Category Archives: Alt-right

Emoji are now part of our language. If youre like most people, you pepper your texts, Instagram posts, and TikTok videos with various little images to augment your wordsmaybe the syringe with a bit of blood dripping from it when you got your vaccination, the prayer (or high-fiving?) hands as a shortcut to thank you, a rosy-cheeked smiley face with jazz hands for a covid-safe hug from afar. Todays emoji catalogue includes nearly 3,000 illustrations representing everything from emotions to food, natural phenomena, flags, and people at various stages of life.

Behind all those symbols is the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit group of hardware and software companies aiming to make text and emoji readable and accessible to everyone. Part of their goal is to make languages look the same on all devices; a Japanese character should be typographically consistent across all media, for example. But Unicode is probably best known for being the gatekeeper of emoji: releasing them, standardizing them, and approving or rejecting new ones.

Jennifer Daniel is the first woman at the helm of the Emoji Subcommittee for the Unicode Consortium and a fierce advocate for inclusive, thoughtful emoji. She initially rose to prominence for introducing Mx. Claus, a gender-inclusive alternative to Santa and Mrs. Claus; a non-gendered person breastfeeding a non-gendered baby; and a masculine face wearing a bridal veil.

Now shes on a mission to bring emoji to a post-pandemic future in which they are as broadly representative as possible. That means taking on an increasingly public role, whether its with her popular and delightfully nerdy Substack newsletter, What Would Jennifer Do? (in which she analyzes the design process for upcoming emoji), or inviting the general public to submit concerns about emoji and speak up if they arent representative or accurate.

There isnt a precedent here, Daniel says of her job. And to Daniel, thats exciting not just for her but for the future of human communication.

I spoke to her about how she sees her role and the future of emoji. The interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

What does it mean to chair the subcommittee on emoji? What do you do?

Its not sexy. [laughs] A lot of it is managing volunteers [the committee is composed of volunteers who review applications and help in approval and design]. Theres a lot of paperwork. A lot of meetings. We meet twice a week.

I read a lot and talk to a lot of people. I recently talked to a gesture linguist to learn how people use their hands in different cultures. How do we make better hand-gesture emoji? If the image is no good or isnt clear, its a dealbreaker. Im constantly doing lots of research and consulting with different experts. Ill be on the phone with a botanical garden about flowers, or a whale expert to get the whale emoji right, or a cardiovascular surgeon so we have the anatomy of the heart down.

Theres an old essay by Beatrice Warde about typography. She asked if a good typeface is a bedazzled crystal goblet or a transparent one. Some would say the ornate one because its so fancy, and others would say the crystal goblet because you can see and appreciate the wine. With emoji, I lend myself more to the transparent crystal goblet philosophy.

Why should we care about how our emoji are designed?

My understanding is that 80% of communication is nonverbal.Theres a parallel in how we communicate. We text how we talk. Its informal, its loose. Youre pausing to take a breath. Emoji are shared alongside words.

When emoji first came around, we had the misconception that they were ruining language. Learning a new language is really hard, and emoji is kind of like a new language. It works with how you already communicate. It evolves as you evolve. How you communicate and present yourself evolves, just like yourself. You can look at the nearly 3,000 emoji and it [their interpretation] changes by age or gender or geographic area. When we talk to someone and are making eye contact, you shift your body language, and thats an emotional contagion. It builds empathy and connection. It gives you permission to reveal that about yourself. Emoji can do that, all in an image.

Read more here:

The woman who will decide what emoji we get to use - MIT Technology Review

Republican voters choice for Virginia governor, a deep-pocketed first-time candidate who plans to run as a business-friendly political outsider, will offer a major test in the post-Trump era of the partys ability to win back suburban voters who have fled over the past four years.

Glenn Youngkin, who won the Republican nomination on Monday night, had walked a line between his partys Trump-centric base and appeals to business interests in a crowded field, defeating two rivals who more aggressively courted supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.

After years of Democratic advances in the state thanks to suburban voters who adamantly rejected anyone linked to the Trump G.O.P., Mr. Youngkin, 54, a former private equity executive, has warned that we can kiss our business environment away if Democrats retain power in Richmond.

During the nominating fight, he criticized the current governor, Ralph Northam, and his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, for creating business conditions that cause college-educated residents (read: suburbanites) to move away.

But even as Mr. Youngkin tries to focus on kitchen-table issues, Democrats signaled on Tuesday they would aggressively seek to fuse the nominee to Mr. Trump, by reminding voters of hard-line positions he took in fending off six Republican rivals including on voting rights, Medicaid expansion and culture-war topics like critical race theory.

Mr. McAuliffe, the polling leader for the Democratic nomination, said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr. Youngkin spent his campaign fawning all over Donald Trump, adding that he would make it harder to vote and be a rubber stamp for the N.R.A.s dangerous agenda.

Mr. Trump stayed out of the G.O.P. race while the field jockeyed for position, with Mr. Youngkin ultimately emerging as the winner after roughly 30,000 voters cast ranked-choice ballots at 39 locations around the state on Saturday. But the former president jumped in on Tuesday with an endorsement of Mr. Youngkin, although it was primarily an attack on Mr. McAuliffe, a former fund-raiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton, who as a private citizen was in business with Chinese investors.

Virginia doesnt need the Clintons or the Communist Chinese running the state, Mr. Trump said, so say no to Terry McAuliffe, and yes to Patriot Glenn Youngkin!

But Mr. Youngkin might consider such effusions unwelcome in a state Mr. Trump lost by 10 percentage points in November.

Mr. Youngkin, 54, was raised in Virginia Beach and has lived in Northern Virginia for 25 years. He defeated two rivals who appealed more directly to the Trump-centric base: Pete Snyder, a technology entrepreneur, and State Senator Amanda Chase, a hard-right supporter of the former president who was censured in a bipartisan vote of the states General Assembly for referring to the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 as patriots.

Mr. Youngkins appeal to Republicans was at least twofold: He is a political blank slate, with no record in elected office for Democrats to attack. And his private wealth reportedly more than $200 million after he retired as co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group will allow him to compete financially against Mr. McAuliffe, a prolific fund-raiser.

Mr. McAuliffe raised $36 million for his 2013 election campaign and more than $9.9 million during the past two years, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Mr. Youngkin has already spent $5.5 million of his own money since entering the race in late January.

Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009, and Democratic dominance of the once-purple state accelerated under Mr. Trump, with Democrats taking control of both houses of the General Assembly in 2020 for the first time in a generation.

They used their dominance of state government to pass sweeping progressive priorities like more restrictive gun laws and a ban on capital punishment.

But the trend is not irreversible, as some election analysts see it. In the pre-Trump era, Mr. McAuliffe won his first governors race in 2013 by just 2.5 percentage points against a hard-right conservative, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II. Rural regions of southern and southwest Virginia have grown redder even as the populous northern and central suburbs are bluer. There is a theoretical path to statewide Republican victory for a candidate who rouses rural Trump voters, appeals to suburban independents and benefits from lower overall Democratic turnout without Mr. Trump as a motivator.

