close their doors in May that day and instead throw a party to celebrate everything they love about Berlin and Germany. “We’re everything the Nazis aren’t: We’re progressive, queer, feminist, anti-racist, inclusive, colorful, and we have unicorns,” stated the clubs as they called on their fans to join them in a day of peaceful protest through partying. Under the motto “No Dancefloor for Nazis: Let’s Blow the AFD Away with our Bass,” Berlin’s response to the far-right was born.

The AFD wanted their march to send a message to Angela Merkel and to set the tone in the capital in time for the beginning of the 2018 German legislative session. Through its calls to action on social media, the AFD claims it was able to rally 8,000 supporters to the march—less than 0.01 percent of the German population. Any American, however, is well-aware that the far-right likes to overstate their crowd sizes. Indeed, Berlin state police who closely monitored the event revealed that only 5,000 people were in attendance.

Poster for anti-fascist party

On the same day, the clubs’ Fest der Offenheit, or “Party of Openness,” sprawled across central Berlin from the Brandenburg Gate to the Victory Column in the middle of Tiergarten park. The clubs even organized a parade that featured 32 colorfully decorated floats, all blasting loud techno, house, or trance beats. In total, roughly 70,000 people turned out on Berlin’s streets to dance for hours, covered in glitter, and to show the AFD where they belong: on the sidelines of German politics.

Following their monumental embarrassment, the AFD then turned to another one of the far-right’s favorite tricks: playing the victim. They complained their “Meinungsfreiheit”—the German right to an opinion—and their right to protest had been infringed upon by the clubbers. Supporters of an open, welcoming Germany retorted that “Hate was never an opinion, hate isn’t an opinion, and hate will never be an opinion because hate isn’t reflective or constructive the way opinions are.”  The partiers never intruded upon the AFD march; they simply disrupted it with their loud bass beats and stole the headlines.

Berliners are renown for their “Schnauze”—the gruff, charming, and humorful way in which residents of the capital approach life and each other. It’s no wonder Berliners would choose to take down the far-right with their unique combination of confidence and wit. Last month while the leader of the AFD was swimming at a local lake, a Berliner stole his clothes and ran away crying, “No swimming fun for Nazis!”  While we in America argue over whether it’s OK to punch Nazis, Berliners will continue to show us the way by partying, making jokes, and exposing the far-right as the ludicrous movement it is.

Summer of Hate: As Temperatures Rise, Virginia Weathers An Onslaught Of White Nationalist Uprisings

Madelyne Ashworth | November 21, 2017

Topics: alt-right, black lives matter, Charlotttesville, Confederate Flag, Emancipation Park, Heather Heyer, Jason Kessler, Justice Park, Ku Klux Klan, Lee Monument, Nazis, Police, protesters, racism, Refuse Fascism, summer of hate, Thomas Jefferson Memorial, trump, unite the right rally, UVA, Virginia National Guard, white nationalists, white supremacy

“Shoot! Fire the first shot of the race war, baby!”

The man smiles as he shouts. He wears a blue button-down, blue baseball helmet, and carries a Vanguard America-Texas flag. A small gas-mask hangs from his neck as he stands behind the metal cordon inside Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, VA. Other young white men surround him, holding various shields and plastic face masks with similar symbols representing alt-right and white nationalist groups. They stand behind him, their faces contorted into a singular steely gaze of hatred, looking out at those on the other side of the fence. It’s misplaced. It’s scary. This is the scene as about 500 white supremacists gather around the Lee Monument under a guise of solidarity for Unite the Right.

Originally printed in RVA #30 FALL 2017, you can check out the issue HERE or pick it up around Richmond now. 

I see a young black woman standing on the side of the park, holding a cloth over her face. Her name is Reneigh Jenkins, an organizer with Refuse Fascism, a group that believes President Trump is a fascist. Her voice is hoarse from tear gas and cracks several times while she speaks.

“Are you okay?” I ask her. She puts her hand on my arm and guides me to the sidelines of the park, warning me of flying rocks and projectiles that angry young white men are flinging into the crowd. They cruise overhead, along with colored gas canisters. Some of the young white men swing bats and poles while others brandish pepper spray. “What happened?”

