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Identity Evropa: The Evolution of White Supremacy Came to Richmond (For Our Trash)

John Donegan | June 21, 2018

Topics: Anti-Defamation League, Identity Evropa, Southern Poverty Law Center, trump, Unite the Right, white supremacy

It’s been almost a year since the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville and alt-right groups are still trying to mainstream white supremacy. While the aftermath of the rally would ensure public outrage at the organizers, the delusional unification of these groups would soon erupt, splintering an allegedly cohesive group into various factions.

One group in particular, which predates Trump’s nomination, hit full stride during the rally in Charlottesville and was present in Richmond only a short while ago.

What were they doing? Collecting our trash.

This was no selfless gesture, however, but part of their nationwide ‘Weekend of Service’ – their latest project to mainstream a modern version of white supremacy. The group’s name is Identity Evropa (IE), and they are the cure to our “anarcho-tyrannical” society (in other words, if you’re a straight up white dude).

Instead of taking an offensive strategy through public rallies, IE took note of what they believe didn’t work during Unite the Right. Priding themselves on operational security, they only unveil logistics to members and sympathizers who pass two prior screenings and several Skype interviews before being allowed to enjoy IE’s private server. This includes information on upcoming events, fellow members in the area, and discussion boards to examine white persecution and biodiversity – this is not your grandfather’s KKK.

Their main project, dubbed “Project Siege,” has the group trekking across college campuses and public spaces. So far they have tagged over 60 metropolitan areas with white empowerment propaganda full of trite revelations about the need to restore the ‘supermajority’ in America.

Out on the front lines of the white supremacist movement, IE operates its influence operation through a campaign of guerilla “optics” in public spaces – primarily through the use of provocative banner drops and flyering – but also heavy social networking.

Identified as a white supremacist organization by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the group that claims to have more than 1,000 members nationwide. They are seen as a legitimate threat, and for good reason.

IE targets professors and “professional anti-racists,” who promote and teach courses that clash with white nationalist ideology or do not align with the group’s victim narrative.

Identity Europa Recruitment Flyer

They are also heavily reliant on the immigration debate to further their ideology, denouncing “sanctuary cities” and using examples like the murder of Kate Steinle as proof of the danger that black and brown people pose.

Professor Gregory Smithers, a Native American history and Cherokee studies professor at VCU, focuses on the history of racism and provides some clarity on how IE are mainstreaming their ideology. “The leaders of these groups aspire to be taken seriously,” Smithers said. “This attempted normalization is a way to try to achieve it while also providing cover for the young hot-heads who crave violent confrontations.”

IE claims they aren’t “white supremacists” because they don’t believe that white people should govern over non-white people.

“We still identify IE as a white supremacist group,” said Marilyn Mayo, senior research fellow at ADL Center for Extremism who spoke with RVA Mag about emerging white supremacist groups. “Nathan Damigo [the leader of IE], adopted white supremacy when he created the group.”

And this is true.

Before the group’s inception in 2016, former-Marine Nathan Damigo went to prison for assaulting an Iraqi cab driver. This is where he discovered pro-white literature and where the pathway to white supremacism came about.

Within a growing ecosystem of hate groups and white supremacists, Damigo found new purpose upon being released, but would prove too aggressive to spread IE’s message. Damigo eventually resigned, along with several like-minded followers following the events at Unite the Right, allowing for new CEO Patrick Casey to take over.

Under Casey’s leadership, IE started operating under the streamlined moniker of an “American Identitarian” organization. This involved mainly private conferences and civil service projects organized under tight control to improve the organization’s public image without running the risk of public criticisms, effectively distancing IE from the worst excesses of the alt-right and white supremacy.

Casey differs from Damigo in that he models the “intellectual racist” after the likes of Jared Taylor and others from American Renaissance and ex-Klan lawyer Sam Dickson. As described in an expose by The Outline, the writer highlights conference events where frat boys gather to deliver speeches on “Race Realism.” From this position, they can double down on nonsensical beliefs like ‘biological purity.’

According to Mayo, Casey and his followers have represented IE at Breitbart socials, Conservative Political Action Committees, and Gateway conferences; each time bringing themselves into the political discussion as a legitimate group with legitimate opinions.

