The ‘racist’ Proud Boys – a media-made myth - "IN THE aftermath of the first American presidential debate, much of the mainstream media declared the American/Canadian male-only beer-drinking club the ‘Proud Boys’ to be ‘white supremacists’ and condemned Donald Trump for not disowning them. Now, being a suspicious type who questions everything, I couldn’t help but wonder: are they the real-deal white supremacists or are they just opponents of the radical woke Left?So, I went to the search engine DuckDuckGo to find their website. (I couldn’t find it via Google. Make of that what you will.) Anyway, they have an article on their website entitled ‘We are not alt-right’ in which they strongly condemn white nationalism, anti-Semitism and the far Right in general.If there was any evidence that the Proud Boys were white supremacists I would utterly condemn them, but the facts show that they oppose the far Right. Isn’t it the role of professional journalists to check facts and accurately report them to the public?There is legitimate criticism of their tendency to end up in violent street brawls with far-Left activists but this doesn’t make them white supremacists or advocates for a white ethno state.Here’s another fact and it’s a pretty glaring one: the Proud Boys’ leader, Enrique Tarrio, is an Afro-Cuban American. If the Proud Boys are ‘white supremacists’ they are clearly not very good at it. I really can’t see Enrique Tarrio winning Klansman of the Year any time soon. People can make whatever criticisms of the Proud Boys they like, but to assert that a group led by a mixed-race Latino is ‘white supremacist’ displays one’s inability to distinguish colours, never mind one’s complete ignorance of political ideology.In short, the Proud Boys are no more white supremacists than Jeremy Corbyn is secretly thinking of moving to Northern Ireland to join the DUP. The Proud Boys are a conservative/libertarian men-only beer-drinking group who believe that western liberal democracy is superior to other political systems. They support curbs on mass immigration, are critical of Islam and oppose modern feminism. None of these positions makes them white supremacists or far-Right unless we extend the definition of those terms to the point of absurdity.Many journalists are either knowingly lying about them or are just downright lazy in their research. Is it any wonder that so many people don’t trust much of the mainstream media?"
Proud Boys leader who coordinated Jan 6 attack is having a bad time in prison, getting bullied by "actual white supremacists gang members" : LeopardsAteMyFace
Clear proof that they're white supremacists!
Wilfred Reilly insists 'Proud Boys aren't white supremacists' as Trump takes flak - "It turns out not everybody believes the Proud Boys are white supremacists, including a prominent Black professor at a historically Black university. Wilfred Reilly, associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, said Wednesday that “the Proud Boys aren’t white supremacists,” describing the right-wing group’s beliefs as “Western chauvinist” and noting that their international chairman, Enrique Tarrio, is Black... Mr. Reilly said that about 10% to 20% of Proud Boys activists are people of color, a diverse racial composition that is “extremely well-known in law enforcement,” based on his research."
The leftist hatred of The Proud Boys suggests that what they hate is not "racism" but Western civilisation
Enrique Tarrio says Proud Boys not White supremacists - "“I denounce White supremacy,” Mr. Tarrio said in a Thursday interview with WSVN-TV in Miami. “I denounce anti-Semitism. I denounce racism. I denounce fascism. I denounce communism and any other -ism that is prejudiced toward people because of their race, religion, culture, tone of skin.”"
