WEBVTT - Antifascist Roundtable, Part 1 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:05.040 Cool Media. 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.559 Welcome to it could happen here on Garrison Davis. This 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:13.280 is the show where we talk about how everything is 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.480 kind of falling apart and how we can sometimes put 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.400 it back together. Joining me is as my my dear 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.439 dear collaborator and friend, James Stout. Good morning, James. 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.640 Good morning Garrison. That's very kind of you, Thank you. 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.200 And we got a very special episode here today. We 0:00:30.240 --> 0:00:35.320 are talking with four people who have put together a 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:40.320 new book by AKA Press called No Parseran. We're gonna 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:41.479 have kind of a little bit of a like a 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:46.239 group discussion about anti fascist history and this kind of 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:49.200 this the state of anti fascism in the past few years. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:51.280 I know, this is how I kind of got started 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:54.840 with radical politics growing up in Portland, Oregon. You see 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.600 Nazis marching around in your street and you're like, oh, well, 0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:00.280 this is obviously a problem, so much a problem, do 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:05.080 something about this. And stuff has changed a lot the 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:07.399 past the past few years. I mean, like the anti 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:09.119 fatist movement that I got kind of that I kind 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:12.240 of got into only twenty eighteen. You know, it's very 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.160 different now, and it's I don't know, these types of 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.319 things live on through like oral histories as well as 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.280 you know, books, and I think it's really cool to 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.200 have these types of conversations. So joining us today is 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:31.000 Shane Burley, Emily Gorcinski, Michael Novic, and Darryl Lamont Jenkins. 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:34.680 Greetings everyone, I'm going to hand it over to Shane 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.440 and you can kind of talk about the book. 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:41.680 I guess, yeah, Thanks Scarrison, Thanks James for having us 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.120 on the whole crew of us. Yeah, this book was 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.440 something came out last year, but we had been working 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:53.160 on it for about four years. I'm starting in twenty eighteen. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:55.920 I was drunk with Kim Kelly and New York and 0:01:55.960 --> 0:01:58.000 we thought it'd be really great to put together something 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.760 with all of our friends. And what do you do 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:02.400 with a big group of people. It takes like four 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.400 or five years to pull off. But really the idea 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.840 was trying to do something that was bigger than what 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.240 had been written about anti fascism at that point, which 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.240 was shockingly narrow. What people understood it as of just 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.919 a few movements, mostly very recent history, and so much 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.080 wasn't being included in that conversation. So the idea was, 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.600 how can we build out like a much bigger picture 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.400 of this by including as many voices as possible. So 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:33.880 we ended up getting a couple of dozen folks together 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:36.840 that had different takes on it. Some talking about tech, 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.079 some talking about deep history, some talking about anti fascism 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.320 in their countries, o their continents, and so in general, 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.720 the idea was to make it feel like a discussion 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:50.880 between people who either know each other or should be 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:53.640 like in some kind of comradeship with each other. So 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.720 that was sort of where it came together. I think 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.600 with this conversation. The way we were thinking about this 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.399 is I want I wanted the opportunity to talk with 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.440 basically my friends about their history a little bit, and 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.400 so I asked three folks that had a really long 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.320 history with doing organizing work, and so I thought it 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.320 would be cool maybe if we go through talking to 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:17.080 them a little bit about their prehistory or their early 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:22.000 history organizing. And Michael, your history goes back the furthest 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:24.880 as you know, we know, so I thought we could 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.280 kick off with you and then talk with Emily and 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.280 then Darryl just kind of getting into your background. So 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:32.799 how do you get started in movement work? I actually I 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.440 should say first, when did you get started in movement work. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.360 Well, yeah, so I sometimes felt a little bit of 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:41.840 a dinosaur. I was born in nineteen forty seven, so 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:48.440 the fascism in power was a fairly recent reality in 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.400 my life. My father was a immigrant from Poland. I 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:54.560 came here in the thirties. Most of his family was 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:59.000 destroyed in Biello Stoke. They had uprising there similar to 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:04.000 the Warsaw Ghetto r Almost everybody was lipidated in that process. 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:09.000 So there's a family history there for me. Also obviously 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:10.760 grew up in the shadow of you know, the US 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:16.560 atomic bombing of Rosa Manakasaki and the US incarceration of 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.760 Japanese Americans and concentration camps, so you know, those are 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.240 realities in my life. I've lived in a you know, 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:31.839 orthodox Jewish immigrant working class family and neighborhood in Brooklyn, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.240 which is now dominated by extremely right wing forces. Borough Park. 