True to IE’s collegiate image of the “racist intellectual,” attendees at their closed weekend conferences wear suits and ties – part of mainstreaming process – as a way to sway potential recruits. Upon attaining membership, each recruit is instructed to keep their outfits tidy, stay off drugs, and keep their hair well groomed and parted.

If that isn’t enough, IE also has a marketing strategy with t-shirts, bags, phone cases, banners, and posters, along with other paraphernalia adorned with interesting designs to draw in uninspired youth.

As their namesake implies, IE believes identity matters. According to SPLC reports, IE filters out anyone they believe does not conform to their version of European identity, including those with tattoos, people with dark skin, convicts, Jews–identity questions asked during the interview process as this isn’t the European heritage they wish to promote.

Unsurprisingly, their warcry bears a striking familiarity to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan: Action, Leadership, Identity–America First, End Immigration -making claims like replacing the native population in a country with foreigners is treasonous. While the group is openly anti-Semitic, (stating any “white” resister to their cause must be Jewish), their posters feature an image of Michelangelo’s David–ironically a Jewish king.

“The glory of white civilization is something they think is being lost, and regardless of whether it is historically accurate,” Mayo said. “They want to promote that.”

Identity Europa Recruitment Flyer

Few women join the group, and for good reason. When women are referenced in IE’s ideology or associated with past European tradition, they are painted as objective treasures, the fruit of their pridelands, and always at the risk of capture by any non-whites (or Jews).

IE implies women are given the privilege to full citizenship, even though they are weaker, as a product of male generosity. A photo of a recent event showed some of their members in attendance, all but one were men.

With a basic understanding of irony, one could laugh at their attempt to mainstream; nonetheless, the problem is their strategy is working. This group, as well as other white supremacist groups like Patriot Front and Operation Homeland, have continued to grow for the fourth straight year – especially in Virginia – according to a report by the SPLC.

Hiding under the guise of “ethno-pluralists,” IE and other groups like theirs, believe in the creation and return to a country that is white only. According to Smithers, this rebranding is hardly new.

“I would say that the idea of an ethno-state is it isn’t a new concept,” Smithers said. “It is an idea that was central to the states that passed Jim Crow laws during the late 19th and early 20th century.” He added that the idea of an entho-state inspired the system of apartheid in South Africa, along with “settler societies” like those in Australia as a way to “breed out the color.”   

One of the many problems with this ideology is that there is no distinct example of what European descent actually is.

“You have people, young white males in particular, that want to belong to a greater cause, but feel alienated in some of today’s issues like white guilt and not having their own groups on campus,” Mayo said. “But at the end of the day, we do not really know what their true end goal is.”

Hate crimes in the US are still on the rise and studies are linking this increase to white nationalism. In A Psychological Profile of the Alt-Right, researchers Patrick S. Forscher and Nour S.Kteily, studied the likelihood of violent acts toward people of different races. According to their analyses, alt-right “adherents” expressed significant “Dark Triad Traits”: social dominance orientation, authoritarianism, and aggression. Participants also exhibited extreme levels of “overt intergroup bias,” including, “blatant dehumanization of racial minorities.” Therefore, the idea was never to embrace the tradition of European ancestors, but to provide a smokescreen for their racism and anti-Semitism.

America was forged by the hands of refugees, outcasts, and multiple cultures–a haven for those who didn’t belong. But the US has also abused that idea since its inception; this country was built on the backs of those who were enslaved and disenfranchised. This is the America they are fighting to return to.

IE and groups like theirs ultimately hide their ideology in plain sight. Their talk of nationalism vs. globalism is a pseudo-scientific facade masquerading as mainstream politics, which is equal parts comedy and terrifying.

“The horseshoe theory is a favorite of the alt-right,” Smithers said in closing. “In short, it’s a way for fascist and extreme right-wing groups to conflate their hateful worldview with those of mainstream political theories.”

Even with their abrasive personalities, marketing innovations or creative community service projects, bigots are still bigots. And no service project or clean suit will make them anything more than douches with a trash bag–remember, even the Klan did highway clean-up.