Maybe the real reason the left hate The Proud Boys so much is that they are anti-communist
Patriot J on Twitter - "It's more niggas in the Proud Boys than ANTIFA"
Who should decide what’s considered a ‘terrorist group’ in Canada? That depends who you ask | The Star - "If the far-right group Proud Boys was looking for a sympathetic ear, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network is probably not the first place it would go. But the anti-racism organization says it’s concerned about the recent unanimous declaration from the House of Commons that the Proud Boys should be designated terrorists. “I think we’re all pretty concerned about the window shifting of what is a terrorist organization changing on the whims on the politics of the day, on the news cycle,” said Peter Smith, an activist with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network... “The Proud Boys are definitely a hate group, and they’ve definitely been violent, and they’ve been violent in Canada. But what is a terrorist has an imperfect but ... very specific legal definition,” Smith said. For elected politicians to label anyone as a terrorist is “dangerous for anyone who is engaging in any kind of dissent”... national security and legal observers expressed concerns that MPs — in the absence of intelligence or evidence, and outside of the legal process of listing terrorist entities — are pushing to have a specific group designated as terrorists. The Proud Boys are an all-male brotherhood created by far-right media personality Gavin McInnes, whose members have been tied to violence and civil unrest in the U.S. and Canada. But Smith said anti-Fascist and anti-hate activists are also concerned about making terrorism designations even more political."
Erin Weir: The NDP were wrong to call for the Proud Boys to be labelled as terrorists - "On World Press Freedom Day (May 3), Canadian politicians had much to say about freedom of speech and expression. The day before, Proud Boys Canada disbanded, accusing politicians of having violated those basic freedoms by designating it as a “terrorist entity.” While Canadians are right to reject the Proud Boys’ self-described “chauvinism,” a free society should not label groups as terrorists simply for promoting prejudiced views. Democracy depends on the right to express and debate unpopular, or even offensive, opinions... The New Democratic Party has a proud tradition of speaking up for Canadian civil liberties, even in the face of actual terrorist threats. In 1970, New Democrats stood alone in Parliament against invoking the War Measures Act, after several bombings and kidnappings perpetrated by the Front de libération du Québec. In 2001, New Democrats were the first to oppose the Anti-Terrorism Act that was introduced after the Sept. 11 attacks. Now, the NDP has reversed its position and is advocating that this sweeping piece of legislation be used more extensively... Although the adjective “deadly” is being repeated, neither the Proud Boys nor other Trump supporters killed anyone at the U.S. Capitol. Five people died during, or shortly after, the riot, including two protesters from heart attacks, one protester from a drug overdose and one police officer from a stroke. The only person killed with a weapon was an unarmed Trump supporter who was shot by police... a melee in which they did not fire weapons, plant bombs, kill or kidnap people is hardly terrorism. Indeed, the U.S. has not designated the Proud Boys as terrorists. It is remarkable that Canada would deem the Capitol riot as “terrorist activity” when the supposed target, the American government, does not. Yet the NDP has not revised its petition and, more importantly, the Canadian government has not revisited its designation."
Placing the Proud Boys on Canada’s Terrorism List Is a Threat to the Left - "It will be very difficult for the NDP to oppose civil-liberty-crushing enhancements of the Anti-Terrorism Act by any future Liberal or Tory government, now that the party has decided that when it comes to ideas and groups they don’t like, civil liberties don’t matter. After 9/11, the NDP, as well as allied groups like the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), stressed that the definition of terrorism in Bill-C36 was sufficiently vague so as to make no distinction between political terror and political dissent. This is a perennial problem within anti-terror law around the world. As many scholars of terrorism have pointed out, there has never been an internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism because too many states want to reserve the right to continue to be able to target civilians. The popular understanding of what constitutes terrorism is pretty much on point: terrorism is this deliberate targeting of civilians. Soldiers killing other soldiers during war may be bad, but that is war, not terrorism. Even unintentionally killing civilians while targeting enemy armed forces is still recognized by ordinary people as a part of war — however horrific, it is not terrorism. Contrary to the familiar aphorism that one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, most people are able to make a clear distinction between these two. The French Resistance thus were in the main not “good terrorists,” but simply not terrorists, for their targets were primarily Nazi or Vichy military and police or infrastructure that supported the German war machine, not civilians... What counts as “serious risk to health or safety,” “serious interference,” or an “essential service”? Many acts of civil dissent involve unlawful acts such as trespassing, causing a disturbance, or resisting arrest. Wildcat strikes are often illegal. Civil disobedience is, by definition, the disobeying of laws that are felt to be unjust. Activists accept the penalty of arrest and the possibility of jail time. These risks are not