“I never thought in 2017, as a 25-year-old, that I would have to experience anything like this,” she says. “[Trump] is the reason why they feel so emboldened to run these streets and hit people over the head with bats. We’re here peacefully to say that racism is wrong and that it’s not acceptable. I know this country was founded on slavery and the genocide of Native Americans, but this is not acceptable.”

She walks away with her friends, all equally shocked by what they’re witnessing. They melt into the crowd of counter-protesters, almost 2000 of them, shouting and holding signs high above their heads; thinking, hoping, and praying these messages will somehow make a difference for these angry young men. These men who have become dangerously radicalized. These men who, convinced of their victimhood, have adopted white supremacy as a badge of pride and the mark of patriotism.

“Jews will not replace us!” they shout. “Blood and soil!”

Darting through the crowd, I notice a large skirmish across the perimeter fences the police set up to keep white supremacists and counter-protesters from physically confronting one another. Those fences have failed. Police line the fence and stand in formation as if preparing for a military operation, while armored vehicles and the Virginia National Guard awaited orders from the sidelines. As I draw closer, I suddenly realized I can’t breathe well. Tear gas burns and stings my airways as if I were swallowing thumbtacks of fire. People run from the area. I see that same young man holding the Vanguard America-Texas flag ram it into the forehead of a counter-protester. Blood runs down his face like water. More tear gas. More screaming.

As I struggle to breathe, a man pushes a water bottle into my hands and urges, “Put water on your shirt! You have to breathe through wet cloth!” I do as he says. When I turn back around to return the water, he’s gone. A medic treats the head wound on the young man. Police stand motionless.  

Charlottesville is a small Southern city in Central Virginia, situated at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The Historic Downtown Mall, stretching about a half mile, is its entire metropolitan area. The University of Virginia is nestled just to the west of the mall, giving Charlottesville some economic stimulation. The remainder of the city is really a town, in all its suburban, quiet glory. It’s the perfect place to raise your children, or to settle down once you’ve retired.

It’s also a place that’s steeped in history. People living outside of Charlottesville’s city center haven’t quite caught up, in that they still hold fast to old-fashioned, Southern perceptions. It’s an odd collision of old and new, conservative and liberal, intolerant and forgiving. Not exactly the place you’d go looking for a domestic terror attack… but they got one.

Of the several white nationalist rallies which occurred this past summer, Unite the Right on August 12 was the most violent. One of the white supremacists in attendance that day committed a domestic terror attack when he got in his car, sped down 4th Street, and drove into a group of counter-protesters, injuring 20 people and killing one woman, Heather Heyer.

Around Charlottesville, people scrambled to call friends and loved ones, hoping everyone was safe.

By comparison, the Ku Klux Klan rally in Charlottesville earlier in the summer was almost laughable. Around 50 old white men with antiquated racist ideas and costumes walked into Justice Park waving Confederate flags to protest the removal of the Stonewall Jackson monument. They made racial slurs about Jews and shouted that the white race is under attack in front of several African American police officers protecting them from about 1000 counter-protesters. They were an obsolete caricature of what they once represented. Klan members no longer hold clout or inspire fear; they’ve become old, tired bigots in clown hats.

The torch wielders, the re-invented skinheads, the young, modern Nazis and neo-Confederates are now the dangerous ones–born-again white nationalists who have inherited a false sense of displacement, who cling to outmoded hate and fling it like children playing with fireworks.

The road to the radical, alt-right violence as witnessed in Charlottesville begins with the poor white working class of America, a demographic of American life that many educated, progressive Americans won’t ever encounter and rarely think about. They occupy small town dive bars and rural landscapes, and are often swept under the rug as an unsavory part of American reality–people who never seem to matter until election time.

They are the people who have been defeated by the system, people who were raised in good Christian families who were taught to love God and Country unconditionally, people who are undereducated and have no idea they have as great a right to condemn the system as anyone else. They are victims of the same politics we all are, yet they have accepted their position in life as fate. A fate which, with the advent of the internet, younger generations have taken into their own hands, opening a chasm from white nationalism may emerge.