Opinion: New “Zero Tolerance” Immigration Policies are Incompatible with Basic Human Decency

Rabbi Michael Knopf | June 15, 2018

Topics: Human Rights, ICE, immigration, trump, zero tolerance policy

A few weeks ago, I attended a gathering of faith leaders from across the Richmond, Va. region. Speaker after speaker — including a scholar at a conservative think tank and two Republican politicians — blamed social ills like the opioid epidemic on “family breakdown” and the decline of religion in America.

I find those claims problematic. But more striking was the irony that, as the presenters emphasized the centrality of faith and family, the Trump Administration — which enjoys broad support among “family values” conservatives like those on the panel — was literally and deliberately destroying families.

Under the Administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy, immigration officials now routinely place parents and children in the custody of different agencies within disparate governmental departments, preventing parents and children from staying in contact with one another or even knowing exactly where their loved ones are being held. Even worse, recent reports have exposed these agencies as habitually failing to keep track of the children in their custody, permitting some even to fall into the hands of human traffickers.

Shelter for Incarcerated Child Migrants. Photo by Jacob Soboroff ‏

In the weeks since “zero tolerance” was announced, hundreds of children have been ripped from their parents’ arms, and as the policy takes hold and proceeds unchecked, those numbers will doubtless climb. That translates to countless children forcibly separated from parents; thousands of families destroyed, children traumatized, and lives ruined. Compounding this cruelty is the fact that many of the families at the border are refugees fleeing poverty, persecution and violence, and are being deprived of the opportunity even to apply for asylum in the United States.

The belligerence of this administration toward immigrants from the global South and the heartlessness with which it fashions immigration policy is not new. Even before “zero tolerance” was announced, ICE had separated at least 700 children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the New York Times. And aggressively going after undocumented immigrants, cancelling the Dream Act and revoking the Temporary Protected Status of refugees from places like Honduras and El Salvador, the administration is forcing parents, many of whom have lived and worked in the United States for decades, to decide between leaving behind their American-raised children or uprooting them to lands where they may not even speak the language.

These policies are incompatible with basic human decency, let alone the family values and scriptural faith that those who advance, support or tolerate them claim to cherish. The centrality of family and the sanctity of the bonds between parent and child are foundational biblical principles. Little wonder, then, that the most unforgivable evil perpetrated by the Bible’s chief villain, Pharaoh, was his policy of forcing Hebrew mothers to abandon their baby boys. Conversely, the refusal of the midwives and Pharaoh’s daughter to comply with the king’s decree constitute the most extraordinary acts of heroism in the Bible. In the Bible, the most definitive act of villainy is the destruction of families, while the most celebrated act of righteousness is stopping such destruction.

The Administration and its supporters claim that their intent is simply to punish criminals and deter would-be law-breakers. This is dishonest. Treating immigration as a criminal issue rather than as, say, a humanitarian concern, is a deliberate policy choice, as is the refusal to afford undocumented immigrants due process and equal treatment. Furthermore, most of the migrants in question – especially the children – have committed no crimes, even under the harshest interpretation of current immigration law. Such punishment cannot be considered appropriate in any civilized society. Adding insult to injury, there is no evidence to suggest that these policies deter illegal immigration. After all, Pharaoh’s policy of destroying Hebrew families backfired.

The truth is that our leaders are consciously choosing this path, and our law enforcement officers are choosing to enforce it.

Ultimately, we must decide whether we will abide by these pharaonic policies, or whether we will rise, like the biblical midwives, to oppose them.

It is disheartening that many in my own community, including those who claim to be the most religious among us, are failing this moral test. Just days after he took away asylum status for victims of domestic and gang violence, Sessions received a standing ovation from the Orthodox Union, an organization that represents the American Orthodox Jewish community.

I was proud to stand with colleagues to demand the Orthodox Union confront Sessions about this inhumane policy. Inspired by our faith tradition, we believe our country’s fortunes depend on our commitment to principles like the centrality of family, the primacy of human dignity, and the importance of human dignity. Policies that destroy families and subvert bedrock values don’t make a country great. On the contrary, as the ancient Egyptians learned, they inevitably lead to ruin.

Trump’s Tariffs: Is the Future Darker For Virginia’s Solar Industry?

