Okay. I have wanted to address this and give it the attention it desires, but I would like to do so on my own TL. (Warning: it’s long) https://twitter.com/ParadoxGuard/status/902228375405723648

This is NOT an invitation to harass this person, btw. Pls be adults.

(I AM sorry for the delay, btw; I was sick, and my kid was… y’know what, nevermind, it’s not important. Anyway.)

I should start off by saying, YES, I was being facetious when I said I objected on the grounds of being an English teacher.

Yes, the name is LITERALLY derived from “anti-fascist,” and there’s some comedy to be had in people calling them fascists anyway.

However, I also do know that just because you name your group something doesn’t make it true. I really do know that.

(Nazis, frex, called themselves socialists and… well. You know.)

So I was mostly joking there.

No, my real objection stems from my OTHER profession: HISTORY teacher. (Yes, I’m certified in & have taught in both, it’s not that weird.)

No, my real objection stems from my OTHER profession: HISTORY teacher. (Yes, I’m certified in both, it’s not that weird.)

Y’all, I’ve been breaking Godwin’s Law with Trump before most people even took him seriously. Because we’ve seen this happen before.

Hitler wasn’t a politician. He wasn’t an intellectual. The people who “mattered” at the time thought he was a joke. Ignored him.

But he was a damn good demagogue. He could give speeches that were semantic content nil, and still fire up the crowd.

I don’t know if he, like Trump, appealed to the people who had money and only cared about keeping it, damn the cost.

But I do know he appealed to the people who were poor and hungry and didn’t understand why. Angry people.

People looking for someone to blame. Someone to make it Not Their Fault that their lives were a mess.

The intellectuals of his time ridiculed him. He was the butt of jokes. No one thought he could come to power.

No one thought he could effectively WIELD power.

Oops.

He made intellectuals the target. Jews. Queer folk, changing the culture of Berlin in new and exciting ways. Foreigners.

Anyone who WASN’T those angry, hungry, desperate people who needed a scapegoat.

Do you have any idea how chilling it is to study how a flourishing, liberal, democratic society falls to fascism…

…and then start recognizing the steps on the path in your own country?

Let me tell you. It is terrifying.

Trump checked off every damn warning box, and I talked about it and so did others but it didn’t make a damn bit of difference.

So how does this tie into antifa? I AM GLAD YOU ASKED.

So okay. You’ve got your regular average-joe Trump supporter. He doesn’t HATE people who are different, he just… doesn’t care.

Doesn’t care if kids are forcibly removed from the country they’ve lived in all their lives. Doesn’t care if Muslim refugees are +

forced to return to a homeland that offers them and their families near-certain death at the hands of the terrorists we claim to oppose.

Doesn’t care if police officers murder Black children as long as they can provide even a semi-plausible excuse.

Doesn’t care if our military breaks faith with our heroes for being transgender, taking away their jobs, their futures, the +

benefits they have more than earned by their service to their country, all because of who they are.

Doesn’t even care that he's shooting himself in the foot, voting against his own interests, his own healthcare.

Because this man tells a good story. He tells them it’s not your fault. That there’s someone else to blame.

And for the sake of that story, people will overlook a multitude of sins.

They will overlook, for example, the fact that they’re brushing elbows with literal actual fascists.

Because that is what is happening.

The people showing up at these demonstrations in Charlottesville, etc., they are in literal KKK outfits. They are giving Nazi salutes.

They write about how the Holocaust didn’t happen and if it had happened it would have been a good thing.

They send Jewish ppl death threats w/pics of ovens, Black ppl death threats w/pic of nooses.

And make no mistake, Joe Schmoe from Kokomo SEES THEM. He sees people ON HIS SIDE screaming “Heil Hitler.”

And it never crosses his mind that maybe he’s on the wrong side

And here’s the thing: no, they cannot be reasoned with. No, they cannot be debated into changing their minds.

We’ve tried.

God, I’ve found out FIRSTHAND how impossible it is to argue with someone who rejects all facts and logic that conflicts with their hate.

There is no magic argument. There is no sweetly reasonable tone that will suddenly flip that switch in their brain.

They exist, they won’t be dissuaded, and they are HURTING PEOPLE. Killing people, now.

Enter antifa.

Antifa, yes, DOES mean “anti-fascist.” Their existence is a reaction to the presence of fascists.

(Again – I cannot stress this enough – ACTUAL FACISTS. White supremacists, neo-Nazis, ppl who are sad Hitler didn’t finish what he started.)

(We are not exaggerating, folks! We are not making this up!)

The entire job of antifa is to protect people from fascists. People like the folks in the crowd that had a gun fired at them.

People who were being maliciously pepper sprayed for existing.

The person in a wheelchair who was doused in kerosene and threatened with being set on fire until people stepped in.

People like DeAndre Harris, brutally beaten in a parking garage.

And YES, people like Heather Heyers, who was brutally murdered and then mocked after her death by these assholes.

Antifa forms the shield between them and the fascists. They take the risk, both of physical assault & of arrest, to protect people.

Has antifa been violent? Yes. But their violence has been entirely REactive, not PROactive. Antifa isn’t seeking a fight.