–

Later, in the home of Jason Lappa, a local Charlottesville photographer, my reporting team and I sit and wait as Lappa paces through the house, receiving call after call. Two of his friends have joined us in our reporting hideout, escaping the heat and madness of what Charlottesville has become. We munch on chips with our faces glued to Twitter, watching as more pictures and videos of the attack surface. Damani Harrison, a black Charlottesville resident, sits on the couch in disbelief.

“Did you see it happen?” I ask.

“No,” he replies. “I was there right after it happened. It was crazy.” He leaned back in the cool house, watching Facebook friend requests pile up as a result of using Facebook Live during the event. “Did you see what Trump said about it?”

“No,” I say. We sit and listen together. Harrison chuckles from his seat as Trump states that “both sides” were responsible for the violence. “We didn’t kill anyone.”

–

The night before August 12, hundreds of torch-wielding white supremacists marched through the UVA grounds to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, encircling the statue as their tiki torches lit the dark lawn, resembling Nazi rallies of the past.

 

“The torches are to commemorate the fallen dead of our European brothers and sisters–like Robert E. Lee, like Thomas Jefferson, like George Washington–who are under attack by these leftist cultural Marxists, who hate white people, who hate white people’s history, and want to blame them for things that happen in the past that every race on Earth did,” said Jason Kessler, a Unite the Right organizer, alt-right blogger, and conservative internet personality. “Right now we are in a civil rights struggle to save white people from ethnic cleansing, which is happening across the Western world.”

Kessler posted a video of himself at this event on his blog, “Real News with Jason Kessler,” in which he continues a narrative of white genocide, one seemingly endorsed by President Trump, and theorizes that white people are being “torn down and replaced” through current immigration policies. Rhetoric like his has spread across the far reaches of the internet through message forums like 4chan and Stormfront. It spreads to conservative news sites like Breitbart, pushing a seductive yet inaccurate account of the white struggle, what it means, and how it can be helped.

This internet recruitment effort has gained so much momentum, it outpaces that of the Islamic State (IS). A study conducted by George Washington University shows that expansion within white nationalist movements on Twitter has grown over 600 percent since 2012, grossly outperforming similar growth within IS groups on all social media platforms. According to a Pew Research study, there has only been a one percent increase in overall internet access between 2012 and 2016, meaning the change has occurred within the marketing and branding of white supremacy, not due to increased internet accessibility.

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the unemployment rate for Americans under 25 is over twice the overall rate, coming in at a whopping 10.5 percent. Meanwhile, according to a study by the Urban Institute, over one-fourth of college graduates are overqualified for their jobs; as economic weakness from the 2008 recession lingers, finding a job at all continues to be a struggle. Middle-class college students who come from a line of middle class, hard-working family members are now unable to find jobs that fit the career for which they went to school.

Finishing his UVA degree in 2009, at the height of the recession, Kessler comes from this group of children who grew up in a comfortable lifestyle, only to discover they cannot find jobs to sustain that lifestyle after graduation. As Kessler and other underemployed, disillusioned white college grads watch the middle class disappear, well-spoken white internet personalities directly address their problems: it’s because of race, they say. The non-whites are taking everything from you. For these young white men, it’s an easy answer. And too many of them are settling for it.

–

As the hours tick on during the Unite the Right rally, I come face to face with a group of white supremacists marching down the street outside Emancipation Park, shields barred as if ready for combat. They stare straight ahead, occasionally shouting back at the hundreds of counter-protesters lining their pathway. One man is particularly enthusiastic, as he jumps and shouts, “Fuck you!”

He wears a blue baseball helmet. It’s the same young man with the flagpole, but now his face is covered with tear gas neutralizer. The gas didn’t seem to slow him down. He whips his Vanguard flag into the faces of the crowd, then retreats into the group. He couldn’t be older than 25.

