Proud Boys - what are they?

[marc]

Bad behavior is an understatement. Antifa has sent many innocent people's livelihood up in flames and beat the shit out of quite a few.

Is their any evidence to actually back that up? Antifa has been one of the right's favorite boogeymen, blaming anything they can on antifa, while not providing any actual evidence. Fire starts during a protest? Blame Antifa!!! Just ignore all the cases where white supremacists actually committed the vandalism to encourage attacks against protesters. Heck, Oregon police beg people to stop calling in false reports blaming antifa for wildfires.

 

[bigfield]

[I notice that you are continually derailing your own thread by not accepting who Proud Boys are but instead using the revelations about them as a launching pad to attack Antifa."

That was most likely the purpose of the thread in the first place.

"Hey who these proud boys can someone tell me I trust you guys more than wikipedia it's just opinions...oh I did some research and antifa are bad guys and proud boys fight antifa so the evidence speaks for itself amirite."

 

[skepticalbip]

Just because they call themselves antifa does not mean they are fighting against fascism. Capitalism is not fascism. Private property is not fascism. Not liking a politician does not make him a fascist. If Antifa were to name themselves descriptively some would call themselves Marxists and some would call themselves anarchists.

I notice that you are continually derailing your own thread by not accepting who Proud Boys are but instead using the revelations about them as a launching pad to attack Antifa. Perhaps Antifa deserves some criticism, but your substitution of acceptance of facts about Proud Boys--i.e., the thread topic--by continually attacking Antifa with no mention of Proud Boys' racist behaviors is unacceptable.

Let's get you back on track.

Do you accept that Proud Boys continually flashes the KKK symbol? Do you think they do it as a joke on a regular basis?

Let's suppose you think they are just joking about being racists all the time and they are not TRUE racists.

Okay, sure. Do recall, though, that after the unpopularity of Charlottesville, Proud Boys underwent re-branding. If you were a racist alt-right group you'd try to disassociate yourself from unpopularity, too, right? Maybe focus on things like "Western culture" or "Western values" or "tradition?"

You are asking me what the Proud Boys think and their motivations. I have no way of knowing. I judge groups by their actions not by what they say. I have found a history of Proud Boys physically attacking antifa going back several years starting in Canada. They are a violent bunch but I haven't yet found a case where they attacked anyone other than antifa. Both groups are violent and we would be better off without either. Sorta why I sarcastically suggested we should get them off the streets and put them in arenas to go at each other and charge spectators to watch if they enjoy watching blood sports.

 

[marc]

They are a violent bunch but I haven't yet found a case where they attacked anyone other than antifa.

Not looking very hard then are you? Proud Boys Member, Who Shot Paintballs At Protestors, Arrested By Portland Police. Proud Boy Trump Supporters Chase Down and Attack Black Lives Matter Counterprotesters in Oregon. CNN reporter interviewing Proud Boy members, her crew gets threatened.

Both groups are violent and we would be better off without either.

And can you provide any evidence that people who are part of antifa are actually violent?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So words don't matter in understanding motivations, only actions. But actions don't tell you motivations. Looking at actions is not good enough. Plus, words are actions, too.

Besides the whole actions versus words dichotomy, it isn't true that Proud Boys only attacks anti-fascists. Let's review:

• Proud Boys shows up at locations to do protests, including conservative rallies.
• They also show up at locations to do counter-protests. Liberal/Antifa/BLM/College speakers, etc.
• They are inherently violent, like a fight club. They call themselves chauvinists.
• Jason Kessler, primary organizer of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville was a Proud Boy. Charlottesville!!! CHARLOTTESVILLE!
• Proud Boys are NOT only a US organization. They are also in Canada, Australia, Britain, and Norway, all majority White countries.
• They have distanced themselves from organizationally saying explicitly that they are for Whites and instead use the term "Western." Gavin McIness in conversation with Nazi, says "that's the hand we're dealt," i.e. he doesn't prefer to work with multi-racial organization but has to.
• They show up to Black Lives Matter rallies to incite violence and fight people. Antifa shows up to BLM rallies to protect people and is willing to engage in violence in self-defense and be preemptive.
• What happens is that Proud Boys fights with BLM. They also fight with Antifa. They will fight with anyone who is at one of these events who is opposed to them or they oppose. But you said they are defined by fighting with Antifa ONLY.

Here's an example of Proud Boys unifying with Qanon conspiracy theorists and white supremacist militias to go after BLM supporters:
https://www.newsweek.com/proud-boys-rushed-attacked-black-lives-matter-supporters-1530187

Preemptively attacking with paint balls. Waiting for counter-attack and then chasing people down and beating them. Yelling things like "fag" before attacking people.

