Despite what the mainstream media likes to show, antifa isn’t all fighting and doxxing
In the months leading up to the Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C., my anti-fascist group spent untold hours preparing for the worst. Given that several of us had barely survived the neo-Nazi event’s first incarnation in Charlottesville, VA, the year prior, we expected to have to deal with violence from the rally attendees and from the police protecting them, and we planned accordingly by investing time in self-defence and offensive training, gathering medical supplies to assemble personal medic kits, getting protective clothing, planning our day-of communications strategies, researching the groups we expected to attend, and scouting the area of downtown D.C. in which we expected the fascists to march and then rally.
When, after all that, the most action we saw was less than two dozen fascists standing dejectedly in a park, then being coddled and gently led to safety by thousands of police, we were relieved – but glad that we’d been over-prepared. After having seen Heather Heyer draw her last breath, I never want to repeat that experience with another comrade. The Unite the Right 2 rally itself was a dismal failure, and should have been hailed as a massive win for anti-fascists, except the media spent all of its energy working to undermine our efforts and cast us in the most negative light possible. After a few photographers barged into the Black Bloc and tussled with several people therein, the media launched into its predictable “violent antifa” narrative, with no mention of the way our years of careful and strategic organizing have contributed to the downfall of the alt-right. Come on.
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Denne historien er fra January/February 2019-utgaven av Briarpatch.
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