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:41.480 It's one of the bastions of probably you know, neo 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:47.200 fascist Republican prosionists. But somehow, when I grew up there 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:52.159 that was not the case. Anyway. I got involved in 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:55.880 politics in the sixties and you know, student movement stuff, 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:59.640 anti war stuff, and at Brooklyn College, which when I 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:05.479 was there, it was free public four year college part 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.479 of the City University System in New York, and I 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:13.920 was actually eventually elected student body president. They had liquidated 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.800 the student government earlier when you know, people opposed the 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.279 Korean War, and we had a struggle to get you know, 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.280 for student rights and anti war stuff and so on, 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.800 and we succeeded in getting student body elections for offices 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.240 for the first time in about a dozen years. But 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.160 you know, as part of all that anti war and 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.000 anti police brutality and other stuff that was going on 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:42.560 in Brooklyn at the time, and then we raised the 0:05:42.600 --> 0:05:44.800 question of the fact that Brooklyn College was ninety eight 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:50.120 percent white, white in a borough that even then was 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:55.160 you know, majority black in Puerto Rican, and suddenly all 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.320 the student support we had had for all the other 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.480 struggles cops off the campus and you know, avy up 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:03.120 the campus and so on, and we got you know, 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:05.560 dean of students fired and other stuff. But as soon 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.440 as we raised the question of opening the campus up 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:11.040 and having open admissions to the City University system and 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.600 a special emissions program for black and Puerto Rican high 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:18.480 school students, most of our students support have oporated. And 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.039 for me, that was an object lesson that unless you're 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:27.880 you know, consciously organizing about internalized and institutionalized racism, everything 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.560 else you do that is you know, progressive or anti 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.520 imperialist or anti war is kind of a house of 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.640 cards or you know, castles made of sand. And in 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.960 particular and raising those issues, we discovered that there was 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.719 a fascist element down the campus. There were people who 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.760 formed the Early Jewish Defense League in Brooklyn who were 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:51.479 primarily anti black. And also there's a group called the 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.920 youth what is it, Young Americans for Vitom YAF, which 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:59.560 was like the youth wing of the National Review, right 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.520 wing Republican formation, and they were pretty openly fascistic in 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.279 their politics. So, you know, it became a question that 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.960 if you were doing you know, anti racist and anti 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:11.880 war an anti capitalist organizing, you were going to face 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.320 not just you know, a struggle against the force of 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:20.480 the state, but that there were reactionary elements within particularly 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.240 white society, and I think because of set the colonialism, 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:27.720 you know, there's a mass base for that. And struck 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:29.360 by the title of the show just say, I don't 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:31.840 know if people are familiar with the book, it can't 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.880 happen here, but Obviously your title is a reflection it 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.240 could happen here. I think it has happened here. For 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:40.320 one thing, I think the fashion has always been an 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:45.440 element of US political culture because of settle colonialism. You know, 0:07:47.480 --> 0:07:50.920 I mean definition of fascism is that it's bringing the 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.320 methods of rule of the colonies into the metropol But 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:57.080 the US is a settler colony, and therefore there are 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.280 colonized people inside this country, you know, always have been, 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.840 and so fascistic elements of you know, slave labor, genocide, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.040 you know, land theft, all the rest have always been 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.720 part and part of that is also creating that mass 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:15.200 base within the settler population that supports you know, that leadership. 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:21.560 So anyway, I think that that you know that both 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:26.280 those personal aspects and that consciousness, and so I came 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:29.200 in contact with, you know, the very radical forces in 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.360 the Black Freedom Circle. Back then, the Black Panther Party 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.680 is very active. There was one of the people in 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.200 the Black Student Union joined the Black Panther Party. You know, 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.760 it's a period of very fascist attacks and the Panthers 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:46.920 had formed the National Committee of the Combat Fascism and 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.760 had an analysis that you know, the US was fascistic, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:55.199 and you know, George Jackson at that time said, you know, 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.040 fascism is already here, and I think he meant it, 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.520 you know, literally, And so that's part of the perspective 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.640 I've carried through for you know, I don't know what 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:07.800 that is sixty years now close. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:10.520 To Yeah, I mean, I think really quickly, I would 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:12.839 like to hear kind of what your experience was with 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.080 forming John Brown. Where did the idea come from? Because 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.080 I think for a lot of a lot of people 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:22.199 are thinking of recent anti fascist American anti fascist history 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.560 that ends up being kind of a starting point for 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.960 a certain kind of no platform tactic. So how did 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.760 you first kind of develop that? What brought you in? 