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+In the status quo, the alt-right isn’t being given the chance to speak due to students and administrators shutting down engagements. |
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+Burley 16. Burley, Shane Contributor, Waging Nonviolence “How the Alt Right is trying to create a ‘safe space’ for racism on college campuses.” Waging Nonviolence. October 2016. http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/alt-right-safe-space-racism-college-campuses/ //AD |
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+While the Alt Right is fighting for a platform, many on college campuses are taking the example of groups like the One People’s Project and are rallying community pressure to disallow Alt Right speakers regular access to collegiate forums. At DePaul University, Alt Right commentator and Gays for Trump founder Milo Yiannopoulos was brought by the College Republicans. Ahead of this, a petition began circulating, largely stemming out of the Black Student Union work, to push DePaul to do more about hate speech on campus. Protesters disrupted the event by getting on stage and preventing him from speaking, functionally ending it. The college later canceled Yiannopoulos’s second scheduled speech, citing his provocative rhetoric as the reason. Protesters later attempted to disrupt a debate-watching party where Trump student supporters had congregated to root for their candidate. |
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+The alt-right exploits the idea of free speech to develop a platform. |
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+Burley 2. Burley, Shane Contributor, Waging Nonviolence “How the Alt Right is trying to create a ‘safe space’ for racism on college campuses.” Waging Nonviolence. October 2016. http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/alt-right-safe-space-racism-college-campuses/ //AD |
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+A murmur began in May around Berkeley and the surrounding Bay Area as posters appeared overnight on the sides of buildings and wrapped on poles. Adorned with images of statues of antiquity, these classical images of European men depicted as gods were intended to light a spark of memory in the mostly white faces that passed by them. With lines like “Let’s become great again” printed on them, the posters were blatant in their calls for European “pride,” clearly connecting romanticized European empires of the past to the populism of Donald Trump today. The posters were put up by Identity Europa, one of the lesser-known organizations amid that esoteric constellation of reactionary groups and figures known as the “Alt Right.” They were part of a campaign around the country enticing college-age white people to join a new kind of white nationalist movement. While similar posters emerged elsewhere on the West Coast and Midwest, in central California they pointed toward a public event — one directed specifically toward the tradition of free speech at the University of California at Berkeley. Shortly after the posters went up, a brief announcement came from Alt Right leader Richard Spencer and his think-tank, the National Policy Institute. They, along with Identity Europa and other white nationalist organizations, were planning to hold an “Alt Right Safe Space” in Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza on May 6. The “safe space” is a play on words for the Alt Right, using the phrase that many leftist-oriented facilities use for a code of conduct that bans oppressive or bigoted behavior. Instead, they intended to make a “safe space” for white racism, the public declaration of which has become unwelcome in most any space. The plan was to show up and publicly proselytize on the problems of multiculturalism and the need for “white identity.” Identity Europa founder Nathan Damigo joined Spencer, along with Johnny Monoxide, a podcaster and blogger from the white nationalist blog The Right Stuff, which has become popular in Internet racialist circles (racialist being a term they use, since racist carries a negative connotation) for its internal lingo and open use of racial slurs. Alt Right media outlet Red Ice Creations teamed up with Monoxide to livestream the event, bringing the white nationalist crowd together with their international audience of conspiracy theorists, anti-vaccine activists and alternative religion proponents. While live streaming to their crowd, they came ready to argue. “This guy’s anti-dialogical! He’s anti-white,” yelled Damigo when challenged on the racialist content of his talking points. Race and identity For decades, both the institutional and radical left in the United States has relied on campus activism as a key part of its organizing base. From the antiwar movement of the 1960s to the development of feminist and queer politics to the growing youth labor and Black Lives Matter movement, colleges have been a center for political encounters and mobilizations. The radicalization of students has often leaned to the left because the left’s challenges to systems of power seem like a perfect fit for people expanding their understanding of the world. Amid major shifts in U.S. politics, a space has opened for revolutionary right-wing politics that have not traditionally been accessible to those outside of the most extreme ranks of the white nationalist movement. Today, the Alt Right is repackaging many of the ideas normally associated with neo-Nazis and KKK members into a new, more middle-class culture by using the strategies and language traditionally associated with the left. This means a heavy focus on argumentation and academic legitimacy, as well as targeting campus locations (and millennials) for recruitment. Until Hillary Clinton’s August 21 speech, most people had never heard of the Alt Right. However, it is a movement that has been growing for almost a decade in backroom conferences and racially-charged blogs. It is a kind of cultural fascism, one birthed out of the post-war fascist movements of Europe and given character by a culture of Twitter trolls and populist American anger. Yet, when it appears on campus, the Alt Right’s recruiting is hardly different from the Klan’s attempts to openly recruit members by leaving bags of leaflets and candy at people’s doorsteps. While the Alt Right Safe Space was put together as a joint effort with several nationalist organizations, Identity Europa