merely a possible consequence of dissent, but a key part of the process. In order to broadcast the conviction with which protesters protest, they must show that they are willing, as the popular folk hymn lyric puts it, to go to jail for justice. Sitting at certain lunch counters in the US South in the 1950s may have been peaceful, but it wasn’t legal. No one in their right mind would count such activism as terrorism. But the law theoretically counts it as such. Amnesty International also critiqued the bill, noting that, in some countries, even peaceful protest is illegal. As the legislation expressly includes acts occurring outside Canada, peaceful Uyghur protests against the Chinese state theoretically counts as terrorism. The CCPA had also noted that the Supreme Court of Canada has defined “serious bodily harm” as any hurt or injury, whether physical or psychological, that interferes with an individual’s well-being. Today, we might wonder, given that Amazon warehouse staff are categorized as essential workers, whether a strike at a fulfillment center could be described as terrorism. The issue is not whether such a categorization is likely, but whether it is possible for the words in the law to be read in such a way as to allow for such an interpretation to occur... at least the invoking of the War Measures Act was an actual emergency measure. Bill C-36, meanwhile, was an indefinite change to the Criminal Code, the Official Secrets Act, and the Privacy and Evidence Acts. It represents a permanent erosion of civil liberties norms... The irony is that Jagmeet Singh himself, as well as many of his family and friends, being not just brown but Sikh, have been doubly subject to these assaults that are not only a product of systemic racism but also of anti-terror erosion of civil liberties protections... But it’s not just people of color or white ethnic minorities that are the object of anti-terror excesses. The entirety of the Left has been targeted... In both the US and Canada, a wave of arrests, surveillance, and the use of agent provocateurs was used against environmental and animal rights activists. This persecution was so extensive that the phenomenon has been described by civil liberties watchdogs such as the US National Lawyers Guild as a “Green Scare”... the NDP’s rationale for placing the Proud Boys on the terror list was that their involvement in the storming of the US Capitol was an act of “domestic terrorism” and that they promote white supremacist views. Both of these charges are different in kind than those that obtain in the cases of ISIS and their cohort. Furthermore, acquiescing to their use as a rationale — or worse, celebrating their effectiveness as a justification — for state censorship is to disregard the slippery slope they represent. The Canadian government is setting a dangerous precedent that may haunt the Left. The Canadian government has condemned the Proud Boys for espousing misogynist, Islamophobic, antisemitic, and white supremacist ideologies, and for associating “with white supremacist groups.” The wording is interesting here because neither the NDP nor the Liberal government is calling the group a white supremacist organization. In certain academic and activist circles in the last few years, it has become common to hear in Canada, the United States, Western Europe, and the antipodes characterized as white supremacist societies. The term white supremacy is increasingly being used as a synonym for generic, everyday racism, rather than — as the term has historically been used and is still popularly understood as meaning — a particularly pernicious and extreme form of racism that seeks to impose racial hierarchy at the barrel of a gun... We immediately see the problem of such linguistic mission creep when we hear a group or person described by these same academics and activists as being an “actual white supremacist” or an “actual neo-Nazi.” Adding the modifier actual is a concession that the term’s overuse and frequent hyperbolic register has created slippage between its denotation and connotation... If street fighting is sufficient to warrant going beyond careful monitoring toward placement on a terrorism list, with all the social and financial immobilization that entails, then antifa activists, and by extension the organizations they belong to, tick the same street-fighting box. To correctly say that antifa is not an organization but more akin to a movement or even just a tactic, probably wouldn’t convince any court... The 2020 protests attempting to block construction of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline through unceded Wet’suwet’en First Nation territory in British Columbia, and the accompanying rail blockades that sprang up across the country in solidarity, can now be categorized as terrorism... The Left may be able to laugh off facile comparisons made by former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker between the 2011 occupation of the state Capitol in protest against his efforts to severely restrict collective bargaining for public sector workers and the 2021 US Capitol occupation. But will courts? Wisconsin protesters were overwhelmingly peaceful. But not all of them. Republican and Democratic state senators report receiving dozens of death threats at the time, and one protester who had emailed such threats, Katherine Windels, also pleaded guilty to making a bomb threat. We would be right to adamantly insist that she was in no way representative of the vast majority of protesters. It is wrong to tar Windels and all the Wisconsin protesters with the same brush. But we can imagine that the majority of the US Capitol protesters would say the same of their fellows who brought weapons along. And we can be sure that a great many judges would struggle to tell the difference between the two cases except with respect to political beliefs."
