It has been frustrating to read statement after statement condemning antifa as the moral equivalent of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. Everyone from Nancy Pelosi to David Frum has gone on record to decry the violent methods of the black clad antifa, asserting that they are no different than the white supremacists they oppose. These critiques seem to deliberately miss the point, obfuscating the fact that opposition to fascism is clearly morally superior to Nazism and white supremacy.
Antifa should be strongly criticized for seeking to violently shut down speech, but NOT for defensively using violence to protect non-violent protestors. As we saw in Charlottesville, when law enforcement passively watched as a white supremacist fired a gun towards a Black counter-protestor and walked away, those of us who protest white supremacists and Nazis cannot always count on law enforcement to protect us. We should listen to the people on the ground in Charlottesville, who credited antifa with saving their lives. Unfortunately, in many other instances, the antifa have escalated the violence, muddied the waters and allowed those with tepid opposition to white supremacy and anti-Semitism to take a hands off approach and say, “a pox on both their houses.”
The problem with antifa is twofold. First, their strategy of deploying violence offensively, on the theory that Nazis cannot be reasoned with, ignores the context in which these clashes take place. This is not World War II and the antifa are not the Allied forces. Given that white supremacists are heavily armed and law enforcement will not protect us even when we are clearly blameless, what does antifa think the result will be when both sides show up armed? Who will law enforcement protect? Their insistence on violence as a tactic exposes an appalling ignorance of American history. Those of us old enough to remember COINTELPRO or who have read of lives ruined by the McCarthy anti-Communist witch hunts know all too well that the federal government will not hesitate to destroy the lives of those they deem an internal security threat, no matter how righteous their cause.
Antifa’s other problem is one that they share with a wide range of political entities, including the Democratic Party. It is their refusal to take direction from and accept the leadership of those with the most at stake in the fight against white supremacy. Black people have been fighting white supremacy since our arrival on these shores in 1619. We have had to fight tooth and nail to attain the Constitutional protections that other Americans take for granted. We have repeatedly seen the peaceful exercise of our First Amendment rights met with militarized police forces in riot gear who deploy tear gas and rubber bullets with abandon.
Black Lives Matter has been dubbed a hate group by irresponsible commentators, despite the fact that its plea is simply for police officers to stop killing unarmed Black people. The Trump administration is ramping up police militarization and unshackling law enforcement from the constraints imposed by federal consent decrees or fear of federal civil rights prosecutions. It is doubtful that antifa has thought about the consequences of their actions on the people in whose name they fight. Refusing to follow our leadership is patronizing, counter-productive and dangerous. Those of us who are the targets of white supremacists and Nazis are more than capable of devising the strategy best suited for fighting the forces of hatred. We have been doing it for centuries. Antifa needs to take a seat and listen to us.
oh my god, this is perfection