In light of the great Nazi punching meme going around right now, I want to remind everyone that the people who were filmed socking Richard Spencer were members of AntiFa or another organization aligned with AntiFa. They were dressed the way they were to obscure their identity and were trained, prepared, etc. to risk and face arrest, pepper spray, violent police force etc. They weren’t just any random person.
We all should want to rearrange a Nazi face but please remember that AntiFa resistance is trained to take these actions while protecting themselves and others from law enforcement. The best thing many of us can do is to support and assist these people: by not identifying them, by not implicating them, by covering their movements and not putting ourselves or others at-risk while they are working.
Punch a Nazi today, but recognize that AntiFa and aligned organizations might fight for everybody but they don’t go into these situations as everypeople. A clear understanding of their actions, goals, and the risks of their work is paramount to their safety and success.
In the last four weeks, there have been 57 bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers in the United States.
I want to add some information clarifying the relationship this has to cues the White House is sending white supremacists. Some of it is “subtle” to many ears so I just want to highlight two things I’ve heard about.
1) Steve Bannon produced a piece of propaganda which used explicit images from the Holocaust but did not mention anti-semitism. Rather the argument of the propaganda film was that this is what happens when societies move away from “religion” (by which he means Christianity). More on that in this NPR interview with Sarah Posner.
An ordinary non-Jewish person might not notice something was up - but you better believe the kind of white supremacists who engage in antisemitic threats and acts *do* notice and feel emboldened by it.