In the last week of September, FBI Chief Christopher Wray told Congress that the FBI has about 1,000 open investigations into potential domestic terrorists, largely people and groups connected to white nationalism and extremist white supremacy. This number is exactly on par with open investigations into IS. The liberal narrative around those recruited by IS is that they are scorned by circumstance, left with no prospects, and joining what is essentially the largest gang in the Middle East sounds better than the alternative. Obviously, this comparison is hyperbolic when juxtaposed to a bunch of privileged American white boys, but the process engaged in by these groups is the same: take someone who hates their life, fill them with rage, put them in a group of people just like them, and give them someone to blame it on.

And I wasn’t surprised to see it.

Being in the middle of things at Unite The Right was shocking, but knowing that it happened wasn’t. This exit from the shadows doesn’t mean radicalized neo-Nazis weren’t there in droves before August 12, 2017. They might not have been as vocal or as certain of their beliefs before being validated by a demagogic president, but they were there. Confederate statues are the Archduke Ferdinand of the United States–a small excuse triggering a much larger battle.

–

“So what are your thoughts on the Qur’an?”

We stand on the East End of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. It’s September 16. My team and I have arrived expecting tension and skirmishes between opposing political groups. Instead, we have found… a conversation. A young black man wearing an ‘American Guard North Carolina’ t-shirt faces a white woman in her clergy uniform. She holds her phone as she streams their conversation to a Facebook live feed, an outsider looking in.

“I read it 20 years ago, I’m not claiming to remember everything,” she replies as three other young men stand in a circle with the two debaters, occasionally weighing in on the conversation.

“I’m not Christian, but I can surmise that the Old Testament was violent. Can you surmise that the Qur’an is violent?”

“As violent as the Bible.”

Their conversation goes on so long, people begin to tire of it, leaving the small circle entirely. On this late summer afternoon, the Washington Monument stands proudly as supporters of “Trump, patriotism, and America” gather in small numbers, decked out in red white and blue. They sit together as guests like Florida gubernatorial candidate Bruce Nathan speak to a passionate crowd. Various counter-protesters hover at the outskirts of the gathering, including this member of the clergy, occasionally venturing into the crowd to make their presence known.

These protesters are not thrown out, pushed away, or attacked. A group of Black Lives Matter protesters walking through are even invited on stage for a couple of minutes to deliver their platform. Despite certain stereotypes, these Trump supporters stand by their claim to support and protect free speech, and ensure that anyone who walked through their gathering has a chance to speak their mind. Unassociated with any white supremacist groups, their death grip on traditionalist American values like liberty and patriotism has actually translated itself into something we didn’t quite expect: tolerance.

No one screams, no one is injured, no one dies. The conversation continues.

And summer turns to fall.

Photos by Jason Lappa

Former KKK leader David Duke calls on followers to attend ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville

RVA Staff | July 7, 2017

Topics: alt-right, Charlottesville, David Duke, KKK, Klan rally, Ku Klux Klan, Lee Park, protest, Unite the Right, white supremacist

As Charlottesville braces for tomorrow’s Ku Klux Klan rally, former KKK Imperial Wizard, anti-Semite, and white supremacist antagonist David Duke is already drawing attention to another white nationalist rally taking place in August.

On August 12, at Emancipation Park an event titled, ‘Unite the Right’ will be hosted by white nationalist, Jason Kessler. According to city officials, the permit indicated that close to 400 people will attend the event, which will take place between 12:00 and 5:00 pm.

Duke’s tweet simply read, “Be there -> the fake news will be” and was accompanied by an image referring to the demonstration location as ‘Lee Park’.

Charlottesville’s City Council unanimously voted to rename the park Emancipation Park on June 5, after a lengthy study by the ‘Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces’ commission. The commission also recommended removing the statues that celebrate Confederate General Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. This study also found, amongst other things that:

“The Lee and Jackson statues embodied the Lost Cause interpretation of the Civil War, which romanticized the Confederate past and suppressed the horrors of slavery and slavery’s role as the fundamental cause of the war while affirming the enduring role of white supremacy.”

In recent years, Duke, a former Louisiana State Representative who rose to prominence in the 1980s with an ill-advised run for president has re-emerged as a popular figure in white supremacist political circles. He has remained a staunch holocaust denier, anti-Semite, and purveyor of alt-right ideology that pushes the superiority of western civilization. Internationally, he has also worked to organize extreme right wing political parties by bringing ethno-nationalist groups together to push the values of ‘European Peoples‘.