And Mr. Youngkin has signaled that he would run against the very legislation Democrats have passed, accusing his opponents of pushing Virginia far to the left of most voters preferences.

Mr. McAuliffe may be the clear polling leader for the Democrats, but he is conspicuous as the lone white candidate in a field with three Black contenders, in a party whose base is heavily African-American.

In four years in office, Mr. McAuliffe governed as a pro-business Democrat, and he began his campaign for a second term in December on a pro-education note, pledging to raise teacher pay and offer universal pre-K. (Virginia governors cannot serve two consecutive terms.)

Though Mr. Youngkin is not as unrelenting a supporter of Mr. Trump as some of his Republican opponents, he declined the chance at a recent candidates forum to distance himself from Mr. Trumps lies about a rigged 2020 election. Asked about voter integrity, he launched into a five-point plan to restore our trust in our election process.

During the nominating race, he also pledged to restore a state voter identification law and to replace the entire state board of education. He also said he would create the 1776 Project, an apparent reference to a curriculum of patriotic education proposed by a commission established under Mr. Trump that has been derided by mainstream historians.

Last month, Mr. Youngkin said it was a sad thing that Virginia had expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, though he acknowledged the clock couldnt be turned back.

As Mr. Youngkin likely spends generously on TV ads to forge a more soft-focus identity as a pro-business outsider, Democrats are sure to try to keep his earlier positions in front of voters.

Make no state mistake about it, we are going to point out every step of the way the right-wing extremism of Glenn Youngkin, Susan Swecker, chair of the Virginia Democrats, said on Tuesday.

See original here:

In Virginia, a Fight Over the Suburbs in the Governors Race - The New York Times

A fractured wrist is about the only thing that has stopped Charlotte Hornets guard LaMelo Ball. The injury cut 21 games from his rookie season. He recently picked up where he left off, lobbing a nearly full-court, pinpoint underhand pass in his first game back, against the Detroit Pistons.

At just 19, Ball has long been a celebrity, even before making his N.B.A. debut. Steered by his father, LaVar Ball, he was playing professional basketball overseas and starring in reality shows when most teenagers were focused on prom. His oldest brother, Lonzo, helped pave the road by spending a season at U.C.L.A. before becoming the second overall pick of the 2017 N.B.A. draft.

Now in the N.B.A. as well, LaMelo Ball has proved worthy of the commotion. His Hornets are in the chase to qualify for the playoffs for the first time since 2015-16. He is averaging 16 points, 6.2 assists and 5.8 rebounds a game, and has come to be known for his passing and joyful play.

Though much has been written and said about him, Ball doesnt say much. So The New York Times sat down with him, in a video chat, to ask him about his game, his life off the court and those wild passes he makes to Miles Bridges.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

At what age do you think you could have reasonably competed in the N.B.A.?

Reasonably competed? I would say, my thought process, I was 14 at the time when I thought I could have been.

Your father has drawn a lot of headlines over the years. What types of lessons have you learned from your mother, Tina?

Pretty much just everyday life stuff growing up: how to treat people right, how to go on with your day, have respect for people. Just all the stuff you need to get through life, for real, and just be who you are.

Do you have a favorite pass that youve made?

Yeah, probably a long time ago. One of my friends passed away and we had a game and then my brother [Lonzo Ball] just went for a lob. And I remember he was playing that game real hard because his man had just passed. So I was at halfcourt, he act like he was going to draw a play, and I just threw it like this with my left from halfcourt. And it was a lob, and he caught that, cocked it back, it was over. That was A.A.U., so it was hard.

Your coach, James Borrego, was a longtime San Antonio Spurs assistant and recently said your game reminded him of Manu Ginobilis. What do you think of that comparison?

I dont really do too much on the comparisons. I like to compare myself to myself pretty much. But I think I know why he did that one. I know he loves that Spurs team. So probably thats a good answer for him, I guess.

If you had gone to college, where would you have played?

At first, I was going to U.C.L.A., and then they went to Under Armour or something. I decommitted. I was going to go to U.S.C., though. For sure, would have been up there.

Whats your favorite color?

Orange.

Favorite movie?

Im hoping its going to be this Space Jam 2, because I follow Space Jam 1 heavy. So, yeah, Space Jam 2 looks dope.

First song that really caught your attention growing up?

First one that I really liked? Honestly, I dont even know, but just thinking back that far, type of music that my pops had playing. It definitely probably would be like a Lil Wayne song or a DMX. He always had that on.

Morning person or night person?

Definitely night.

Is there a country left that youd still like to most visit?

Even when I was traveling, I aint ever even keep up. I just live in the moment. Its wherever Im at, Im at. Thats how that goes.

When youre coming down the court with the ball, do you feel like the game is in slow motion for you?

Its just how I played basketball my whole life. So I was coming down when I was 3, same how I feel at 19.

How often do you see a pass thats there and you can make it, but you dont because youre not sure that the recipient is ready for it?

Thats just where the chemistry comes. The more you play with me, the more you start understanding. Thats just all where that comes from. Its honestly just our first year, whole team coming together. First time ever playing together. So I feel like its going well, but once you like really get to know me, then youre going to know all the little passes and stuff like that.

Have you ever tossed the ball to Miles Bridges higher on purpose, just to see how high he can go?

Never on purpose, just wherever I feel like it needs to be.

The secret to shooting a perfect floater?

Just to shoot it with confidence.

Youve said that you try to learn at least one new thing every day. Where does that mind-set come from?

Just being me. I mean, its something I grew up trying to do every day. My pops always says, Its always room for improvement. You can learn every day and always just take something from somebody else and learn. You could take a negative and turn it into a positive or a worse situation and always just get something out of it.

Was obtaining the Rookie of the Year Award a goal for you entering this season?

Nah, not really. I aint really look at it as a goal. I just knew I was going to go out there, just had to be me. And if chips fall where they fall, you get the rookie of the year or you dont. You still just got to play, though. Its more of a team game. Im trying to go to the playoffs, trying to go on a deep run, stuff like that.

What were you able to learn while out with the wrist injury?

Pretty much just learning how the whole body works, how you can get your knee, everything right. I mean your whole body, just how it all works together. One thing moves, something could be hurt. And it can be totally different things thats actually hurting than whats actually hurt.

Was there anything you picked up while watching the games?

Seeing our players more, seeing where we can be on the defense, seeing just stuff like that.

Have you ever been nervous on a basketball court?

Nah.

See the article here:

LaMelo Ball Talks Wild Passes, Rookie of the Year and Space Jam - The New York Times

Just days after being nominated for the Turner Prize by Tate in London, a UK-based art collective has called out the institution for its alleged exploitation of Black and POC artists.

Black Obsidian Sound System (B.O.S.S.), a queer, trans, intersex, Black people and people of color collective,took to Instagram yesterday to address some of the discrepancies they see between their mission and the way Tate, which oversees the prize, conducts its business.

Whilst we are grateful for the recognition for our work as a collective, it is important for us to name some of the inconsistencies as we observe them, the group in its statement. We demand the right to thrive in conditions that are nurturing and supportive.