emphasizes focusing on the youth most of all. The name and branding of Identity Europa are new, but the organizati on was started years ago as the National Youth Front. Nathan Damigo was an Iraq war veteran going to school at the University of California at Stanislaus when he took over the organization, shifting its ideological orientation from “civic nationalism” to “race realism,” the notion that whites have higher average IQ’s and a smaller propensity for crime than blacks. While Damigo notes that they have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to gay members, he said that bi-racial and transgendered people would be turned away. For Damigo and others who trade in white nationalist talking points like “race realism,” the differences between races are significant. “Ethnic and racial or religzous diversity can actually wreak havoc on a social system, and cause tons of problems,” Damigo said. “I do believe that there are differences between human populations … The distribution of genes that affect behavior and intelligence are already known to not be equally distributed between all populations.” Identity Europa then represents a sort of “fraternal organization” where “European-descended” people can meet and network, working their way towards a kind of campus activism that challenges discourse and educational plans embedded with multiculturalism and egalitarianism. Such organizations have a long history on the right, stretching back to the 19th century fencing clubs and fraternities that popularized the pan-German ideas of Georg Schönerer — an immediate influence on Nazism. As organizers, however, Identity Europa do not follow the standard playbook for campus activism, which usually involves breaking broad political ideas into organized demands with reachable goals. Instead, they simply want to cultivate a subculture whose constituents will intervene in public discourse, thereby seeding their well-rehearsed about racial inequality, white sovereignty and the return to heteronormative social roles. While Damigo brags about the growth of Identity Europa, it likely does not have membership beyond a few dozen people on campuses around the country at this point. However, there are reports of Identity Europa posters appearing at different places around the country almost weekly. Outreach to millennials Through its brand of social interruption, Identity Europa intends to foment a revolutionary right-wing culture — precisely the goal shared by Richard Spencer and his National Policy Institute. Spencer has been in right-wing politics for years, first joining as an assistant editor at the American Conservative after an article he published on the Duke Lacrosse sexual assault scandal made him a minor star. He later went to the controversial Taki’s Magazine, known for giving a voice to the shrinking paleoconservative movement and staffing dissident voices from the right who are regularly accused of racism. As he further cemented himself in this “dissident right” world, he developed the term “Alternative Right” to indicate the different strands that he saw uniting against multiculturalism, equality and American democracy. It was in this climate that Spencer founded the webszite Alternative Right, giving voice to a growing white nationalist movement that built on fascist intellectual traditions in Western Europe and challenged the right-wing connection to the American conservative movement. He eventually went on to take over the white nationalist think-tank, the National Policy Institute, or NPI, originally founded by William Regnery, using money inherited from the conservative publishing house, Regnery Publishing. The organization was meant to center on Samuel Francis, a former columnist with the Washington Times who was let go as he shifted further into white nationalism and associated with racialist organizations like American Renaissance and the Council of Conservative Citizens. Spencer took over the organization after Francis’s death, molding it into the intellectual core of the growing Alt Right movement. Spencer’s goal has always been the creation of a “meta-political” movement rather than one founded on contemporary politizal wedge issues. He hopes to draw together ideas like “white identitarianism” — a term used to brand the movement as being about European heritage — and the eugenics-invoking “human biodiversity.” Both are terms fostered by the so-called “European New Right” and its leading ideologues. What immediately distinguished Spencer’s role in the white nationalist movement from the older generation was his explicit focus on millennial outreach. For instance, his expensive zNPI conferences are dramatically discounted for those under 30, and his new Radix Journal is marketed directly to an Internet culture of disaffected and angry white youths. He was an early proponent of podcasts as a main voice of the movement, a move that has given the Alt Right its conversational tone and made its ideas more accessible. With Damigo, Spencer developed the Alt Right Safe Space idea to exploit the projection of free speech on college campuses, despite the movement’s general rejection of human rights. “I think it’s symbolic as a way of saying, ‘we’re here,’” Spencer explained. |
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+The alt right spreads white supremacy, turns case |
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+Harkinson 16. Josh Harkinson, 12-06-16, "A white nationalist leader now aims to get recruits "while they are young" on college campuses," Mother Jones, http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/12/richard-spencer-alt-right-college-activism //AD |