 

[repoman]

Gavin would want these guys (more like their grandchildren now) to make local chapters of the Proud Boys

 

[ZiprHead]

Gavin didn't host that party, the Manhattan New York Republicans hosted it.

 

[Copernicus]

I am non so sure about white supremacist part cause I saw a picture of a black dude in their ranks.

You are thinking of Enrique Tarrio, the Cuban American who is leader of Proud Boys since last year (2019). He is dark-skinned and almost certainly has African ancestry, like many Cubans. Sometimes he looks like a young white guy with a tan, and sometimes he looks like a dark-skinned African. He is also Florida state director of Latinos for Trump.

You can find various images of Enrique Tarrio here, including one with Roger Stone where he is flashing the white power sign.

EXCLUSIVE: Leader of 'white supremacist' Proud Boys is state director of unofficial support group called Latinos for Trump and has ties to Republicans including the president's son Don Jr., Senator Ted Cruz and Roger Stone, who is a member

 

[barbos]

Yes, he looks black enough to question white supremacy part.

 

[Deepak]

I am non so sure about white supremacist part cause I saw a picture of a black dude in their ranks.

You are thinking of Enrique Tarrio, the Cuban American who is leader of Proud Boys since last year (2019). He is dark-skinned and almost certainly has African ancestry, like many Cubans. Sometimes he looks like a young white guy with a tan, and sometimes he looks like a dark-skinned African. He is also Florida state director of Latinos for Trump.

You can find various images of Enrique Tarrio here, including one with Roger Stone where he is flashing the white power sign.

EXCLUSIVE: Leader of 'white supremacist' Proud Boys is state director of unofficial support group called Latinos for Trump and has ties to Republicans including the president's son Don Jr., Senator Ted Cruz and Roger Stone, who is a member

The central conceit here is the assumption that a non-white person associating with an organization by definition makes them not-white-supremacist which is of course absurd if one considers the real range of human interaction and the law of truly large numbers. Rather than focusing on the identities of individual constituent members, the better way to gauge their intent is to see what sorts of groups they associate with. Pretty much all their appearances end up being attended by white supremacists, neo Confederates, and other right-wing extremists.

Giving this credence is like giving the 'blacks fought for the Confederacy' argument credence. OP seems to have his answer in post 43, but I predict this thread will continue on for a while whinging about Antifa.

 

[skepticalbip]

Yes, he looks black enough to question white supremacy part.

I think that their being a militant right wing extremist group is the reason they have been labeled as 'white supremacists'. People use labels damned sloppily. If they were burning black churches or chasing blacks out of restaurants and bars then the label would apply. As it is they are a militant right wing extremist group that confronts militant left wing extremist groups.

Before I opened the thread and began reading elsewhere what they did, the only thing I had heard about them is that they were white supremacists. I kinda expected to find their behavior focused on separating blacks and whites in society, assaulting mixed race couples, etc. but didn't find that.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Yes, he looks black enough to question white supremacy part.

I think that their being a militant right wing extremist group is the reason they have been labeled as 'white supremacists'. People use labels damned sloppily. If they were burning black churches or chasing blacks out of restaurants and bars then the label would apply. As it is they are a militant right wing extremist group that confronts militant left wing extremist groups.

Before I opened the thread and began reading elsewhere what they did, the only thing I had heard about them is that they were white supremacists. I kinda expected to find their behavior focused on attacking BLM supporters, hanging out with and endorsing white nationalists, organizing Charlottesville, separating blacks and whites in society, assaulting mixed race couples, etc. but didn't find that.

FIFY

 

[Copernicus]

Yes, he looks black enough to question white supremacy part.

If only he weren't flashing the white supremacy hand gesture in that picture with Roger Stone. I suspect that he thinks of himself more as a dark-skinned Latino than an African American, but none of that really matters. The Proud Boys vehemently deny that they are white supremacist, but so do a lot of white supremacists. They have very strong ties to overt white supremacist groups. This is part of the rebranding movement that started with David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK. They are trying to sanitize the vocabulary surrounding racist memes, so they use dogwhistle tactics. And they happily denounce "racism", whatever that is.