The group, one of five social practice collectives nominated for the prize last week, called out Tate for a number of recent incidents, including the institutions cutting of jobs during the pandemic and its handling of a young Black artists allegations of sexual harassment against a prominent donor.

It is not lost on us that the collective action of workers coming together to save their jobs and livelihoods was not adequately recognized by Tate, the group said, referring to a 2020 strike by Tates retail, catering, and other commercial-services staffers.

The collective also said Tate and institutes like it do not provide artists groups with the same resources they offer to solo artists.

Although we believe collective organizing is at the heart of transformation, it is evident that arts institutions, whilst enamored by collective and social practices, are not properly equipped or resourced to deal with the realities that shape our lives and work, the group said.

We see this in the lack of adequate financial remuneration for collectives in commissioning budgets and artist fees, and in the industrys in-built reverence for individual inspiration over the diffusion, complexity, and opacity of collaborative endeavor.

Exemplifying this is the short time frame B.O.S.S. and the other collectives were given to prepare for this years Turner exhibition, the group said.

Notified last week, the shortlisted artists groups have less than four months to prepare new work for the show, which is set to open at the Herbert Art Museum in Coventry, England, on September 29.

The urgency with which we have been asked to participate, perform, and deliver demonstrates the extractive and exploitative practices in prize culture, and more widely across the industryone where Black, brown, working-class, disabled, queer bodies are desirable, quickly dispensable, but never sustainably cared for, B.O.S.S. wrote.

Artists must be free to express themselves and share their views however they wish, Tate said in a statement shared with Artnet News.Both the team at the Herbert in Coventry and Tate want the collectives to feel supported and look forward to working with them on the Turner Prize exhibition over coming months.

Tate said that, given the number of artists involved with the prize this year, it will give shortlisted collectives 10,000 ($14,000) each, as opposed to the normal 5,000 ($7,000) fee that goes to individual nominees. The winners, meanwhile, will take home an additional 25,000 ($35,000).

Tate did not say whether it has been in touch with B.O.S.S. since the publication of the groups statement.

Founded in 2018, the 18-member collective stages live events and music workshops in a hybridized, participatory brand of art, activism, and community organizing.

The rest is here:

An Art Collective Nominated for the Turner Prize Responds With Biting Criticism of Tates Exploitative Practices in Prize Culture - artnet News

Van Morrison has a new album out, and the initial reaction is pretty bad. And thats not even including allegations of anti-Semitism made against him over a song called They Own the Media.

Since the pandemic hit, the Brown Eyed Girl singer-songwriter has been railing against lockdowns aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19, putting out a handful of protest songs that courted plenty of controversy.

But Latest Record Project, Vol. 1, a new two-hour, 28-track double album, doesnt include those tunes. Instead, it veers off in a conspiratorially cranky direction with songs titled The Long Con, Big Lie, Why Are You on Facebook and Stop Bitching. Do Something.

The Guardian (depressing rants by tinfoil milliner) and Rolling Stone (a delightfully terrible study in casual grievance) have already savaged it.

Pitchfork actually liked it a little, in an extremely qualified way, calling it a risible and intermittently lovely 28-song collection which, in its bonkers way, brings Morrisons tumultuous career full circle.

To be a genius is not the same as being a sophisticated political thinker, as we keep learning again and again, to the point of exhaustion, Elizabeth Nelson writes for Pitchfork. In his press materials for the LP, Van hilariously valorizes himself as the only living protest singer, by which it appears he means he is the only gazillionaire rock star to be a pandemic denier besides Eric Clapton.

Noting that Morrison has gone conspiratorial in the past, the Guardian proclaims that on Latest Record Project Volume 1, the sheeple are truly awoken.

Its MI5 this and mind-control that, secret meetings in the forest, mainstream media lies and Kool Aid being drunk by the gallon, the Guardians Alexis Petridis writes.

On Western Man, theres some troubling alt-right-y stuff about how the wests rewards have been stolen by foreigners unknown and we should be prepared to fight. And hes convinced that the shadowy forces of the establishment are engaged in efforts to silence him.

Van Morrisons new double album is titled Latest Record Project, Vol. 1.

(Evan Agostini / Associated Press)

Worst of all, Petridis says, The tone isnt anything as stirring or exciting as anger, just endless peevish discontent and sneering dismissal.

Rolling Stones Jonathan Bernstein says, Morrisons repetition sounds less like the trance-like mysticism of a Caledonia poet and more like a furious customer demanding a refund. He does laud the song Dupers Delight, saying it shows Morrison at his best: letting his audience in on his own profound process of self-inquiry.

Bernstein sums up the album as a sometimes amusing, sometimes frustrating, sparsely thrilling, and largely unlistenable collection of rants and riffs.

And about They Own the Media? While the song doesnt explicitly name Jewish people as its They, it does elevate an anti-Semitic trope that has recently been revived in an even more malicious form by QAnon followers.

Sample lyrics: They control the narrative, they perpetuate the myth / Keep on telling you lies, tell you ignorance is bliss / Believe it all and youll never get the truth / Never get wise, wise through their lies.

Well, tweeted British writer-presenter Matthew Sweet, the new Van Morrison album will certainly satisfy anyone whos wondered what the Protocols would sound like with a sax accompaniment.

Read on for some comments from fans, some apparently former fans and other denizens of social media.

See the original post:

Reviews of new Van Morrison album: It's as bad as you've heard - Los Angeles Times

John Cameron Mitchell on 'Shrill's Final Season and Playing Joe Exotic (Exclusive)

John Cameron Mitchell is ready to get exotic in the upcomingTiger King-inspired series.

The stage and screen star is set to play the legendary Tiger King himself, Joe Exotic, in an upcominglimited series of the same name, which willroll out across NBCUs scripted entertainment platforms, NBC, Peacock and USA.

"It's a thrill," Mitchell told ET's Lauren Zima of taking on the role, "because Joe is the exact same age as me and lived in a lot of the same areas I lived in Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas. "

"So I kinda know a little bit about him, and I know about the kind of gay guy who, like,probably got picked on in middle school, but then was like, 'F**kyou, I'm gonna be more of a f**king redneck than you are! I'm gonna take your goddamn male oppressor to the limit of the natural conclusion -- as a murderer!"

"It's crazy, but what a role you can sink your tiger teeth into," he added of the part, in which he'll play opposite Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon as Exotic's nemesis, Carole Baskin. "It's just delicious."

While Mitchell says he doesn't expect to speak to the currently imprisoned real-life Tiger King before playing Exotic in the series, he has been listening to interviews and the podcast it's based on,Wondery'sJoe Exotic: Tiger King, hosted and reported by Robert Moor. "They're not going for just schtick," he said of the show's creative team,"they're going for the real people."

"Our adaptation is gonna be much more personal," Mitchell added. "You really get to see themin their lives, with their lovers, so you get more of the emotional, human side as well as the absurd, you know, American insanity that they represent."

