This all stems from them being clowned for not showing up at a rally they announced. It’s ironic that the Philadelphia is in the Keystone State because the Philly Proud Boys are the Keystone Cops of that entire crew!
PHILADELPHIA, PA – “One thing you can guarantee (is) we will show up, motherfucker!”
That was a declaration from one of the handful of Proud Boys that attempted to disrupt a teach-in organized by the antifascist group Refuse Fascism to address them in the wake of Donald Trump’s call to arms in last week’s Presidential Debate. It was a declaration that came with irony as they did not show up to a rally the Philadelphia Proud Boy chapter called for in a park in West Philadelphia that ended up teeming with residents coming out to oppose neo-Fascist outfit, as well as another announced rally during a anti-mask car caravan in May that the group Refuse Fascism overwhelmed.
Over the past three weeks, that chapter has been attempting to recover from those embarrassments, first with a flash mob rally on Sept. 26 that was a date they once had for a rally but canceled and then with last night’s antics outside Independence Hall as the teach-in was going on.
One People’s Project’s Executive Director Daryle Lamont Jenkins was invited by Refuse Fascism to speak about the Proud Boys. Ironically, it was the fourth anniversary of a pseudo art show in New York City sponsored by neo-Fascist Milo Yiannopoulos that featured supposed art from right wing figures, where one of the Proud Boys’ first appearance was providing security for the event. Jenkins recorded video of them attacking one person they threw out, with Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes breaking the person’s phone on the ground and chasing him off.
It was while Jenkins was speaking that about 20 persons, most of them men, approached the teach-in, some carrying weapons, and began berating Jenkins and the group of ten participants that were there. The teach-in then became a real-time lesson as those participants began to berate and record the Proud Boys in return. “We chanted, we circled up to keep each other safe, and three of our leaders spoke to our crowd,” a post on the Refuse Fascism Facebook page read. “We spoke about what these fascists represent with their misogyny, white supremacy, homophobia, transphobia, American chauvinism and their connection to and worship of power. We spoke about the fact that they exist to intimidate, threaten, and cause pain and that they are already doing this at polling sites in Black, Latinx and Indigenous neighborhoods; protests; and through the media.”
The Proud Boys notably attempted to dissuade the idea that they were not White Supremacists, a charge that has been leveled at them repeatedly particularly since the Presidential Debate. While Proud Boys are indeed a multiracial organization, they have regardless have been condemned in the past for having associations with neo-Nazis and White Supremacists. When the Philly chapter held their flash mob-styled march on Sept. 26, many took notice of who looked to be American Guard’s Brien James amongst them. James has a history spanning three decades as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the Outlaw Hammerskins, and the organization he founded, the Vinlanders Social Club which boasts its history of assaults and murder. Despite this, some of the Proud Boys attempted to defend him as a friend who has since renounced such beliefs, even though he was a participant in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on August 12 2017 and two months later participated in a Vinlander annual meeting and two months after that paid tribute to Robert Jay Matthews, the leader of the neo-Nazi terrorist group the Order that was responsible for robberies and murders in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1980s.
In 2013, James was in Philadelphia with over fifty neo-Nazis including Matthew Heimbach of the Traditional Workers Party for Keystone United’s annual “Leif Erickson Day Celebration” at a Viking Statue near Fairmount Park that had since been pulled down by unknown persons. That rally was countered by over 200 protesters and since then neo-Fascists have attempted to avoid such confrontations by not announcing the event and holding them at night. It is not known if they will have an event this year.
Of the group that came out Thursday, only one person, an Asian man, seemed to be the only one that wasn’t White.
After about 20 minutes of the exchange that never reached beyond a shouting match, the group retreated toward Market St. and the teach-in continued.
Last year, the Philly Proud Boys were doxed by antifa via a blog titled Doxx Your Local Proud Boy that detailed a number of persons associated with the Proud Boys at the time. Of those profiled was Bruce McClay who at the time was a Lieutenant for the fire department in nearby Havertown, PA. Upon learning of his associations, residents called for his removal, and when the department refused to do so, the town shut down that department which was one of five. McClay resigned within 24 hours. Despite a flyer they attempted to distribute yesterday saying they reject racial division, many of those profiled were shown to harbor racist and bigoted beliefs.
At the time of this posting, the Philadelphia Proud Boys have barely commented on the events of last night.
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