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:35.240 So, yeah, just to say, I was, you know, coming 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.560 out of the movement as I did, I moved from 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:42.640 New York to California because there was a strong There 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:46.319 was a newspaper called the Movement, which was the newspaper 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.679 basically of friends of Snick. It was the people who 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:53.480 left Snick when Snick adopted a black power analysis and 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.400 said that white people who were involved should go organize 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.000 in the white community. And there was a you know, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.240 kind of a I was part of a Working Class 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.800 Organizing Collective in Hayward, California. Eventually, out of that I 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:08.040 got connected with, you know, some of the people that 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.280 later formed Prairie Fire Organized Committee. I was in a 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:14.760 group in the Bay Area called the June twenty eighth Union. 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.720 It was a gay ends, pro socialist, anti imperiallests, pro 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:24.160 feminist collective of mostly people of European decent. And we 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.680 went to what was called the Hard Times Conference, which 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.800 was put on by Prairie Far Organizing Committee in Chicago, 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.080 and it turned out that there was secretly an effort 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:39.360 by the weather underground to come up from underground to 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.000 create a new communist party, and they serviced that at 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.040 that conference. But there's a lot of opposition to that 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:49.200 from across the board, from different Black liberation, American Indian Movement, 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.719 the Puerto Rican in Deepending, the struggled Chicago movement to 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.040 all of them, you know, felt that there was a 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.920 sell out of the politics there anyway. Out of that 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.480 process I was part of, I joined a Prairie Fire 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:06.840 Organized Committee eventually, and that split and then there was 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:09.920 a West Coast group which captained Prairie Far. The East 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.000 coast formed a group called the main eineteenth communist organization, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:17.840 and they launched the original John Brown Anti Clan Committee, 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:23.280 an initiative from the prisons. The organized prisoners in New 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:25.880 York had discovered that there was an extensive network of 0:11:25.960 --> 0:11:28.640 clan claverns that were based in the prison guards and 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.040 some of the white prisoners, and they asked for outside 0:11:32.080 --> 0:11:34.040 supporters to begin to expose that and deal with it 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.640 and help them deal with it. And John Brand of 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:41.439 the Gillen Committee was formed out of that. Separately, very 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:43.720 far on the West Coast had formed a group called 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.360 take a Stand against the Klan. There was a lot 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.480 of you know, that was the period that the beginning 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.000 of the notification of the clan that was going on. 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:57.600 So this is the seventies and eventually, you know, under 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:02.120 a challenge from particular the New African Independence movement, the 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:06.720 Malcolm XS grassroots movement New African People's Organization which both 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:10.319 Praise Fire on the West Coast and May nineteenth and 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.200 the East Coast were connected to. They pushed for a 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.520 joint organization. So at that point there was a kind 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.400 of reconstitution of John Burnett the Clan Committee, and so 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.640 I was part of that and we merged. You know, 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:28.240 there were chapters in Atlanta, Chicago, the Bay Area, Los 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.480 Angeles where I ended up in New York, I think 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.839 Bowling Green, maybe the couple of Connecticut, and so they 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:40.319 were quite active in that period, and you know, street 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:46.880 level confrontations and you know other exposures of early Neo 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:53.520 Nazi activity and clan activity, but particularly from a perspective 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.160 of conscious and active solidarity with the Black freedom struggling, 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.200 particularly the New African Independence movement, which is a very 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.880 high level of unity, and over a period of time, 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.120 you know, there was a struggle to broaden that out 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.800 and try to be a more all embracing organization that 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:12.400 could relate to the struggle. There were a lot of 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:15.640 different formations at that time. There was the National Anti 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.680 Clan Network, and there was a couple of others, and 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:23.800 there were differing politics among all of them. And you know, 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.680 John Branda Clink made that time, took more of a 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.679 position of pro direct action and also, as they say, 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:34.319 conscious solidated with the Black freedom struggle as a basis 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:35.240 for doing that work. 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:47.960 Anti Clan Network. I think so people kind of know 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.679 that's where the Southern Poverty Law Center eventually came out 0:13:50.679 --> 0:13:53.640 of another networks of these different groups out here in Oregon. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.960 The Rural Organizing Project was sort of like a down 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.640 the line there. I think it's interesting too about the 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:04.120 found story. I was talking with our mutual friend Lisa Roth, 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.880 who was part of the founding of that. Very first 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:11.320 iteration of the John Brown Committee was they were doing 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.160 a prison organizing with Black Panthers and Upstate New York 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.320 and they were writing these letters saying the prison guards 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.560 are clan and they thought, you mean they're really racist, 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.480 you know, obviously they're the prison guards. Yeah, And when 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:27.400 they went and looked it up. No, the president of 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.440 the prison's guard union was the Grand Dragon of the 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:32.160 State KKK, and they. 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.040 Were actually he had a position within the prison system 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:39.120 as the head of the sort of education activity educational 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:41.920 activities in the prisons, and was using his formal position 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.480 within the prison system to organize white prisoners along with 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.360 the guards into clan clamorance. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.560 Which seems like a total That was sort of a 0:14:50.680 --> 0:14:54.800 validation with the centerpiece of John Brown being that cops 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:57.960 and clan have that kind of collaboration, because that was 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.480 their kind of the founding like lesson of that organizing. 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.120 Sure, the blue by day, White by night, and a 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.120 lot of those slogans come out of that period, and 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.680 you know, I think it is you know, it's related 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.640 to the later the aar A line that you know, 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.400 fascism is built from above and below that there's you know, 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:16.200 elements within the state that are operating independently, but there 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:21.200 are also state forces and then they're you know independent, Yeah, 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.600 so called revolutionary fascists that claim to be opposing the state, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:27.360 but we're not really. 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:31.240 Well, I think to fast forward a little bit, quite 0:15:31.240 --> 0:15:35.160 a bit, Emily, I don't remember when we first met 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.160 each other. Obviously it was probably shortly after Unite the 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.440 Right happened. But how did you first get drawn into organizing? 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.760 Did you have a long history before that happened, or 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:46.880 were you just part of getting involved around the ramp 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:48.720 up to that now? 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:52.360 I think, you know, compared to the other folks here, 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.320 I'm sort of the summer child of the of the group, right, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:16:00.520 I don't have a super long history in organizing. I 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.640 think that, you know, I came to anti fascism before 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.520 Unite the Right happened. I work in the tech industry 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.400 and sometimes sort of around the gamer Gate era, I 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:18.040 started noticing how white supremacist the tech industry had become. 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:19.120 Right, it was. 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:24.160 Sort of this nexus for a lot of this strongly libertarian, 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:29.760 strongly supremacist mindset. It was sort of the worst of 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.400 that meritocratic ideal that a lot of us had to 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:38.520 experience in university and in our workplaces, and it just 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.120 seemed like it was getting out of control. And that 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:43.040 was kind of at the same time that we were 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:45.280 seeing a lot more women come into the tech industry, 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:47.720 we were starting to see a lot of changes in 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:48.200 the space. 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.160 And then there was sort of like this this. 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:54.040 Vacuum left by gamer Gate, as that all sort of 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:57.520 died down, A lot of this sort of energy needed 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:59.840 to go somewhere, and so I started speaking out against 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.159 some white supremacist organizing that was happening at conferences and 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:06.919 things like that. And I think the first wake up 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:11.600 call for me happened when some folks that are are 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:16.960 linked to Milo Yanapolists put together a list of of 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:21.480 SGW social justice warriors and this was journalists and activists 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:23.800 and people who were speaking out and I somehow made 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:27.840 that list. And I realized, after you know, looking at 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:32.080 this and seeing what was going on that being a 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.600 political being sort of just somebody with an opinion, wasn't 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:38.520 you know, there was no way to be that wasn't 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:41.240 a defense against what was coming. And so I just 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.480 sort of looked inside and said, well, if this is 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.200 the way it's going to be, like I'm going to 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.399 fight back, I'm gonna I'm going to figure out what 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:48.800 to do. 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:52.399 I didn't really have a lot of organizing ties. 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.320 They didn't really have a network, so like every other person, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.840 I just you know, shouted at Twitter and somehow that worked. 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.639 The irony of this all is that all this was 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.520 going on, I was starting to do you know, digital activism, 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:11.280 using my tech skills to try to shine. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:15.680 Light on things that were wrong in the. 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.160 Federal government and the Trump administration and things like that, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:20.600 and I really just wanted to step away from that. 