Antifa, to borrow the phrase, would much rather be home playing Mario Kart & eating Nutella.

But they HAVE to be out there, because FUCKING NAZIS.

These are people who want a white ethnostate. They claim they don’t “hate” other races, they just want to be separate.

So okay, what does that mean? In practical terms?

Rejecting refugees from war-torn countries? Sending toddlers back to die?

Tearing families apart? Literally torturing people who dare to point out when they break the law?

How do you remove people from a land they and their ancestors have lived in for generations?

How do you send Black people, for instance, “back to Africa” when they don’t remember Africa and it’s OUR GODDAMN FAULT?

How do you form a white ethnostate in a land that, in every meaningful sense, belongs to non-White people??

You see, even in its most benign sugarcoated form, white nationalism, white separatism, is VIOLENCE.

It seeks to distance itself from the violence, sure. If it can’t SEE the woman being raped, the baby being killed, did it REALLY happen?

But it did. It will. We know this. We see past the bullshit.

That is why antifa exists.

To break it down: if you don’t want to be targeted by neo-Nazis, you have to stop being Jewish. Or Muslim.

Or Black, or gay, or trans, or Mexican, or any other trait you can’t actually change, because it’s part of YOU.

Things that harm no one, because it's just about you living your life.

On the other hand?

If you don’t want to be targeted by antifa, all you have to do is NOT BE A FUCKING NAZI.

It is not that difficult! Plenty of people manage! Even lower-middle-class white males manage, I swear!

Nazis hate people for who they ARE; antifa hates people for what they DO. There is a DIFFERENCE.

For antifa to step down from what they do would mean to leave their friends and loved ones vulnerable. Who would do that?

What decent human being would do that? What decent human being would ASK someone to do that?

So yes, I am on the side of antifa, and no, I do not consider them fascists.

I do not believe violence in self-defense or defense of another equates to aggressive violence.

I do believe the KKK and the neo-Nazis would have done far worse here if they didn’t know antifa would beat their ass if they tried it.

I agree that “attacking them b/c of their beliefs” sounds bad, but. When “their beliefs” include “get rid of everyone who isn’t like me”?

Yeah, no, fuck you, fuck allllllllllllll your beliefs, and fuck the horse you and your beliefs rode in on.

Yes, I’m angry.

I’m not marginalized myself – that is, in the few ways that I am, I can pass pretty easily for privileged. But my friends?

My family??

The alt-right would kill my sister-in-law. Deport my child’s godfather. Shoot a close friend of the family.

Kidnap and torture/brainwash another friend – and me too, if they found out about me.

Murder my best friend in cold blood as an “undesirable.”

Harm every single one of the beautiful, brilliant, beloved children I have taught. I would defend those children with my life.

my #Resistance is not a bloodless theoretical argument

I will gladly kill or die or both before I let my precious loved ones be harmed.

And here's the thing.

We have learned, we have seen from history, that Nazis do not care about any argument save one: force.

They will push and push and push the envelope, until someone pushes back.

Antifa is pushing back. Antifa is telling them “your hate is not welcome here, you are not allowed to harm our people.”

If some of them overreact? I can condemn that individual act while still admiring the movement as a whole.

The alt-right doesn’t come to my city, because they know we’re here. They know we protect our own.

Antifa keeps my former students safe.

And yes, I love them for that.

(Notes: 1) whatever wild story you wanna present to me to “prove” how bad antifa is, fact-check with someone other than Fox News.

Chances are, it’s false.

2) If you take issue with any of the incidents I’ve cited, ATTEMPT to google it first? If you can’t manage, let me know.

I will google It for you. But. At least TRY first?

I get paid for teaching and you ain’t paying me, so. Try.

3) No, I am not denying that individual ppl identifying as antifa have caused disproportionate violence. HOWEVER.

Antifa’s goal is to PREVENT violence. Some ppl may go to extremes, but that is the goal.

Nazis’ goal IS violence. Whether they admit it or not. You cannot preach that certain people are “lesser” and then act shocked @ the result.

All organizations are made up of humans; humans sometimes fuck up. But which group glorifies their murders & encourages more?

Which group has violence as a core value, and which group embraces violence as the last defense for the innocent?

Which group’s goal is to eliminate all Black/brown/gay/Jewish/Muslim/trans/wev people, and which group’s goal…

…IS FOR PEOPLE TO STOP BEING GODDAMN NAZIS???

Again, if there were no ACTUAL NAZIS,* antifa would go the fuck home.

(*a note: some have argued that people only embraced Nazism because people called them Nazis.)

(To which I can only paraphrase wiser women than me:)

(“You called me a feminazi for years and yet MAGICALLY I did not become an actual Nazi!”)

Anyway. This is why I love antifa and won’t hear a word against them.

We don’t agree on everything. (fun fact: despite claims of a leftist echo chamber? We argue ALL THE TIME.)

(We do it because we actually CARE about figuring out the right thing to do and doing it.)

But at a protest, I know they’re there to protect me and the people around me. They help me be brave.

Again, they form the shield that lets me and others speak our minds without fear.

May whatever gods there are bless them.