Proud Boys Bow Out of Planned Berkeley Rally After Heat Gets Turned Up

If there is anything conservatives try to avoid like the plague, it’s direct confrontation with Black people. The neo-Fascist group is in their crosshairs in the Bay Area, and that’s a problem for them.

BERKELEY, CA – A planned Aug. 5 rally by the neo-Fascist group the Proud Boys has been canceled with the group days after someone witness say was one of their members was seen in a video getting pummeled by participants in a vigil for a Black woman who was stabbed to death by a White man who news sources say is also a suspected member of the group.

According to a recent tweet, the Proud Boys are blaming the media for attempting to paint the Aug. 5 rally as a response t0 the protests decrying the murder of Nia Wilson, 18, who on Sunday, along with her sister Lahtifa, 26, was attacked by a man as they were changing trains at the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s (BART) MacArthur Station, stabbing Nia and injuring Lahtifa. A White man, John Lee Cowell, 27, was arrested after a one-day manhunt, and police have not ruled out the possibility that it was racially motivated.

The media is setting up the Berkeley Rally on Aug 5th to be #ProudBoys vs #NiaWilson. They’ll probably continue to do so. We removing ourselves from the scenario and hope everyone can get back to focusing on Nia.#SayHerName

— The Proud Boys (@ProudBoysUSA) July 26, 2018

The support for Nia Wilson that the Proud Boys expressed in their tweet has only comes within the past 24 hours. Before the killing, there was a meet up announced on the r/The_Donald_Ca Reddit group for July 23 at the Make Westing Bar in Oakland, angering the bar owners who denounced the Proud Boys, whom was cited as the organizers on their Facebook page and announced a “Pro Oakland Day” in response. Those in the Reddit group even relished the attention in at least one post noting how the mayor of Oakland denounced the event. On Monday, thousands participated in a protest calling for justice for Wilson and her sister hours before Cowell was arrested and say that there were at least five persons outside the bar attempting to antagonize the protesters. At some point there was a scuffle and those persons had to find safety in a police squad car that reportedly drove them from the scene.

An alleged member of the Proud Boys, an alt-right group, was beaten during yesterdays Nia Wilson protest in Oakland.pic.twitter.com/UtTIOJkjp5

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 24, 2018

The Proud Boys have denied any and all involvement with the meet up, Cowell nor the persons who were involved in the fight during the protest, who are not known at this time. According to one post, the meet up location changed due to the protest against it at Make Westing. Meanwhile, the rally in Berkeley, which is still planning to be held at Martin Luther King Jr, Civic Center Park has been plagued with troubles well before Monday’s events with many would-be attendees deriding it as poorly planned.

The Proud Boys calls itself a “Western chauvinist” organization, and is known for not only its misogyny and Islamophobia but also as a group that sees violence as a primary tool in their activism. Since it’s founding in 2016 – that was announced via the paleoconservative Taki’s Magazine – it has been involved in numerous acts of random violence they themselves instigate, and had even made political violence a prequisite to becoming a full member. Sal Cippola, a member who has been arrested numerous times for assault, was among those Proud Boys who, despite founder Gavin McInnes’ denouncement of the event, attended the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA that was organized last year by former Proud Boy Jason Kessler.

The Proud Boys have denied being a racist group and indeed have members of color such as Cippola, who is Columbian. But members also include neo-Nazi Brien James, the founder of the Vinlander Social Club who now runs an outfit called American Guard and notes in a video that he is the Indiana state representative of the Proud Boys as well as the Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights, the “tactical defense arm” of the Proud Boys. He was also in Charlottesville for the “Unite the Right” rally.

The Proud Boys still endorse the Aug. 4 rally in Portland, Oregon, which observers believe has the potential for being another Charlottesville.