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.480 I kind of had like I went to Prague after 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:28.080 Trump was inaugurated. I wanted to like, you know, clear 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:29.960 the air a little bit. I didn't like the fact 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.040 that I was on this hit list that was put 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.440 together by people who have like a couple of handshakes 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:36.960 away from. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.600 The president's desk. So I went to Europe. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:40.399 I went to Prague and I cleared my head, and 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:42.760 when I came back, I said, you know what, I'm 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:44.879 going to just focus on local activism. I'm going to 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:47.040 focus on the issues that are in my community. I 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.280 knew that we had things going on with our local 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.760 low income housing space, we had a lot of you know, 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.560 stuff around the statues that was coming up in town, 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:00.960 and I didn't really expect, like it was kind of 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:06.280 random that Unite the Right was you know, destined for Charlottesville, 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.600 and so all of the work, all of the organizing 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:11.640 that I had started to do that spring, and that 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.600 where I guess that winter in that spring started to 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.719 pay off, as you know, as Charlottesville became the target 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.159 of all of the neo Nazis. So I think it 0:19:21.240 --> 0:19:25.040 was sort of I don't want to say it's it's fortunate, 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.959 because it's not really the greatest, like it's not a 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:30.679 positive thing that that's what happened. But I guess that 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.800 I am lucky that as I came to this awakening, 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:38.399 it was happening you know, before and not after, and 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:40.760 that I was able to use the network that I 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:42.760 was building, the audience I was building in order to 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.600 help like back. So yeah, I guess that's that's sort 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.280 of like, I don't know that I would have been, 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.200 you know, as much as dedicated as I was if 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.439 it wasn't for that very personal sort of experience. And 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.879 I look back at that like I'm kind of embarrassed 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.200 by that. But you know, we all have our own paths. 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:03.160 Yeah. 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.160 Absolutely, And I think, you know, there's something interesting about 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.480 that year in advance of the Unite the Right, where 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.880 where different groups were testing the waters a little bit, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.240 and how that was their ability to ramp up in 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.360 the area, but it was also the anti fascist ability 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:20.199 to ramp up, you know, So talking with Mimi and 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.919 other organizers there, like those earlier events like the earlier 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.920 Clan rally that happened like you know, months earlier, or 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.600 kind of those that early flash mob that Richard Spencer 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.639 led that gave people the opportunity to build up the base. 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.840 So how did you kind of shift to focusing on 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.280 that first? I guess how did you hear about Unite 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.600 the Riots, this big kind of like target event, But 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.200 what was the steps along the way there? 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:48.960 Yeah, I think one of the things that really that 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.120 I really tried to do that year was to use 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:55.120 the experience I was having traveling to try to understand 0:20:55.520 --> 0:21:00.159 the history of movements that were against you. 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:01.240 Know, great state powers. 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:02.720 Right when I was in Prague, I spent a lot 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.880 of time reading about and looking into and walking through 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.680 the sites of where the Prague Spring took place, and 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.639 where the Deil Revolution took place, and how these groups 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:14.920 of people were able to overcome this massive amount of 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.680 state violence and still be successful. And when Richard Spencer 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.920 first came to town that first flashbob is now called 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:23.040 Charlottesville one point zero. 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.600 I was in Berlin at the time. I woke up 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:27.760 to see what was going on. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:32.520 And it was, you know, I think again just sort 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.840 of these you know, the universe coming into alignment. As 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:40.240 that was happening, there's also this big anti Nazi demonstration 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.720 that was happening in Berlin. So I took that opportunity 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.720 to go and learn about what anti fascists are doing 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.440 in other countries and other localities, how they are organizing, 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.400 how they spread their message, and so I think that, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:57.040 you know, as I learned about all of this going on, 0:21:57.720 --> 0:21:59.320 what the first thing that I tried to do is 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:02.000 just look around and say, what can we learn from 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.639 people who have been here before? Who have done this 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:08.080 before and have this in their living memory, and that's 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.320 what I tried to take back to Charlottesville. And then, 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:13.720 you know, I think it was after that trip. I 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:16.520 was in Berlin in May. I came back for that trip. 0:22:16.560 --> 0:22:19.880 I joined in the anti fascist march almost as soon 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:21.639 as I got back, and that's when we had heard 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:25.440 we've learned about the two rallies, the July eighth KKK 0:22:25.560 --> 0:22:28.360 rally and the August twelfth Unite the Right, And at 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:31.399 that point, like from that moment, it was just like 0:22:31.600 --> 0:22:36.640 every waking moment of my day was spent organizing for 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:37.399 those for those rallies. 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:41.600