For the longtime theater star, playwright anddirector, the larger-than-life role ofJoe Exoticis the third in a series of "terrible, terrible examples of gay men" he's played recently, following alt-right provocateur Felix Staples on The Good Fight, and Aidy Bryant's bitchy boss, Gabe, on Shrill. "[They're] kind ofvillains, but charming ones," he noted. "I love it."

Shrill debuted its third and final season on Friday, and Mitchell said that spending three seasons tormenting Bryant's character, Annie, and the rest of the writers at The Weekly Thorn allowed him to "access a nasty side of myself, a maniac side --the guy who says, 'Question authority, but do exactly what I say.'"

"He's just so inconsistent and obnoxious," he noted. "I really enjoyed playing him."

But while the fictional work environment could be tense and toxic, Mitchell said the on-set vibe of Shrill was anything but. "Aidy is just pure goodness with a mischievousunderside," he noted of the series' writer and star."She can do a scene with you, stop in the middle of it, give you direction and you don't even know that it's happening, she's so easygoing about it... She was always interested in my point of view."

He also appreciated that the diversity of the Shrill cast was "part of the actual philosophy of the stories," and allowed him to play an uptight character like Gabe, without it being representative.

"Shrill was about outsiders fitting into the mainstream, and I could play the gay, evil boss 'cause we had enough gay characters that it didn't feel [stereotypically]evil," he noted. "We could be good, we could be whatever. Any kind of ethnicity, gender --to me, this is the world we live in anyway. Why shouldn't we see it on the show?"

While Bryant shared with ET that the Hulu comedy's third season is their "juiciest yet," and provides fans with a "satisfying ending," Mitchell had a differentperspective on the finalepisodes:"I would say it's a very interesting story of a gay man reaching the pinnacle of his middle age, and there's all these other characters around him who I can't remember their names," he joked.

However, he did share one amazing realtidbit for fans that's almost too good to be true itself: "I got toimprovise a punk rock song with Fred Armisen on drums!"

Shrill's third and final season is streaming now on Hulu.

Visit link:

John Cameron Mitchell on 'Shrill's Final Season and Playing Joe Exotic (Exclusive) - CBS News 8

Rose City Antifa is one of the nation's oldest active antifa groups. Members rarely give interviews, but two who say they are part of antifa agreed to speak to "Nightline" as the situation in their city of Portland, Oregon, has become a prolonged and destructive stalemate.

Rose City Antifa members "Milo" and "Ace" use pseudonyms and they asked that their faces and voices be obscured for this report.

"The use of violence is a tactic of how we keep our communities safe," Milo said.

Rose City Antifa members under pseudonyms "Milo" and "Ace."

Much of the blame for the chaos, property damage and violence over the last year have landed on the self-described anti-racist, anti-facist far left organizers. The black-clad coterie entrenched in the city's protest movement now find themselves in a tense showdown with city officials.

Watch "Nightline" weeknights at 12:35 a.m. ET on ABC

"We've always had protests here. But to see some of the violent acts like the Molotov cocktails and some of the things thrown at officers has been really new to us," Portland's Police Chief Chuck Lovell told "Nightline."

Portland Police Chief Chuck Lovell was sworn into office on June 11, 2020.

Mayor Ted Wheeler has been outspoken against the group in recent months.

"The self-described anarchists who engage in regular criminal destruction don't want things to open up to recover," he said in a live video conference in April. "The city of Portland will not tolerate criminal destruction for violence ... for those who are involved in it let's make them hurt them a little bit."

"When the mayor says that he wants citizens and his law enforcement officers [to] make protesters 'hurt a little,' that is a pretty explicit threat," Milo said.

Amid the back and forth, Portland residents are left drained from the conflict and are increasingly decrying the property destruction thought to be perpetuated by antifa.

Ian Williams, pictured, is the owner of Deadstock Coffee in downtown Portland, Oregon.

"I feel frustrated that this is all still going on," said Ian Williiams, owner of Deadstock Coffee, a sneaker-themed cafe downtown. "But I also feel frustrated that Black people keep getting killed. I feel frustrated that small businesses really aren't able to be successful during this time, especially in the state of Oregon."

Antifa claims they're defending their city not only against heavy-handed police tactics, but also from threats from far right extremists, groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers -- leading to fierce standoffs.

"The use of violence is there to maintain safety for us and make sure that when people like Proud Boys or Nazis or fascists come to our city and want to do that harm, then we are not allowing that," Milo said.

They've received a sharp rebuke from the mayor, who is asking residents to help take back their city and be the eyes and ears of the Portland Police bureau.

A counter-protester wears a jacket with an Antifa symbol during an alt-right rally on August 17, 2019 in Portland, Ore. Anti-fascism demonstrators gathered to counter-protest a rally held by far-right, extremist groups.

"These people often arrive at their so-called direct actions in cars. And they're all dressed in all black. Our job is to unmask them, arrest them and prosecute them," Wheeler said at a video conference.

Individuals claiming to be antifa released a chilling video last week, containing a seemingly veiled threat against Mayor Wheeler and publicized his home address.

"The mayor of this city is undeserving of his position. He has made it abundantly clear that windows to him are more important than human lives," an unidentified voice in the video said. "Ted, we are asking for the last time that you resign. Blood is already on your hands, Ted. But next time, it may just be your own."

Neither Milo nor Ace say they know anything about that video to the mayor and defended their role within the community.

"Most of us are in this work to make our communities safe and to make our communities better," Milo said. "When we see that there are people that are coming to our home and to our city advocating violence against people of color, against queer people then it is our responsibility as community members to confront that. We do not bring that fight. But we will meet it if it comes to us."

Mayor Ted Wheeler speaks to people gathered in downtown Portland, Ore. on July 22, 2020. Wheeler faced a hostile crowd of protesters, who screamed at and sharply questioned him as he tried to rally demonstrators who have clashed repeatedly with federal agents sent in by President Donald Trump to quell ongoing unrest in the city.

The group has become a lightning rod for controversy. They became known at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 when an man punched white nationalist Richard Spencer during an interview.

"Donald Trump wanted to make them a boogeyman for everything," said Mark Bray, a history professor who studies Aantifa. "Certainly prior to Donald Trump being in the White House, antifa was not a household name in the United States."

Despite their notoriety, the group sees their fight as a moral and just one. Milo and Ace say they practice community organizing and empowerment, which includes publicly outing alleged fascists and other dangerous elements.

"A lot of our work is compiling evidence of people's online personalities and their online conversations and how a lot of times we see far right folks really engaging in hate speech and misogynistic language and threats of violence online," Milo said.

Many here, including some exhausted business owners, seem increasingly receptive to the mayor's tough talk.

"I'm thankful for everybody in Portland who feels the need to fight for justice, fight for rights, fight for safety and everything," Williams told "Nightline." "But it has definitely affected our business, all the protesting and everything, in that people who are coming to visit town actually feel really unsafe."

A year of unrest has at times forced this barista to double as his own security.

"I was standing outside one night and somebody was like, 'Hey, man, I want you to go ahead and get yours, bust the door,'" encouraging him to take part in the destruction, he said. "I was like, 'No, I'm protecting my business.'"

