Punching Nazis

My uncle Joe fought Nazis and had the tattoos to prove it. Back then, tattoos were for war vets and convicts. His tats involved eagles and snakes and American flags and initials that I didn’t understand. When I asked my mom about them, she explained that Uncle Joe had fought in World War II, as if this was explanation enough, an obvious reason for him being a tatted-up old dude. I wasn’t sure of the connection between fighting in WWII and having tattoos, but I accepted it. Recently my dad informed me that dear old Uncle Joe had served with the heroic Audie Murphy’s company. He fought alongside the author and star of To Hell and Back. He’d earned his ink.

Uncle Joe never talked to me about his time at war, but I’m pretty sure he punched some Nazis, unlike his no-good, shiftless nephew, who has never punched a Nazi, not one single Nazi.

And it isn’t just a matter of timing, I’m loath to admit. I’ve had opportunities. I have been in the presence of plenty of latter-day Nazis.

My friend and noted podcaster, Carrie Poppy, witnessed me in one of my favorite activities of late, fighting with liberals who think we should respect the free speech of Nazis. She proposed that most of the people discussing the issue of whether to punch, or even support the punching of, Nazis had never met, and likely would never meet, a Nazi—or any white supremacist for that matter.

I think she couldn’t be more wrong. We see and interact with white supremacists every day, and it’s our privilege not to notice them.

Recently I took my daughter to a Science Fiction Con, for a little father-daughter geek-out session. A man was openly, freely walkin’ about with a swastika tattoo on his chest. He wore a tank top, seemingly to make sure his hate showed. I noticed it, but the people around me did not seem to. Darth Vader was happy to pose for a picture with him, which may be a case of really sticking to one’s character, but it disturbed me, and where was the Captain America cosplayer when we need him to give one of his infamous star-spangled Nazi face punches?

With my seven-year-old with me, I wasn’t comfortable engaging him. When I mentioned it later to one of the organizers of the Con, the first question she asked me was “Was he causing trouble, saying stuff, showing it off, anything like that? Or just minding his own business but with a tattoo on his arm?”

I answered, “YES! He was causing trouble. He was walking around with a swastika tattoo on display.” He was openly, proudly claiming association with a group that killed six million Jews! He was erasing all doubt, and letting us know that he himself claims membership in a group that, the last time they were allowed to get too strong, resulted in the deaths of sixty million people before they could be stopped.

Then my fellow liberals lined up to recite the same questions I get every time this subject comes up: “What about free speech?”

This was a private event! No shirt, no shoes, no service. Swastika on clear display, no fucking service. You wouldn’t let someone sit and verbally harass your other patrons with hateful speech; why is it any different when they write it on their bodies, and let their tattoos do the talking?

Well, how do you know he hasn’t changed and just hasn’t had a chance to cover up the tattoo yet?

The tattoo was on his chest. He wore a tank top to keep it visible. If someone has changed their stripes, why would they go out with such a hurtful, hateful symbol on display? I’m sorry, but if you’re not putting a Band-Aid over it, wearing a scarf, keeping your long sleeves on, then you still don’t care enough about the comfort of Jewish people, people of color, gay people, or disabled people. All this blowback and I didn’t even mention that someone should have punched him in his face. I was just expressing my disappointment that I, or someone else, hadn’t engaged him, that the organizers hadn’t asked him to cover it up. What wonderful people we are, pat on the back, wanting to protect the rights and feelings of this Nazi.

Would I have punched him? Maybe. Probably not, but maybe, if I had a clean shot and could do it without too much risk to myself. What I would have liked to have done is just ask him why he was displaying a swastika, maybe on a livestream video. I would have loved to have pestered him about it until he left, or struck me and put himself in jail, and I would have liked it if the organizers told him to leave, or to at least cover it up, and if the cosplayers said “no, thank you” to posing with him and his swastika, and if this geek community, already horribly lacking in diversity, would have done anything to show they gave two shits about the comfort of their guests who weren’t as lily-white as they were. I adore the utopian, egalitarian vision of Star Trek. I dig seeing it cosplayed, but I’d love to see it actually applied even more.