A good example of this is a term that their founder, Gavin McInnes, uses a lot: "western chauvinism". He uses the term interchangeably with "western culturalism". It is an explicit rejection of multiculturalism or cultural relativism, and it has overtones of Nazi "Ubermensch" propaganda without mentioning the Untermenschen. The dogwhistle decryption process equates "western" with European--i.e. indigenous whites. Chauvinism equates with "supremacy". And then they proceed to promote a lot of the same themes that the explicit white supremacists do.

 

[Politesse]

Yes, he looks black enough to question white supremacy part.

By that logic, the Klan wasn't a white supremacist group either. You cannot deduce someone's political views by looking at them.

 

[skepticalbip]

Yet again you are pretending to be a mind reader. I haven't read the Wiki page because I find Wiki to be a poor source, often more opinion than fact.

Wikipedia has high standards equal to those of any decent journalistic source. AND they cite references with links that you can click and check for yourself, so you can't pretend Wikipedia itself is the main source of information you find there. When opinions or any unsourced info is entered on wikipedia by editors, it is flagged as needing a citation, indicating to readers that they should take that particular item with a grain of salt until citation is entered or the item is removed entirely.

Politesse quoted Wiki as describing 'proud boys' as "The Proud Boys are a far-right, white nationalist, and neo-fascist male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence."
I didn't read Wiki but from other sources:
..Wiki's "far-right" seems spot on.
..Wiki's "white nationalist" is only partly true. They are nationalists but are black, white, and latino nationalists.
..Wiki's "neo-fascist" seems to be just a random slur using "fascist" for "right wing".
..Wiki's "male-only" is probably true.
..Wiki's "promotes and engages in political violence" has several problems. political violence generally means violent actions taken against the government, government institutions, or government employees or to change or overthrow the government. The phrase would only indirectly apply to the 'proud boys' as they do use violence to confront those groups that are engaged in political violence. I have no idea about the "promote" part. Do they have a campaign to encourage non-members to form groups to physically attack those violent militant left wing groups?

The quote from Wiki doesn't really give any understanding of what proud boys are other than they are militant right wing extremists. It, at least, didn't include the trigger phrase, "white supremacists" but did use the trigger phrase, "white nationalist" rather than more correctly, "nationalist". It also included the trigger phrase, "neo-fascist". It leaves the impression that they engage in random violence rather than targeted violence against opposing groups who engage in political violence.

 

[Angry Floof]

Yet again you are pretending to be a mind reader. I haven't read the Wiki page because I find Wiki to be a poor source, often more opinion than fact.

Wikipedia has high standards equal to those of any decent journalistic source. AND they cite references with links that you can click and check for yourself, so you can't pretend Wikipedia itself is the main source of information you find there. When opinions or any unsourced info is entered on wikipedia by editors, it is flagged as needing a citation, indicating to readers that they should take that particular item with a grain of salt until citation is entered or the item is removed entirely.

Politesse quoted Wiki as describing 'proud boys' as "The Proud Boys are a far-right, white nationalist, and neo-fascist male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence."
I didn't read Wiki but from other sources:
..Wiki's "far-right" seems spot on.
..Wiki's "white nationalist" is only partly true. They are nationalists but are black, white, and latino nationalists.
..Wiki's "neo-fascist" seems to be just a random slur using "fascist" for "right wing".
..Wiki's "male-only" is probably true.
..Wiki's "promotes and engages in political violence" has several problems. political violence generally means violent actions taken against the government, government institutions, or government employees or to change or overthrow the government. The phrase would only indirectly apply to the 'proud boys' as they do use violence to confront those groups that are engaged in political violence. I have no idea about the "promote" part. Do they have a campaign to encourage non-members to form groups to physically attack those violent militant left wing groups?

The quote from Wiki doesn't really give any understanding of what proud boys are other than they are militant right wing extremists. It, at least, didn't include the trigger phrase, "white supremacists" but did use the trigger phrase, "white nationalist" rather than more correctly, "nationalist". It also included the trigger phrase, "neo-fascist". It leaves the impression that they engage in random violence rather than targeted violence against opposing groups who engage in political violence.

Why is that not a clear understanding? Proud Boys are not well organized. They're just highly driven and highly emotional boys who are attracted to authoritarian ideologies, which are inherently divisive and which always find an "enemy" group or groups to scare their followers into following the authority figure who promises to eradicate or punish those enemies. On top of that, the authoritarian mentality appeals to boys who were raised to some degree under that paradigm of a father figure who withholds approval and affection and models emotional repression.

None of this is going to be written out clearly in a Proud Boys manifesto or anything so pat and easy, but it's there, and you can tell that by their words and actions that you claim to observe but probably didn't really. By the standards you are implying here, very few groups or ideologies could be described in any useful way. (Well, maybe useful to people who want to pretend a group or ideology is something different from what it is. See Politesse's comment below about the KKK.)