Daniel Berti | June 12, 2018

Topics: environmental, solar industry, solar panels, solar tariffs, trump

Has the Virginia solar industry been impacted by Trump’s solar tariffs?

The Trump administration’s solar tariffs, which went into effect in January, are already having major repercussions for the solar sector in the United States. The tariffs have been the source of some controversy since they were announced in the summer of 2017 after multiple reports found that the tariffs would slow job growth in the sector and cause an estimated net reduction of 10 percent in solar installations.

Many of these concerns were substantiated on Monday when Reuters reported that over $2.5 billion in US solar projects have been shelved in 2018 as a result of the tariffs, as well as thousands of jobs. In Central Virginia however, the impact of the tariffs has been muted up to this point, but the future of solar in the state remains uncertain.

Chase Coble, project manager at Integrated Power Sources of Virginia, a Richmond-based solar installation company said that the tariffs have been a double-edged sword for the company. The company’s prices have increased slightly since the tariffs were put in place, but the media attention created by the solar tariffs caused a spike in residential installations this year that made up for the increase in the cost of solar modules.

Coble expressed concern that major energy providers have rolled back their investments in commercial solar projects this year, making commercial solar opportunities harder to come by and causing some doubt about the longevity of the company.

“Our greatest concern is the long game,” he said.

Barklie Estes, President of Nova Solar, a commercial and residential solar installation company based in Falls Church, said that the costs of Trump’s solar tariffs outweigh the benefits. The company purchased a large amount of solar modules before the tariffs were put into place in January this year as a precautionary measure, but according to Estes the price of the modules has evened out over the course of the year, and has recently returned to pre-tariff prices.

“I haven’t had to lay anyone off,” said Estes. “We’re still running at full capacity. Whether it would be busier without [the tariffs], that’s difficult to say.”

Sigora Solar, a Charlottesville-based solar company, employs 54 people between four locations in Virginia, and recently opened a branch in Richmond in Scott’s Addition. Marketing manager Madeleine Ray said that Sigora has been relatively unaffected by the Trump tariffs, and has not had to change their prices or lay off any of its employees.

“Solar, regardless of the tariffs, has been the fastest growing industry in the nation,” she said. “Really, at the end of the day, solar has not decreased in demand. It’s an incredible renewable energy, and it is still creating jobs.”

 

Virginia solar’s subdued reaction to the tariffs may be due to the rapid growth of the solar sector statewide over the last several years. The solar industry in Virginia experienced 10 percent growth in employment in 2017 and ranks 21st in the nation in solar jobs, employing over 3,500 people across the state. The number of solar jobs in Virginia surpassed that of the coal industry in 2017. The industry has been boosted by several major renewable energy efforts in the last year, including the 2017 Clean Energy Jobs tour headed by former governor Terry McAuliffe, who introduced plans to create a six megawatt solar farm in Danville, Virginia last spring.

 

It was also announced in January of this year that Utah-based Sustainable Power Group would begin construction on a 700,000 panel, 500-megawatt solar farm in Spotsylvania County. Tech behemoth Microsoft plans to make history by purchasing two-thirds of the power generated from that solar farm, the “single largest corporate purchase of solar energy ever in the United States.”

 

For the time being, the solar sector in Virginia is relatively stable, but momentum appears to have slowed in comparison with past years. The Solar Foundation, a non-profit organization that collects national census data for the solar industry, estimates that solar job growth in Virginia will grow only 1.5 percent in 2018, an 8.5 percent reduction from the previous year.

 

GTM Research, a clean energy research firm, released a report in January that predicted that the solar industry would largely be insulated from the tariffs in 2018 because solar companies would have time to prepare for them. According to the report however, 2019 is expected to be, “the most painful year for the utility-scale sector, with a 1.6-gigawatt decline in installations.” If these claims are accurate, then Virginia solar companies could expect some turbulence in the near future.

Photo By: Axios

Opinion: The NFL’s National Anthem Ruling Just Lost Them a Generation of New Fans

John Donegan | June 5, 2018

Topics: Colin Kaepernick, football, National Anthem, NFL, police brutality, protest, racism, trump

On May 23, the NFL ‘unanimously’ gathered to announce that during the national anthem, all players must stand in attendance or wait in the locker room. The decision came without prior counsel from the national players association, as well as the players’ coalition, despite the three parties, up until last Wednesday, having seemed to have found some kind of resolution on the issue. The NFL, after all, agreed at the end of last year, to give $90 million to aid the players’ community activism.