And yes, I also would have liked to have given him a good Shatner right cross across the jaw. I’d only have Shatnered him if I could have made it a sucker Shatner. I’m willing to get my ass kicked by a Nazi if it means they go to jail. I’m only willing to hit first if I can get away with it. Fight fair? No. I don’t care about treating Nazis fairly. I couldn’t have won a fight with this big bull of a man, which I’m sure had something to do with his willingness to have that tattoo showing. No point getting beat up and getting arrested for assault. I’m all for punching Nazis, but punch smart. Punch to win.

Even though I’m sure I made the right choice, I still was bummed to not have gotten my shot at punching a Nazi. There should be a service where you can sponsor someone punching a Nazi. You’d get a picture of your Nazi to put on your refrigerator so you could tell your friends, “Yep that’s my Nazi, got punched real good and for less than the price of a cup of coffee a week!” Maybe Sally Struthers could speak over background music by Sarah McLachlan as images scroll by of sad, unpunched Nazis, needing your sponsorship so they can get the punching they so deserve.

Back to my friend Carrie. Yeah, we meet Nazis all the time, and they’re not usually so brazen about it. They’ve taken to using code words like “alt-right,” or “racial realist.” They’re holding “Free speech rallies” and they’re celebrating Trump’s win (even Sieg Heiling their leader, alt-right poster boy Richard Spencer, when they don’t realize they’re on camera), and they’re out with torches mourning the removal of statues of their Confederate heroes in New Orleans, or the removal of their traitorous, hateful flag in South Carolina.

White nationalism is on the rise again and now has more open and blatant influence in Washington. We’ve seen the result of waiting too long to oppose it, and so have the white nationalists who would like to meet and organize openly and gain power while being “civil” for as long as possible.

The discussion on whether to punch Nazis kicked into high gear on January 20, 2017. I was in Austin, Texas, for some shows, staying with friends of mine who would probably rather I keep their names out of this.

I love Austin, as I love any liberal town surrounded by the reddest of red states, but the visit wasn’t all vegan BBQ and prank-calling gun shops (“Do you carry clay pigeons for target practice? You do? That is SO great. Thank you! Thank you for carrying a vegan option. You’re open on Ramadan, yeah?”), for this was the day of Donald J. Trump’s inconceivable inauguration as President of the United States of America.

The alt-right Nazis knew this was a victory for their side even as many of my fellow liberals tried not to see it as such. Steve Bannon, who helped popularize “alt-right” as a phrase and movement while editor of Breitbart News Network, wrote Herr Trump’s apocalyptic, Frank Miller-esque inaugural speech and joined the administration as Trump’s chief strategist. A video of the National Policy Institute, which bills itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world,” celebrating Trump’s win at their annual meeting, had been heavily circulating. The money shot of this clip was Richard Spencer taking the stage, opening with “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!” and going on to spout anti-Semitism and even throw around some of Adolf’s favorite phrases, such as Lügenpresse—“lying press”—as the crowd Sieg Heiled him.

My heart was heavy, my brain busy, and then came some much-needed comic relief as Richard Spencer was punched in the face on camera while being interviewed about his racist Pepe the Frog lapel pin. Some brave soul had finally taken the initiative to say, clearly, “No! You don’t get to just stand out in the open in America as your band of neo-Nazis rise in power.” I laughed. I cheered. I even teared up a bit at the beauty of it.

And immediately I got into heated arguments with other liberals about whether it’s right and good to punch Nazis.

Well, yeah, if by my ideology you mean that straight, able-bodied, cisgendered, Christian, white males aren’t superior to the rest of us.

His publicity trajectory was up and up before he got punched. He was IN FRONT of cameras when he was punched. He was punched out of the frame, not into the frame. You’d never heard of him before that? I did. You should be ashamed. You weren’t paying enough attention. Glad you’ve heard of him now so you’ll recognize him if you see him on the street, and can punch him in the face.

Ignoring fascism has repeatedly failed. Ignoring the threat of white supremacist fascists is what brought us to this place to begin with.