 

[blastula]

Yet again you are pretending to be a mind reader. I haven't read the Wiki page because I find Wiki to be a poor source, often more opinion than fact.

Wikipedia has high standards equal to those of any decent journalistic source. AND they cite references with links that you can click and check for yourself, so you can't pretend Wikipedia itself is the main source of information you find there. When opinions or any unsourced info is entered on wikipedia by editors, it is flagged as needing a citation, indicating to readers that they should take that particular item with a grain of salt until citation is entered or the item is removed entirely.

Politesse quoted Wiki as describing 'proud boys' as "The Proud Boys are a far-right, white nationalist, and neo-fascist male-only organization that promotes and engages in political violence."
I didn't read Wiki but from other sources:
..Wiki's "far-right" seems spot on.
..Wiki's "white nationalist" is only partly true. They are nationalists but are black, white, and latino nationalists.
..Wiki's "neo-fascist" seems to be just a random slur using "fascist" for "right wing".
..Wiki's "male-only" is probably true.
..Wiki's "promotes and engages in political violence" has several problems. political violence generally means violent actions taken against the government, government institutions, or government employees or to change or overthrow the government. The phrase would only indirectly apply to the 'proud boys' as they do use violence to confront those groups that are engaged in political violence. I have no idea about the "promote" part. Do they have a campaign to encourage non-members to form groups to physically attack those violent militant left wing groups?

The quote from Wiki doesn't really give any understanding of what proud boys are other than they are militant right wing extremists. It, at least, didn't include the trigger phrase, "white supremacists" but did use the trigger phrase, "white nationalist" rather than more correctly, "nationalist". It also included the trigger phrase, "neo-fascist". It leaves the impression that they engage in random violence rather than targeted violence against opposing groups who engage in political violence.

Don't forget the masturbationism.

 

[skepticalbip]

Don't forget the masturbationism.

That goes without saying. What men's club doesn't get into masturbation?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Many individuals within Proud Boys are white nationalists and the group hangs out with white nationalists. Recall Charlottesville was organized by one of these GIANT turds. Since a couple of years ago, they have been desperately seeking legitimacy and so they took on a Latino leader and replaced words like "white" with "western" and words like "race" with "culture." They got rid of Gavin McInnes who said something about Jews among other terrible things. Aside from constantly being at Black Lives Matter rallies to beat people in the head with baseball bats while they scream "fag," they do have a small percent of black members...some of them paid actors and some not. I mean, you have crazy people everywhere like Kanye West or that black guy that supports the Confederacy. So without invoking the No True White Nationalist Organization fallacy, I am going to say that at present they are more like a gateway drug to White Nationalism. And as in the video many individuals are actual white nationalists. So, if it makes someone butthurt to call them white nationalists, fine, just don't do it. You have freedom to call them something else, like neo-fascist, neo-white-nationalist, white-nationalist-adjacent, white-supremacist-allied, useful idiots to white supremacy, nascent Nazis, the counter revolution, whatever. The question of who they are is answered, though, and so you don't need to dwell on it further.

 

[skepticalbip]

Many individuals within Proud Boys are white nationalists and the group hangs out with white nationalists. Recall Charlottesville was organized by one of these GIANT turds. Since a couple of years ago, they have been desperately seeking legitimacy and so they took on a Latino leader and replaced words like "white" with "western" and words like "race" with "culture." They got rid of Gavin McInnes who said something about Jews among other terrible things. Aside from constantly being at Black Lives Matter rallies to beat people in the head with baseball bats while they scream "fag," they do have a small percent of black members...some of them paid actors and some not. I mean, you have crazy people everywhere like Kanye West or that black guy that supports the Confederacy. So without invoking the No True White Nationalist Organization fallacy, I am going to say that at present they are more like a gateway drug to White Nationalism. And as in the video many individuals are actual white nationalists. So, if it makes someone butthurt to call them white nationalists, fine, just don't do it. You have freedom to call them something else, like neo-fascist, neo-white-nationalist, white-nationalist-adjacent, white-supremacist-allied, useful idiots to white supremacy, nascent Nazis, the counter revolution, whatever. The question of who they are is answered, though, and so you don't need to dwell on it further.

You seem to be so "triggered" that you missed that the post was to illustrate my claim that Wiki has a lot of opinion stated as fact. It was in response to Angry Floof's claim that Wiki is infallible.