This ideology has been proudly embraced by the ‘Unite the Right’ organizer, Jason Kessler who also represents a chapter of the Proud Boys in Charlottesville, a white nationalist group established by estranged founder of VICE, Gavin McInnes. Masking their supremacist rhetoric in calls to support western civilization and “refusing to apologize for creating the modern world”, the Proud Boys have become one of the latest incarnation of white nationalist re-emergence.

Read more about the Proud Boys in an RVA Mag story here.

Charlottesville has recently become a flashpoint for white nationalist rallies and alt-right provocateurs. According to the ‘Unite the Right’ Facebook page, their Free Speech Rally next month in Lee Park seeks to “…unify the right-wing against a totalitarian Communist crackdown, to speak out against displacement level immigration policies in the United States and Europe and to affirm the right of Southerners and white people to organize for their interests just like any other group is able to do, free of persecution.”

This rally on August 12, followed so shortly after tomorrow’s KKK rally, will continue to stress the ability of the sleepy Shenandoah town to deal with the the larger issues of race and politics throughout the Commonwealth.

Punched-Nazi leads white supremacists on torch-lit march to save Charlottesville Lee monument

Brad Kutner | May 15, 2017

Topics: alt-right, richard spencer, RVA

Saturday nights in Charlottesville are usually pretty quiet, but this past weekend the moist night air around Lee Park was disturbed by a self-identified white nationalist group as they protested the sale of a statue of Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

Lead by Richard Spencer (seen in top image via twitter), the self-described creator of the alt-right movement which is dedicated to the supremacy of white Europeans in America, dozens of protestors stood by a famed Lee statue which is set to be removed and sold after a recent city council vote.

The group carried torches and chanted phrases like “blood and soil” which is based on an old Nazi chant which suggests land rights are owed to those who were born, worked and lived on the land that is now being “attacked.” The Nazis used it against Jews, it appears the Alt-right is now using it on land originally owned by Native Americans and worked by about as many Blacks as whites.

“You will not replace us. You will not destroy us,” Spencer said on a Periscope video ahead of the broadcast. “You cannot destroy us. We have awoken. We are here. We are never going away.”

Spencer was famously punched in the face during Trump’s inauguration earlier this year.

In late April, Charlottesville City Council voted to sell the statue and had began the process of removing the controversial work. The city also plans to rename the park with the help of the public.

A city judge, however, granted a six month stay on the statues removal after groups sued to keep it in place. The city has been been allowed to continue removal plans, though.

The most vocal, public and politically relevant opposition to the sale has come from Republican gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart. Stewart, head of the Price William County Board of Supervisors, has used Civil War monuments as a division point from other GOP candidates ahead of the June Primary, though he has remained silent on this weekend’s protests.

The GOP frontrunner, businessman and GOP leadership member Ed Gillespie, took to twitter to condemn the protest.

Both Democratic gubernatorial frontrunners, Former Congressman Tom Perriello and Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam have similarly condemned the event.

Another group uniquely silent on Spencer’s actions is the Virginia Flaggers, a group of activists who “stand AGAINST those who would desecrate our Confederate Monuments and memorials, and FOR our Confederate Veterans.” The group is responsible for the Confederate Flags along inner-state 95 north and south of Richmond. The groups facebook page put up a number of posts supporting Lee, but have seemingly avoided any conversation of the Nazi-influenced protest from Saturday night.

The seriousness of the protest has been connected to the work of the Klu Klux Klan and their use of torches and fire as a way to drum up fear.

Charlottesville May Mike Singer took to twitter to call the event “profoundly ignorant” or “designed to instill fear in our minority populations in away they are harkens back to the days of the KKK.”

“Either way,” Singer said in a statement, “I want everyone to know this: we reject this intimidation. We are a Welcoming City, but such intolerance is not welcome here.”

It’s been a few years, but the KKK has reared its head in Cville before – back in 07 the group aimed to reenter the spotlight, though it seemed to have been stymied until now.

Words by BK, top image via twitter user Hadassah_Muth

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