While the NFL expressed that this was made to avoid interjecting politics into players’ lives, the decision ultimately comes with a stroke of irony; in trying to depoliticize the issue, they politicized it in the worst of ways. And to make matters worse, just yesterday, President Trump, canceled the upcoming ceremony with the Super Bowl Champions, the Philadelphia Eagles at the White House. He tweeted, “They disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem…”

While I agree kneeling may take away from the national anthem, bullying and cajoling players into a respectful silence is un-American at best, and a sign of deep insecurity at worst.

Nonetheless, the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, doubled-down on this ruling, stating that they have been “sensitive enough” to the player’s “choices” but demand that they stand during the anthem. “We want people to stand — and make sure they treat this moment in a respectful fashion,” said Goodell shortly after the ruling.

As a private entity, I get it: The NFL does what it can to protect its brand and their financial bottom line. They’re not social warriors, their job is to entertain and make money doing so, anything else is considered a threat.

And to double down on my own statement, I can see where this makes sense: After all, the NFL is hurting in the ratings, (another 9.7 percent drop during the 2017 season). With reports of declining viewers and backlash over the league’s handling of traumatic brain injuries, increasing reports of domestic abuse, and nearly half of parents now looking to distance their children from football due to the risk of brain injury. With attacks on their current players and their supply lines, it’s obvious the NFL has never been more desperate to return to its former glory; where the intersections of contemporary life never presented themselves.

Kaepernick. Photo from kaepernick7.com

But that is not the world we live in anymore. With this recent ruling, it is clear who the NFL believes their “core” fans to be and who they expect to protect their brand moving forward.

Not the legions of young engaged people who level with the league’s players on the same issues – police brutality and state-sanctioned violence – offering a deeper connection between them as they become the new generation of NFL viewers. The NFL could have had a vision that took its viewers into the 21st Century.

Yet they chose those fans who were already leaving – disproportionately white, male, and conservative – who drool over the drenched faux-patriotism as an escape – and those who can use this issue to continually justify their racism.  

But let’s be clear: This decision did not happen in a vacuum.

No public quarrel of this magnitude was possible without Trump. On numerous occasions, he demanded that the players face expulsion from both the league and apparently the country.

Any president who calls a player a “son of a bitch” on live television for expressing their rights to free speech is, put simply, a clown. While the public responded with the usual skepticism to another daily twitter rant, the downstream effect was not lost on certain team owners.

Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, as well as Dolphin owner Stephen Ross, in a series of depositions gathered by the Wall Street Journal, attributed much of their decision to forbid their players to protest out of fear of the president’s ire.

Despite this, the legalese behind this decision is hardly on firm footing, which also factors into how we should perceive this issue.

On May 21 of this year, Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis ruled in favor of free speech in the private sector. The ruling stated: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Whether it be kneeling or the Macarena, the ruling addressed that self-organization to protest and demonstrate are protected under our labor laws.

Even still, are the players’ method of protest that unethical and disgraceful to our sensibilities as a country who values and protects free speech? What if Colin Kaepernick protested not against the police killing of black males, but the undervaluing of our troops or maybe the ineffectiveness of our veterans affairs system? What if a player kneeled to protest abortion?

Would people have come out with the same uproar? Of course not.

Because in America, it doesn’t matter what you are protesting, but who is doing the actual protesting. Herein lies the major difference and begs the question: When have black people ever been able to protest without an overwhelming hostility from traditional American institutions like the NFL? In making this decision, the NFL has only legitimized a vicious cycle of inequality that ironically marginalizes around 70 percent of their players. That is not only morally reprehensible, but runs contrary to the entire American experience.  

Ask any active service member, veteran, or cop what it means to be patriotic and they’ll each give you a different answer; because the idea of patriotism is ambiguous at best and nefarious at worst. And in this instance, it is the latter, as the idea of patriotism is being conflated with the worst kinds of populism and nationalism.