"I guess the message would just be like, well, 'cut it out. Like, why are you even doing this?'" he said. "You really should be pulling up with the nails and hammers and helping me board up, you know, then instead of trying to bust down."

Margaret Carter, pictured, was the first Black woman in the Portland state senate.

Margaret Carter's legacy of public service runs deep in Portland. She served as the first Black woman in the Portland state senate. She sympathizes with protesters, but is pained by their destructive tactics.

"I marched during the days of trying to make a difference. My voice has always been out there, but never, never did we create violence," Carter said. "When you think in terms of small businesses that are being hit, who are working very hard to just prepare a meal for their families, that really got my heart."

Milo and Ace defend the destruction as a tactic to apply pressure to city leaders.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler reacts after being exposed to tear gas fired by federal officers while attending a protest against police brutality and racial injustice in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse on July 22, 2020, in Portland, Ore.

"There are a lot of reasons why people would engage in property destruction," Milo said. "I think that one of the reasons that people will break windows is a lot of times symbolic of the way that the city will protect things of material value, but not its people."

However, Carter asks whether the protests are truly legitimate or just random acts of looting.

"Some of the people that have been identified was not Black Lives Matter people," she said. "They were young white kids coming from across the country."

Self-styled citizen journalist Garrison Davis has been reporting on Portland's front lines over the past year. He's witnessed sympathies waning for destructive tactics of some protesters.

"There's been a growing animosity towards some of the protests among, you know, the population of Portland," he said. "A lot of the people are tired. A lot of people are exhausted, the police force is getting tired. We're unsure of what direction this will head."

Visit link:

After a year of protests, Portland residents have waning patience for antifa - ABC News

In his April 29 address, marking 100 days serving in office, President Joe Biden reflected on what he has achieved so far and his goals for the future.

Bidens entrance into office came at an extremely important transition time after the previous administrations grave mishandling of COVID-19.

Just two months into office, Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, and before his 100 day mark, the administration had also reached 200 million COVID-19 administered vaccines, coinciding with vaccine eligibility for all Americans.

Unemployment rates have fallen after hitting all-time highs during the pandemic, and schools are starting to reopen their doors for in-person learning.

While the Biden administration has made great progress in the recovery of the U.S. in the wake of COVID-19, flattening the curve of reported cases, there still is much to be done as we begin to enter a post-pandemic world.

In his address, Biden made multiple claims about the types of issues he plans to tackle during his presidency.

He spoke about the importance of inclusivity for LGBTQ+ Americans in the wake of proposed state legislation that targets transgender individuals.

To all transgender Americans watching at home, especially the young people, youre so brave, he said during the speech. I want you to know your president has your back.

Bidens explicit acknowledgement of transgender individuals was the first of any U.S. president, marking a historic benchmark for the community.

He also brought up issues regarding systematic racism, domestic violence and the need for gun control.

While its obviously important that we have a president who will acknowledge these issues as the diseases they are to this country, just talking about them isnt enough.

Action needs to be taken, and it needs to be taken now. The Biden administration has to immediately begin working with the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as state and local governments, in order to ensure there arent laws being proposed that further restrict marginalized groups, but rather push laws that help enact social change and push back against the systematic inequalities present.

We have seen intensified national polarization over the past several years and it is likely impossible for Biden to bridge that gap immediately.

The fact that terms such as alt-right and the radical left are freely tossed around by people to describe others with opposing political views reiterates how divided we are as a countrypeople feel the need to label others as outlandish and extreme when, most Americans usually fall somewhere in the middle on the political spectrum.

Less than 10 years ago, Mitt Romney was the face of the Republican party. But, when he recently was the only Senate Republican to vote for Donald Trumps impeachment, and voice against the Capitol riots, he was immediately depicted as a leftist or too liberal by his Republican peers and American voters.

The political pendulum should not be swinging that fast toward divisiveness, as we will never come about real change if we cant achieve bipartisanship.

If Biden wants to accomplish the things he says he will, it needs to start from the ground up first.

We saw, throughout the pandemic, local governments communicate to their residents how to overcome phases of high COVID-19 cases. We simultaneously, however, saw governments who pretended like the virus did not exist.

The same issues are at play now with removing the issues that plague our country. If local governments make it a precedent to care about creating change and reducing systematic disadvantages for those who are historically marginalized, then its citizens may be incentivized to care as well. If systematic inequalities are presented as a non-issue, then citizens will not have a reason to care themselves.

Citizens have to be encouraged and motivated to care about these issues for the change to even begin, and its on Biden to use his power of authority to work with government representatives that can help streamline the process.

Good soundbytes during a speech is one thing, actually creating change is another. With Biden now fully transitioned to office, it is time to expect more from his administration.

Read more:

Editorial: Putting words into action - The Brown and White

In this 2017 photo, Gavin McInnes (center), founder of the far-right extremist group known as the Proud Boys, is surrounded by supporters after speaking at a rally in Berkeley, Calif. McInnes told NPR that the group is made up of "funny dudes, not Nazis." At least 25 members of the far-right group are facing charges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP hide caption

In this 2017 photo, Gavin McInnes (center), founder of the far-right extremist group known as the Proud Boys, is surrounded by supporters after speaking at a rally in Berkeley, Calif. McInnes told NPR that the group is made up of "funny dudes, not Nazis." At least 25 members of the far-right group are facing charges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

On a recent episode of his livestreamed show, the 22-year-old extremist Nick Fuentes repeated a formula that has won him a following with some of the youngest members of the far right. He went on an extended, violent and misogynistic rant, only to turn to the camera and add with a smirk, "Just joking!"

In this case, from the April 22 edition of Fuentes' show, America First, a viewer wrote in to ask Fuentes for advice on how to "punish" his wife for "getting out of line."

Fuentes responded, "Why don't you smack her across the face?"

The rant continued for minutes.

"Why don't you give her a vicious and forceful backhanded slap with your knuckles right across her face disrespectfully and make it hurt?" Fuentes went on. At one point, he pantomimed punching a woman in the face.

He then added, "No, I'm kidding, of course. Just kidding. Just a joke."

Fuentes was following a playbook popular among domestic extremists: using irony and claims of "just joking" to spread their message, while deflecting criticism.

Researchers who track domestic extremism say the tactic, while not new, has helped several groups mask their danger, avoid consequences and draw younger people into their movements.

Irony as "cover" for extremism

Fuentes is best known for using cartoonish memes to spread white supremacist propaganda. His followers refer to themselves as "Groypers" a reference to a mutated version of the Pepe the Frog cartoon that was co-opted by the far right. Though Fuentes exists on the fringes of the extreme right, Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spoke at a political conference that Fuentes hosted, drawing widespread criticism.

But Fuentes has said himself that he uses irony and "jokes" to communicate his message without consequences.

"Irony is so important for giving a lot of cover and plausible deniability for our views," Fuentes said in a 2020 video. He specifically cited Holocaust denial or what he termed Holocaust "revision" as a topic that is too fraught to discuss earnestly, even on the far right.

