In the past few months, there has been an uptick in fascist propaganda in the Seattle area. Predominantly in the form of posters and stickers, but including graffiti and physical confrontations, local fascists affiliated with American Renaissance, Identity Evropa and The Right Stuff seem to be trying to spread their propaganda across many neighborhoods in Seattle. We began receiving emails with pictures and accounts of physical confrontations and have been mapping these out for the past couple of months. If you are the Pacific Northwest and see something, please feel free to (safely) document and email to us at antifa206 (at) riseup (dot) net. If you are outside of the Pacific Northwest, hopefully this project serves as some inspiration for creative work for other antifascist networks.
This will be the first time DLJ has ever been on the West Coast, so we hope to see a lot of our friends while we are out there that we waited a long time to connect with. It takes place just a week before Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States, and with all the neo-Fascists thinking that is their big chance to shine, we all need to get together and figure out the best way to dim their lights significantly. There is definitely a lot to discuss!
The most satisfying thing to come out of Charlottesville is Christopher Cantwell of Keane, NH. This guy, who runs a Nazi podcast out of Keane, New Hampshire, was all about the shit talk in a video posted by Vice hours after Charlottesville blew up on Aug. 12. Scheduled to be one of the speakers, he boasted about being a racist and called for more violence on the part of himself and his fellow boneheads. In fact, he all but cheered on the death of Heather Heyer during the rally, saying “I think that a lot more people are going to die before we’re done here.” For a refresher, this is the full video:
And when he got news about a warrant for his arrest and this gem was placed in everyone’s laps:
On Aug. 24, Cantwell surrendered to authorities and was charged with two felony counts of illegal use of tear gas and one felony count of malicious bodily injury by means of a caustic substance. Denied bond, he has been locked up ever since in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail and will more than likely be there until at least a preliminary hearing on Oct. 12, his next court appearance. We can only hope that he gives us even more tears as this case goes along, especially since he is looking at twenty years!
One People’s Project Founder and Executive Director Daryle Lamont Jenkins will be speaking at James Madison University, and the event is open to the public! Recent events have prompted many to ask what direction are we going in as a people, and most importantly, how do we make sure that direction isn’t backward. That’s why the name of this talk is Replacing Them: How Society is Putting Hate Politics on the Trash Heap of History! DLJ has been a doing this antifascist thing for thirty years, but it is only in recent years that people have been taken notice with him appearing on numerous news programs on MSNBC, CNN and Fox News, being awarded the Daniel Pearl Multimedia Award by the Pocono Mountains Film Festival just this month and soon being played by Bryan Tyree Henry (Paper Boi from the FX TV program Atlanta) in a new movie called Skin, which is based on the life of Bryon Widner a former neo-Nazi who left that life thanks to DLJ. We hope to see you there!
About Daryle Lamont Jenkins
Daryle Lamont Jenkins is the founder and Executive Director of One People’s Project (OPP), a Philadelphia-based anti-hate organization that researches, monitors and reports on right wing groups and individuals that seek to polarize communities. OPP’s mission has been to encourage those communities to come together and be proactive against hate groups and diminish their ability to function in a diverse society.
Born in Newark, NJ and raised in nearby Somerset, Jenkins served in the Air Force in the late eighties and upon returning home spent the nineties in the underground music scene documenting local bands on video and producing public access programs that spotlighted the punk rock scene and the people that played a part of it. One show was called Channel X which was produced from 1992 to 1995, and it profiled local unsigned acts of the day, some eventually becoming big names in music. From 1996 to 2000, he produced another, The Life We Lead with Pedro Angel Serrano, and it focused primarily on the punk scene and the culture surrounding it. Eventually, that program was handed over to producers in Boston who continued the show for another seven years. He even tried his hand in performing in a few bands and musical projects, but many of them could not even get out of the rehearsal space before falling apart.
Around the same time that he was in the New Jersey music scene, Jenkins also had worked as a reporter for the City News, a now-defunct weekly newspaper in New Jersey that covered African-American issues, and briefly as an editor for his hometown weekly, the Somerset Spectator. This was conflicting for him however, and although he has wanted to be a journalist since he was a boy, felt he could not provide the objectivity that one needed for such work however and moved on to mediums that fit him best.
Much of the reason why there was a conflict was because he was involved in political activism, participating in groups like the New Jersey Freedom Organization (NJFO) and the New Brunswick (NJ) Coalition Against Police Brutality. He recognized the power of media, however, and he used his journalistic skills to advance the issues that concerned him. He began writing letters to the editor of his local newspaper and calling and debating local radio talk show hosts on their call-in programs. From 1994 to 1995, he began writing op-ed pieces for the Courier-News and from 1996 to 2000 the Knight-Ridder (now McClatchy) news line.
In 2000, a White supremacist rally in Morristown, NJ was planned for the Fourth of July and it prompted Jenkins and others to organize a counter-protest under the banner of the One People’s Rally. After the rally, it was decided that the coalition and website be maintained to continue monitoring the various hatemongers that were not only working on the fringes of right wing politics but also in the mainstream of society as elected officials, academics or otherwise important figures. That coalition eventually became One People’s Project. Working under the motto “Hate has consequences”, OPP became a go-to resource on such individuals, and has been instrumental in removing them from their positions, shutting down their events such as concerts and conferences to when the hosting venues were made aware of the true intent of those events, and in addition helping individuals leave neo-Nazi politics behind and become productive members of society. One such story is featured in the documentary Erasing Hate, which is soon to become a major motion picture starring Jamie Bell (Turn, Billy Elliot) and Danielle MacDonald (Patti Cake$), with with Bryan Tyree Henry (Atlanta) playing Jenkins.