These players took a knee in good faith, to support those in their community who have suffered a form of state-sanctioned violence. There is little question that this is true. In 2017 alone, police killed 1,147 black people accounting for 25 percent of those killed, despite representing only 13 percent of the overall population. The role of law enforcement in this country has overreached and most people would agree on that.

So why can’t we pause a fucking sporting event to address this critical issue? White people must speak up and be strong allies, regardless of the sanctity of your sporting event; which, let’s be clear, did not interject overt patriotism until the Pentagon started signing contracts with pro-sports leagues in 2012.

As a millennial raised in a military family, the topic of patriotism can cause some internal dramas, as I am sure it does for people like me who grew up on various bases all over the world.

I commend the troops risking their lives, but I believe no one should be forced to stand for the anthem. Soldiers and police serve to protect this very freedom and no one person should be required to value or even honor the freedom that they have. To think differently is to enter into the realm of the kinds of authoritarianism prevalent in less democratized countries; enforcing freedom doesn’t make much sense. And sorry, but just because of any one players’ achievements doesn’t give us the right to reduce their freedom of expression in whatever form it might take.

Not to mention these players have made it abundantly clear they are not protesting our military, but a system of racism that develops into black and brown people being killed by the police at disproportionately high numbers.

When Roseanne Barr grabbed her crotch after a shrieking mockery of the national anthem, she called it a joke, yet managed to have a long career afterward. Yet when Kaepernick kneels, he’s immediately tossed away from the league and graces of fans, even having to file a list of grievances on the grounds of owners in collusion to keep him out.

From another perspective, maybe we don’t deserve someone like Kaepernick, who gave up his career to draw attention to a cause we all know to be true. Maybe he represents the best of an American that has been acknowledged only in the study of civic responsibility.

Patriotism can’t be forced, especially not by rich billionaires telling predominately black athletes how they should exercise their patriotism just because the clock is running.

That’s not a compromise. It is a distortion of everything that actually makes America great. But those who disagree understand privilege as having the privilege to salute the flag. And that has come to be the uncomfortable truth.

Either way- come September- the choice of standing or remaining in the locker-room during the anthem won’t change anything-  you don’t think those same shit-kicking fans won’t notice? You think Trump won’t stop tweeting? This is only the start. But as a warning to any of those who continue to berate these protests, I say this: watch your words very wisely. You do not want to be on the wrong side of history with this one.

 

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

Juggalo Justice: Insane Clown Posse’s March on DC in Portrait

Jason Lappa | September 19, 2017

Topics: FBI, ICP, Insane Clown Posse, Juggalo, justice, Mother of all Rallies, National Mall, trump, Washington DC

Juggalos are a deeply misunderstood subculture; the FBI classifying them as a gang in 2011 proves that. However, under the veneer of face paint, clown personas, costumes, and Faygo is a community of people that are deeply committed to one another. This was on full display at the Juggalo March on Washington DC this past Saturday. From a certain perspective, Insane Clown Posse (ICP), the hip-hop group that Juggalos originate from, are only the vehicle by which this community of people can come together. Free from the judgement of the mainstream that has spent years ridiculing their own unique brand of subculture, the Juggalos at the march on Washington were entirely accepting of themselves and those who came to document their struggle against the FBI gang classification.

Our experience documenting their march on Washington DC was special. Our entire team, including one journalist, two photographers, a videographer, and one of the magazine’s owners, all felt this. Perhaps it was the obvious juxtaposition of the Trump rally on the other side of the national mall, which was full of white resentment, loathing of the other, and militia groups, versus the camaraderie of the Juggalos, who were diverse, warm, and eager to tell their story – a story that starts with being deeply misunderstood.

As these portraits will hopefully show, the Juggalos considered themselves to be “family” above anything else, coming from all corners of the US to march in solidarity with one another. And throughout the day the chant that we consistently heard rise above the raucous was “family.” In today’s hyper-contextualized world, that is something we should all be able to relate to.

They came from all over America.


And were supported directly by the artists they love, like Violent J

Mothers. Fathers. Kids.

Because they are misunderstood and misrepresented.

So they demonstrated as a community.

And marched together.

 Accepting of each other.

Regardless of how they represented themselves.

For them, it was all about family.

And everything which comes with that.

 

*Words by Landon Shroder 

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