Far-right extremist Nick Fuentes, seen here in a screenshot from his livestreamed show, has said he uses irony because it provides "plausible deniability" and cover for some of his most incendiary statements. Screenshot via AmericaFirst.live hide caption

Far-right extremist Nick Fuentes, seen here in a screenshot from his livestreamed show, has said he uses irony because it provides "plausible deniability" and cover for some of his most incendiary statements.

"When it comes to a lot of these issues, you need a little bit of maneuverability that irony gives you," Fuentes said.

And, in fact, after Fuentes questioned the death toll from the Holocaust in one rant, he later claimed to The Washington Post that it was just a "lampoon."

Researchers who track domestic extremism say Fuentes is not the only figure to adopt these tactics, particularly among far-right content creators, who encourage their audiences to follow suit.

"A lot of these content creators will tell the audience explicitly, 'When people say you're racist for liking this or thinking this, just laugh at them. They can't handle it they're sensitive babies,' " said Jared Holt, a resident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Concern on campus

In early 2020, Oona Flood started getting more and more worried about a classmate at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The classmate, a 22-year-old named Christian Secor, was already well-known for his self-proclaimed "love" of guns. Around that time, he was also posting racist and antisemitic memes and tweets, attacking immigrants online and publicly supporting Fuentes. Often, Secor adopted the kind of "trolling" style that's prevalent on the internet.

When one student called Secor out for a tweet that the student found offensive, Secor responded that he was using "post irony."

"It's called a joke and the fact that you think that these posts are anything more than that is telling," added Secor.

Flood, who is Japanese American, said they wanted to speak up.

"I definitely felt that sense of threat," Flood told NPR recently. "And, like, I really hate to say, [because] it sounds so much like, overblown, 'snowflake,' that we're just overreacting, you know?"

And throughout 2020, students told NPR, UCLA took no action against Secor despite his escalating rhetoric, likely because of free speech concerns. (As a public university, UCLA is legally bound to follow the First Amendment, which protects hate speech.)

In retrospect, Flood's concern does not seem like an overreaction.

Secor is currently facing federal criminal charges for allegedly storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Prosecutors have cited his support for Fuentes in charging documents. Secor has pleaded not guilty.

In addition to Fuentes and his followers, other experts point to the extremist group known as the Proud Boys, which has embraced outlandish rituals. The group's name was inspired by a song from the Broadway version of Disney's Aladdin, and one of the group's initiation rites involves members listing breakfast cereals while they get lightly punched in the stomach. Yet that same group is known for its involvement in violent street fights. At least 25 members of the group are facing federal criminal charges related to the Capitol riot, including, in some cases, conspiracy.

Gavin McInnes, the group's founder, said in an email that the media, including NPR, "willfully ignores" jokes to paint the group in a more negative light. The Proud Boys are "funny dudes, not Nazis," McInnes wrote.

But Cassie Miller of the Southern Poverty Law Center said the group's use of "jokes" is strategic. "It distracts from what their actual political ideology is and from their violence," said Miller. "Because if you point it out, it's, like, 'well, they're so goofy.' "

Similarly, the far-right, pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is often so over the top on his InfoWars broadcasts that his own attorney likened him to a "performance artist" during a court hearing about Jones' divorce.

The appeal to young people

Humor has always been crucial to building social movements, experts say, because it serves to define the people who are "in on the joke" and those who "just don't get it."

And online extremists have adopted irony because it is, in many ways, the native language of the internet.

"I'm speaking the language of other zoomers," said Fuentes in 2020. "If you're a young person online, I mean, this is the language of our generation."

"Every kid naturally wants to push away from their parents," said Joanna Schroeder, a writer based in California.

Schroeder was troubled when she saw a pro-Hitler meme pop up in one of her kids' Instagram feeds. Memes that merely pushed boundaries were mixed in alongside outright racist and antisemitic content.

"The problem is that all of this kind of trolling behavior, some of it is harmless and goofy," said Schroeder, "and others of it is designed to look harmless and goofy but will drive our kids' social media and YouTube algorithms toward alt-right and even more extremist content."

Schroeder has since collaborated with the Western States Center to develop a guide for parents who see their kids share online extremist content.

Historic parallels

Violent domestic extremism in America long predates the internet, however, and so does the tactical use of irony.

Historians have documented how the early iterations of the Ku Klux Klan were portrayed by group members and their allies as outlandish, rather than as a dangerous terrorist group. The KKK put on racist minstrel shows and created its own songs.

This drawing from 1868 depicts early members of the Ku Klux Klan. Historians have documented how the group used absurdity to mock its opponents and to try to mask the seriousness of the KKK's atrocities. U.S. Library Of Congress hide caption

This drawing from 1868 depicts early members of the Ku Klux Klan. Historians have documented how the group used absurdity to mock its opponents and to try to mask the seriousness of the KKK's atrocities.

Descriptions of attacks by men in hoods, who had titles like "dragon," "ghoul," and "wizard," were often seen by white Americans as tall tales and ghost stories. Newspapers that supported the KKK played up those aspects of the group and mocked their opponents for supposedly taking the KKK too seriously, said Elaine Frantz, a historian at Kent State University.

Pro-KKK newspaper editors would often "talk jokingly about what the klan has done," said Frantz, "in order to be deniable."

And at first it seemed to work. Frantz cites the testimony of a Georgia congressman who tried to play down klan murders and other racist atrocities.

"Sometimes, mischievous boys who want to have some fun go on a masquerading frolic to scare the negroes," testified U.S. Rep. John H. Christy of Georgia in the early 1870s. Christy insisted that stories of klan attacks were "exaggerated." In fact, he claimed, the group did not exist at all. Frantz said there were also documented instances in the Reconstruction era of white Northerners dressing up in klan robes as a supposedly boundary-pushing "joke."

But eventually, Frantz said, the testimony of Black Americans who witnessed these atrocities published widely by newspaper reporters and in government investigations so thoroughly demonstrated the KKK's campaign of lynchings and assassinations that it became undeniable. They pulled back the klan hood to see the terrorism and violence it masked.

Follow this link:

How Extremists Like The Proud Boys Weaponize Irony And Memes To Spread Hate - NPR

In February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced a military-wide stand down after civilian and military leaders alike raised concerns about the disturbing link between domestic extremism and the U.S. military, evident in the disproportionately large numbers of servicemembers involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But this is not the first time that the military has had to reckon with extremism in its ranks. The groups that were involved in the insurrection, including anti-government militias, like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, and militant white supremacist groups, like the Proud Boys, often reject being labelled as extremists or white nationalists by calling themselves western chauvinists or wrapping their ideologies in patriotism and American nationalism. Yet, experts have warned that this new crop of extremists is just the most recent manifestation of the white nationalist and far-right extremist threat that has been facing the U.S. military for over 40 years. The history of Department of Defense responses to domestic extremism needs to inform future policies, strategies, and bureaucratic structures to counter extremism in the military.