Since the rise of Donald Trump, OPP was important in helping America understand the so-called “alt-right” and in particular White supremacist Richard Spencer, who the organization had been monitoring since 2006. OPP continued being a resource on those individuals with Trump’s ascension to the White House and during the tragic events of Charlottesville, VA last summer which Jenkins was there to witness.
Needless to say, Jenkins and OPP has been the subject of scorn from those on the right who prefer to remain in the shadows. He has been the subject of smear campaigns and bogus lawsuits, and one neo-Nazi band even recording a particularly weird song about him! On the other hand, he and the organization has received praise from those who are trying to beat that element of society back. Jenkins has appeared on A Current Affair, the Montel Williams Show, Fox News, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show and AM Joy with Joy Reid, ABC’s 20/20 and in countless newspaper and magazine articles.
Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Executive Director of One People’s Project will join others to discuss how to deal with hate groups that are feeling some sort of momentum with Donald Trump in the White House. He and others who were there in Charlottesville, Va. on Aug. 12 will be there to give there perspectives on that particular day and how we can build the opposition against fascism even more in its wake. This is co-sponsored by Co-sponsored by the Islamic Society of Delaware (ISD) and YWCA Delaware.
It is only by pure coincidence that we are posting this on the one year anniversary of the day White Supremacist Jason Kessler assaulted someone at Charlottesville, Va’s Downtown Mall. He got in trouble for that and pled guilty to a misdemeanor. Now it would have been nice if they charged him with perjury then for saying that he punched back in self defense when video shows otherwise, as opposed to after his so-called “Unite the Right” rally on Aug. 12. We probably all could have avoided the tragedy that we would eventually see that day. But it is what it is, and he did indeed get charged. He has a motion hearing for Jan. 30, but if all goes as it is currently planned, two-day trial is set for March 20. We don’t think Kessler is going to fare well in this or any of the other things that may be coming his way to take him down, and this will be the first shot at him that serves as a comeuppance for his bullshit over the past year. If the dates change, we will note it here.
RASH NW and the Red and Black Subculture Club presents:
ROCK Against Fascism II: The Punks and Skins Strike Back with:
The Brass: East Coast antifascist oi!
Petite: Female fronted PDX poltical Punk
Empire Justice: Seattle antifascist oi/hardcore
Violent Traditions: PDX antifascist hardcore
The Red and Black Subculture Club’s Soul Survivor, DJ Dispissed and DJ Mcskally will play the best in boss reggae, antifascist oi, soul and punk
$5 donation to an antifascist charity. No turn away.
Josh Steever of Aryan Strikeforce might be coming to the end of his tenure as a perennial Nazi nuisance when he goes into court to face trial for on weapons and drug charges – basically being a part of a meth ring. Last Spring, he and several others were snatched up by the feds and they were supposed to face trial on July 10, and then on March 5, but another continuance has him in court on May 8, 2018. This is the fifth time it has been continued, the other dates being Sept. 11 and Dec. 4, so we shall see if this date holds. It is likely those he was arrested with will also face trial either that day or somewhere around that time, and we will let you know when that is.
On June 13, former neo-Nazi Elisa Hategan, will join filmmaker Sylvia Novak to screen and discuss the new documentary focusing on Ernst Zundel. Hategan, who worked with Zundel in the nineties, served as a consultant on the film. This will be one of two days that they will screen.
From the Doc Now website:
Using archival materials, 206 Carlton brings together a story of racism and resistance in the city of Toronto, through focusing on one address, one house. At the center of this story is Ernst Zundel, a former resident of 206 Carlton Street, and internationally infamous Holocaust denier. From this downtown Victorian townhouse he spread hate materials that found their way to the hands of hateful groups around the world.
About the Artist
Sylvia Nowak is a Toronto based activist, documentary maker and artist. Her academic background began in still photography but has shifted to include video and digital media. At the core of all her work is an interest in social issues and an investigative instinct. She is the current co-chair of the DocNow Documentary Festival.
Please join me and filmmaker @SylviaNowak at the screenings of 206 Carlton, a documentary that spotlights Toronto’s racist history & infamous Holocaust-denier Ernst Zundel. I was a consultant on this film & so excited to see it come to life @docnowfestival https://t.co/VfvuJW9ZvM pic.twitter.com/tVrCvkEhRQ
— Elisa Hategan (@elisahategan) June 4, 2018
From the Doc Now website:
Using archival materials, 206 Carlton brings together a story of racism and resistance in the city of Toronto, through focusing on one address, one house. At the center of this story is Ernst Zundel, a former resident of 206 Carlton Street, and internationally infamous Holocaust denier. From this downtown Victorian townhouse he spread hate materials that found their way to the hands of hateful groups around the world.
About the Artist
Sylvia Nowak is a Toronto based activist, documentary maker and artist. Her academic background began in still photography but has shifted to include video and digital media. At the core of all her work is an interest in social issues and an investigative instinct. She is the current co-chair of the DocNow Documentary Festival.