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+How much support is there for the loose-knit coalition of white nationalists and other far-right extremists known as the "alt-right"? Despite a spike in media coverage for the movement in the wake of Donald Trump's victory, a recent conference hosted by white nationalist Richard Spencer, who coined the term "alt-right," drew only about 275 attendees in Washington, DC. And after a video from the event went viral, showing audience members giving Nazi salutes to Spencer's cry of "hail Trump," the movement faced a fierce backlash. Although Trump named alt-right hero Stephen Bannon as his chief White House strategist, the president-elect went on to disavow the alt-right—in general terms, at least—in an interview with the New York Times. The movement gained momentum online in 2016 but is no longer just about social media, says Spencer; he sees a need to prove that the alt-right can attract supporters in the real world. And he says the best place to do that is on college campuses, starting with a speech he plans to deliver on Tuesday on the campus of Texas AandM University. "People in college are at this point in their lives where they are actually open to alternative perspectives, for better and for worse," Spencer says. "I think you do need to get them while they are young. I think rewiring the neurons of someone over 50 is effectively impossible." In May, Spencer and other white nationalists set up a "safe space" on the University of California-Berkeley's Sproul Plaza to discuss "how race affects people of European heritage." Recruiting on college campuses has long been a goal for "academic racists" such as Jared Taylor and Peter Brimelow, a white nationalist whom Spencer helped bring to Duke University for an event in 2007, when Spencer was a student there. In May, Spencer and other white nationalists set up a "safe space" on the University of California-Berkeley's Sproul Plaza to discuss "how race affects people of European heritage." He claims that he will be giving two more speeches about the alt-right at universities in California. "The left just owns academia through and through," Spencer says, "so I think it is important to go to the belly of the beast and not let them own it." In recent months, Breitbart News pundit Milo Yiannopoulos' "Dangerous Faggot Tour" drew crowds at college campuses around the country. Several colleges canceled scheduled talks by Yiannopoulos because of "security concerns." Yiannopoulos does not label himself "alt-right" but has characterized the movement as a legitimate response to political correctness. He often describes white males as victims of "reverse discrimination" and speaks euphemistically of defending "Western values." A talk that he gave on the alt-right at the University of Houston in September drew cheers and a chant invoking the name of the alt-right mascot Pepe the Frog. "That was a revelation for me," Spencer said about Yiannopoulos' talk. "What we are doing is known to people, it's edgy and dangerous, it's cool and hip. It's that thing our parents don't want us to do. So that was definitely a huge inspiration." University campuses historically have incubated a range of social movements, from Marxism to multiculturalism on the left to right-wing movements such as neoliberalism and fascism, including Nazism in Germany (and in the United States). More recently, several groups sympathetic to the alt-right have cropped up on some college campuses: Identity Evropa Identity Evropa describes itself as "a generation of awakened Europeans who have discovered we are part of the great peoples, history, and civilization that flowed from the European continent" and who "oppose those who would defame our history and rich cultural heritage." Founded in February by 30-year-old ex-Marine Nathan Damigo, a junior social science major at California State University-Stanislaus, the group has been active on several California campuses. Its supporters have plastered campuses and downtown areas with posters featuring slogans such as "Let's Become Great Again" and "Serve Your People" superimposed over images or European Renaissance art. Most college professors who teach classes about race and identity "haven't done their homework," says Damigo, who, like Spencer, promotes pseudoscientific theories about cognitive differences between the races. Most of his members, he says, are recent college graduates who discovered racialist ideas on their own and now aim to "mentor" younger students while "waging a culture war" on the ivory tower: "We want to have a constant presence there," he says. "We want to normalize our ideas and get to the point where we can push faculty into incorporating this literature into the lectures and into the educational program." In November, Damigo and more than two dozen Identity Evropa members attended Spencer's conference. Identity Evropa had a strong showing yesterday at the NPI event yesterday. 26 members in total attended. pic.twitter.com/LY8lDoAFY3 — IDENTITY EVROPA (@IdentityEvropa) November 20, 2016 Traditionalist Youth Network As a student at Maryland's Towson University in 2012, Matthew Heimbach founded a "white student union." The group conducted night patrols to look for "black predators," according to Vice, and brought "race realist" Jared Taylor to speak on campus. Another white student union was formed in 2013 by Georgia State University student Patrick Sharp, an active member of the neo-Nazi website Stormfront. The "white student union" model has been promoted by alt-right media outlets; since then, more than 30 white student union pages have popped up on Facebook, though many are believed to be hoaxes. After graduating in 2013, Heimbach and his father-in-law founded the Traditionalist Youth Network, a white nationalist group cloaking itself in "traditionalism" that has allied with neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate groups, according to research from the Southern Poverty Law Center. In June, members of the TYN's affiliated Traditionalist Worker Party joined the group Golden Gate Skinheads for a demonstration in Sacramento that turned violent, sending five people to the hospital with stab wounds. Like other figures affiliated with the alt-right, Heimbach idolizes Russian President Vladimir Putin. "Russia is our biggest inspiration," he recently told the New York Times. "I see President Putin as the leader of the free world." Students for Trump Though the campus group Students for Trump ostensibly focused on electing and supporting Trump, at least one chapter has openly embraced white nationalist rhetoric and causes. The Facebook page of the group's Portland State University chapter posted an infographic called "What Does White Genocide Look Like," "White Lives Matter" memes, and a quote from former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith about how "colonialism is a wonderful thing." In a counterprotest to a student union demonstration against arming campus police, Students for Trump held up signs reading "Thug Lives Don't Matter." PSU Students who spoke out against Students for Trump were reportedly targeted online by anonymous accounts with racist slurs and death threats, according to ThinkProgress. |