This history reveals three key insights. First, we are not starting from scratch existing policies already empower commanders to act to curb extremism, though these policies rely too heavily on the individual commanders discretion. Second, the Department of Defenses approach to countering Islamist extremism post-9/11 led military leaders to consistently underestimate the threat of domestic and white nationalist variants. Third, policy alone is ineffective without continued commitment. This is not a problem that can be solved with isolated policy updates or individual stand-down days.

The Growth of White Nationalism in the Military

Since the growth of the modern white power movement in the 1970s, servicemembers have been directly involved in every major surge in white nationalist activity across the country. Throughout this discussion it is important to remember the legal distinction between veterans, who are no longer subject to Department of Defense regulations, and active-duty servicemembers, though extremists in both groups are often closely linked through ideology, experience, and personal networks. Since the 1970s, when white power militias began recruiting disillusioned Vietnam War veterans, both active-duty servicemembers and veterans have provided stolen weapons and paramilitary training to white nationalist groups, orchestrated the Oklahoma City bombing, founded neo-Nazi organizations, planned the violent Unite the Right rallies, and urged other extremists to enlist in order to gain skills and training for the coming racial holy war.

The 1970s and 1980s featured repeated instances of white nationalist activity on military bases. In 1976, the Camp Pendleton chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, led by active-duty marines, claimed to have over 100 members and held cross burnings outside the base. A 1986 investigation into stolen weapons implicated numerous marines and Army soldiers stationed at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg in participation in the White Patriot Party. In 1992, Sgt. 1st Class Steven Barry launched a magazine called The Resister, which he described as the Political Warfare Journal of the Special Forces Underground, a clandestine group of white nationalist Green Berets.

In the 1990s, white nationalist activity on and around military bases increased, resulting in two violent attacks that shook the military community. In April 1995, army veterans Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols killed 168 people in the Oklahoma City bombing, then the deadliest attack committed on American soil since Pearl Harbor. In December 1995, a black couple were murdered by two Fort Bragg soldiers, James Burmeister and Malcolm Wright, Jr. All were known members of neo-Nazi or white nationalist organizations and made no secret of their white supremacist views. After these two deadly attacks, leaders could no longer ignore the threat of white nationalist violence.

Empowering Commanders: Early Department of Defense Policy Responses

The Department of Defenses early policy responses to white nationalist extremism outlined a range of prohibited activities and ways in which commanders could respond, but a critical flaw allowed white nationalism to remain in the military. These policies placed responsibility on individual unit commanders to identify, investigate, and prosecute soldiers suspected of extremism. This resulted in a lack of coherent or coordinated response to what is still a systemic problem and provided no system for collecting centralized data on the extent of domestic extremism.

Two policies formed the core of the militarys early responses to extremism: within the Department of Defense, the Directive on Dissident and Protest Activities, and within the Army, the Extremist Organizations section of the Army Command Policy regulation. The Department of Defense directive was originally written in 1969 to suppress anti-war advocacy and unionization attempts. The directives aim shifted to extremism with the 1986 addition of a Prohibited Activities section, a response to the White Patriot Party weapons-theft incident. The Department of Defense added two additional points in 1996 in response to the Oklahoma City bombing and the Fort Bragg murders. The first point discussed the specific investigative powers that commanders could use against individuals engaging in prohibited activities, while the second aimed to ensure that all military departments implemented training on these policies. The Army made similar changes to the Extremist Organizations section of its regulation by adding new sections on command authority, options, and responsibility. These changes empowered commanders to address extremism in their units, but also placed the responsibility to fix the militarys extremist problem on individual commanders shoulders.

By placing the burden of identifying and eradicating extremism on commanders, these policies failed to address the systemic nature of the problem. With legal authority at the unit level a central pillar of commanders discretion individual commanders, whether unable or unwilling, often ignored, mishandled, or just missed the warning signs of extremist ideology altogether. In one example, former Army Criminal Investigation Division investigator, Scott Barfield, was initially encouraged by his commander to develop local screening and education programs to combat white nationalism, meeting with success, but later resigned complaining of significant backlash and hostility to his work when command priorities changed. The reliance on commanders discretion diffused responsibility for a systemic problem and hindered any attempt to collect coherent and centralized data about the extent of extremism in the military. No matter how extensive lists of prohibited activities become, such an incoherent approach to eradicating extremism within the military hinders organizational progress.

9/11 and the Turn to a Different Kind of Extremism

Despite the flaws, the 1996 policy changes marked important steps towards curbing white nationalism within the military. But policy should be prioritized and consistently implemented to be effective. Following the 9/11 attacks, the military did prioritize anti-extremist policies, but extremism was redefined as exclusively foreign and Islamist. This new chapter of anti-extremism policy ignored continued evidence of domestic and white nationalist threats and even walked back progress made in previous decades.

After the Global War on Terror began, the Department of Defense paired anti-extremist policy with a widespread commitment to educating commanders and troops, but only on the dangers of foreign extremism, Islamist radicalism, and insider threats from these sectors. The focus on a foreign, Islamist threat was so exclusive that experts raised concerns about generalized anti-Muslim bias in federal counter-terrorism training. To this day, the annual insider threat training required of Department of Defense personnel makes no mention of white nationalist and violent right-wing extremism, even though the Defense Personnel and Security Research Center asserted as early as 2005 that the largest and most active domestic terrorist groups are white supremacists.

At the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, low enlistment numbers and increased demand for deployable soldiers even led recruiters to ignore regulations meant to prevent domestic extremists from joining. Recruiters ignored neo-Nazi tattoos during enlistment screenings and granted moral waivers to known white nationalists. Extremists such as Forrest Foggarty and Kenneth Eastridge served during this period despite visible neo-Nazi tattoos. Deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan satisfied their genocidal intentions, as they bragged about looking forward to killing all the bloody sand ns. The 2005 Defense Personnel and Security Research Center report concluded that, effectively, the military has a dont ask, dont tell policy pertaining to [domestic] extremism.

Inaction on domestic extremism also came from the top. Letters to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from the Southern Poverty Law Center and members of Congress revealed the identities of several active-duty white nationalists and called for an investigative task force and enforcement of a zero-tolerance approach to extremism of all kinds within the military. In 2008 and 2009, reports from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, respectively, again designated white nationalist and violent right-wing extremism as the most imminent terror threats facing the country. These reports specifically warned about white nationalist leaders encouraging members to enlist in the military. The FBI report, titled White Supremacist Recruitment of Military Personnel since 9/11, detailed 203 individuals with military service involved in white nationalist organizations between 2001 and 2008. Yet, despite numerous warnings, Rumsfeld refused to take action, claiming that current policies were adequate. In fact, the backlash to the 2009 Department of Homeland Security report was so fierce that it was retracted and the team that wrote it was dissolved.

Under the Radar: White Nationalist Extremism After 9/11

After downplaying the threat of domestic extremism post-9/11, several public incidents forced the Department of Defense into action in 2009. After the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, white nationalist activity surged across the country and within the military community. Researchers discovered online discussions about getting around enlistment screenings on Stormfront and found 46 people with their occupations listed as active duty military on the white nationalist social networking site NewSaxon. In 2009, Lance Cpl. Kody Brittingham was arrested after investigators found that his journal contained white nationalist material and a plot to assassinate Obama. These incidents prompted a series of policy changes between 2009 and 2014, which comprises the longest sustained focus on domestic extremism to date. Yet these policy changes perpetuated the same flaws and left the Department of Defense incapable of stopping the flood of extremists who would join the military in the midst of a second nationwide surge in white nationalism, driven by the rise of the alt-right.