Remarkably cogent take by Jacobin
Head of Oregon’s FBI: Bureau doesn’t designate Proud Boys as extremist group
Proud Boys, Black Lives Matter leaders hold joint conference in SLC: We 'denounce White supremacy' - "Local leaders of the right-wing group Proud Boys in Salt Lake City held a joint news conference with a local Black Lives Matter leader on Wednesday to correct the record and “denounce White supremacy” after President Trump mentioned them during Tuesday’s first presidential debate... Enrique Tarrio, international chairman of the Proud Boys and a Black Hispanic, denied Wednesday the allegations of racism, tweeting, “The question was in reference to WHITE SUPREMACY … which we are not.” The Proud Boys, who are known for their clashes with leftist Antifa activists, particularly in Portland, claim to stand for “western chauvinism,” which they say is just another word for patriotism. “It means that the west is the best — western civilization is the best. That’s our opinion”"
Facts don't matter when they contradict the Narrative
Multiple Proud Boys Stabbed in Washington, D.C. Knife Attack - "Members of the far-right Proud Boys groups have been injured in a knife attack in Washington, D.C... One of the victims is alleged to be Enrique Tarrio, chairman of the group. Activist Bevelyn Beatty is also said to have been stabbed... Police said they are looking for three suspects: two Black males wearing all-black clothing and a Black female wearing black sweatpants with white stripes, orange leggings and a dark gray coat armed with a knife... One man who responded to protesters' calls of "Black lives matter" with phrases including such as "all lives matter" and "white lives matter" was allegedly hit with a bat."
More 4D chess! The Proud Boys are attacking each other to discredit the left!
Proud Boys receiving huge Asian American support, report says - "The right-wing Proud Boys are getting a huge wave of support from Asian Americans who fear Antifa and Black Lives Matter want to bring Communist rule to the US... Recent fundraising efforts for the Proud Boys saw as many as 80 percent of the donations coming from people with Chinese surnames... “You have to understand how we feel – we came from Communist China and we managed to come here and we appreciate it here so much,” Rebecca Kwan, who recently donated $500 to the group, told the paper. Her support came specifically because the Proud Boys “are fighting Antifa,” she said. “And can you see anything good that Antifa did except destroy department stores and small businesses?” Others expressed alarm at the extreme left-wing ideology of BLM, which co-founder Patrisse Cullors has said formed the “ideological frame” behind the “black liberation movement.”... In one fundraiser for Proud Boys members who were stabbed during violent clashes in Washington in mid-December, almost 1,000 people with Chinese surnames gave about $86,000 — more than 80% of the $106,107 raised... The Proud Boys’ controversial chairman, Enrique Tarrio, thanked the Asian community for its support. “I am happy that Asians support the ProudBoys because of the continuous hate and the relentless assault they get from BLM supporters”... As a self-identifying Afro Cuban American, Tarrio’s leadership has also helped garner support from Latin Americans... “For large parts of the world, there is a context and implication and history to communism and how it has affected several countries,” said Jared Holt, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab who studies extremism. “So there are some communities of immigrants and descendants of immigrants for which the Proud Boys’ projection as a group combating communism in the United States resonates favorably.”"