Policy reforms enacted between 2009 and 2014 enhanced prohibitions against white nationalist extremist activities, but still relied on individual commanders to solve a systemic problem. Reforms expanded the list of prohibitions to include posting extremist material online and replaced the ban on participating in extremist organizations with a ban on advocating for supremacist ideology. In 2012, a new section in the Department of Defense directive encouraged commanders to remain alert and intervene early, while in 2014, army regulations required commanders to notify the Criminal Investigation Division and law enforcement agencies of any suspected or known cases of extremism. The latter is the first indication of a centralized and coordinated strategy to combat extremism, yet the persistent claim that leaders do not know the extent of this problem demonstrates that this coordination has been ineffective.

The rise of the alt-right after 2015 sparked a surge of white nationalist activity and two new violent organizations emerged with intimate connections to military networks. In 2016, Iraq War veteran Nathan Damigo founded Identity Evropa and quickly attracted several active-duty servicemembers. Atomwaffen Division, founded by Florida national guardsman Brandon Russell, similarly recruited through military networks. In 2017, Russell was arrested with a massive cache of explosives in his garage and at least five other Atomwaffen Division members have since been discharged from military service.

The defining event of this period was the 2017 Unite the Right rallies, which led to violent attacks on counter-protesters and the murder of Heather Heyer by army basic training washout James Alex Fields, Jr. Many veterans were involved in organizing the rally, but there were also several active-duty marines discharged for crimes committed during the event. One of those marines was Lance Cpl. Vassillos Pistolis, a neo-Nazi and Atomwaffen Division member. After the events, Pistolis bragged online about cracking skulls, even posting pictures of the violence.

Simply figuring out the extent of the problem is a challenge. This brief account does not include many less-publicized or uninvestigated occurrences of extremism throughout the military. Accounting is hampered even further by evidence that even known extremists were quietly discharged on other grounds, so as to not attract public attention. In February 2020, the House Armed Services Committee hearing on white supremacy in the military led to the Armys most recent update of its regulation, which further prohibited online extremist activity and radicalization. While these changes make it easier to charge servicemembers for their online activity, it still does not provide a centralized, coordinated strategy, nor does it provide commanders with resources on how to identify such activity. Much of the traffic on online forums comes from individuals hiding behind accounts designed for anonymity. Extremists like former national guardsman and self-described Nazi content creator, Shandon Simpson, are able to enlist without their online personality being known or traced. When activated in response to Black Lives Matter Protests in June 2020, Simpson celebrated online: were getting real ammunition to shoot and kill. Rahowa [Racial Holy War]. Dangerous military extremists like Simpson are rarely discovered through proactive internal measures, but rather are arrested for harm already committed or are uncovered by independent organizations who can only forward their findings to individual commanders and hope for the best.

What This History Means for the Military Today

With the mandate of a stand down day and Austins April 9 announcement of a counter extremism working group, military leaders have again taken initial steps toward a necessary commitment to rid the military of white nationalism and domestic extremism. But we have walked this ground before. Over the past four decades, military leaders have repeatedly updated policy, but crucial policy failures and disregard for the severity of the threat have allowed extremism to remain. There are important lessons to be learned from this history.

First, existing policies empower commanders to investigate, prosecute, and curb servicemembers extremist activities. Instead of further tweaking these policies, the Department of Defense needs to support individual commanders by making implementation of these existing policies more consistent across commands and services. Ensuring that individual unit commanders know what their authorities are and what they should watch for is the first step, and providing a centralized system for monitoring and prioritizing enforcement is also needed.

Second, the militarys post-9/11 response to Islamist extremism led to years of ignoring and even tolerating domestic and white nationalist extremism among active-duty military members. In order to fulfill its function of protecting the military and the nation, anti-extremist policy should place equal emphasis on all extremist threats, including domestic threats, with specificity and nuance. The militarys at-times too-broad approaches toward Islamist extremism resulted in discrimination against people of Muslim faith or backgrounds. We are not arguing for a broad crackdown on political activities, from right or left, in the name of rooting out extremism, especially as studies have shown that current military legal structures used to enforce good order and discipline unfairly target soldiers of color at significantly higher rates. The military needs to approach future anti-extremism efforts with a nuanced understanding of the ideologies and structures of the particular extremist threats they face, whether white nationalist, anti-government, or other, and how they overlap with each other and with foreign extremist organizations. This understanding needs to be paired with clear statements of priority from military leadership.

Finally, the most important lesson is that policy updates alone are ineffective without continued commitment from military and civilian leadership. It takes more than words. New, centralized bureaucratic structures, robust strategies, and better processes are needed to create a standardized mechanism for reporting and recording incidents of extremism within the military. The absence of this type of data collection has left military leaders without the information they need to even understand this problem. Our academic research team is working to remedy one aspect of this information deficiency by developing a historical database of incidents with confirmed ties to the military and white nationalism in the hopes of mapping past patterns of behavior and response. Our database is limited only to publicly reported incidents and currently has over 130 identified entries and over 300 cases found in de-identified reports, forming the largest single compilation of such incidents. Yet, based on recent reporting that the FBI opened 143 investigations into extremist activity among current and former military members in 2020 alone, our database and the public record capture only a small sliver of the true extent of the problem. Austins Feb. 5 memo called for a concerted and sustainable effort to eliminate the corrosive effects [of] extremist ideology. The military can learn from its own history to make this call a reality.

Simone Askewis a 2018 West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar. She earned a masters degreein refugee studies and a masters in public policy from Oxford University. While a cadet at West Point she was the first African-American woman to serve as First Captain of the Corps of Cadets. She is currently serving as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army and is a research fellow with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy as part of the New War Research Consortium.

Jack Loweis a 2019 West Point graduate and Fulbright Scholar completing his masters degree in cultural criminology at Lund University, Sweden. He is a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army anda research fellow with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy as part of the New War Research Consortium.

Nette Monausis a 2018 West Point graduate and Schwarzman Scholar. She completed a masters degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and is a co-founder of the annual Mass Atrocity Prevention Symposium at the US Military Academy. She currently serves as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army andis a research fellow with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the U.S. Military Academy as part of the New War Research Consortium.

Kirsten L. Cooper, Ph.D.,is an assistant professor of History at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point. She is a Boren National Security Fellow, specializes in the study of nationalism and propaganda, and has analyzed international disinformation campaigns as an intern with the U.S. Department of State. She currently leads the West Point Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies research team as part of the New War Research Consortium.

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or U.S. government.

Image: U.S. Marine Corps (Photo by Cpl. Zachary T. Beatty)

Read the original here:

We've Been Here Before: Learning From the Military's History with White Nationalism - War on the Rocks