Aren’t you worried about people using this as an excuse to punch anyone they want to punch and justifying it by calling that person a Nazi?

Sure. That’s a reasonable concern, but I’m more afraid of people using that concern to condemn punching legit Nazis, because that’s a thing I actually see happening.

But you’re convicting them of a thought crime. If they’re not doing anything wrong, they should be allowed to think and express thoughts, even those you find abhorrent. If they didn’t strike first, it’s assault.

They asked to be associated with genocide, with large-scale murder, with setting into motion a war that was the deadliest in the history of humanity, taking sixty million lives. I’m only taking them at their word. If they volunteer to associate themselves with and champion these crimes, a punch in the face is the least they deserve.

The same goes for the Confederate flag. You want to associate yourself with enslaving black people and terrorizing them after the Civil War? You can have a punch in the face too if you think for a minute that you should be able to go out in public with that shit and be treated with any level of civility.

What is it with these goons wanting to fly the flags of history’s biggest losers anyway? And what is it with “real Americans” claiming patriotism while flying the flag of that time they fought so hard not to be America, or the flag of America’s greatest historical foe?

Never again. That’s supposed to be the lesson of WWII and of the Holocaust, yeah? Waiting until they strike first isn’t never again. It’s again.

When we call the alt-right “Nazis,” it’s not that feared “slippery slope” of calling anyone a Nazi so we can oppose them. It’s SUCH an obvious dog whistle. If you fall for it, they’re making a joke of you. They are Sieg Heiling! They are spouting anti-Semitism! They are calling for a white homeland! They’re doing cute things like peppering their speeches with phrases that Adolf Hitler popularized, and they’re saying them IN GERMAN! Can it even be called a dog whistle at that point? It’s a funny haircut goose-stepping with a megaphone at that point, isn’t it?

You’re taking them too seriously. Giving them too much credit. They are a tiny minority with no power.

Um … Steve Bannon is, er, was in the White House and still wields influence with the president! At what point do you take them seriously? Have we forgotten that Hitler and his brown shirts were once just street thugs? This sounds too much like, “Oh, stop fretting. Trump isn’t a serious candidate. Trump will be one of the first to drop out. Trump will never be the Republican nominee. Trump can’t possibly win the presidency.”

They repeatedly use the camouflage of jokes and irony to recruit and organize right under our noses. “Pepe the Frog is JUST a cartoon. We’re just trolling for LOLs. Get a sense of humor. We’re championing free speech by pushing its limits. We just like to see you cry.”

Convincing us that they’re joking is their best trick, and we keep falling for it. Gavin McInnes, founder of the self-described “far right men’s group” The Proud Boys, says he will sue anyone who calls his band of racist hipsters racist. He also told the New York Times, “I love being white and I think it’s something to be proud of, I don’t want our culture diluted.” But don’t worry, he was just kidding. He was quoted by Gawker as saying the statement was only meant to goad easily offended liberals. Ha ha, I get it! This guy is hilarious!

I have always assumed that a percentage of trolls in the alt-right ranks are indeed just young and enjoy the thrill of pissing off the world by playing with sacred cows, getting a reaction so easily, and that many of them will grow out of it as they get the gravity of what they’re playing with and see some of the hurt that has made these symbols and ideas so charged and so dangerous. But when the big conflicts happen, when there is doxing of and death threats aimed at feminists or other civil rights activists, when things get especially nasty, as in Gamergate, too few defected. Too few said, “Oh, no, this isn’t what I wanted. This is too much.” And far too many doubled down. If anything their numbers seemed to swell, or at the very least their volume increased to a deafening roar.

What’s the worst-case scenario here? If they are kidding, just pranking us all, and we fall for it and beat them down, then their prank worked, right? If they’re bloody and bowed, they can say with pride, “Ha! Fooled ya!” I tell ya, I for one will be so embarrassed and will gladly offer up a “You got me! Good one.”

Whenever someone says this to me I imagine them saying it to my uncle Joe when he was spending literally ALL his time and energy fighting fascists in Europe. I don’t give hateful assholes enough of my time. I ain’t doing shit to earn a tattoo like the ones that adorned Uncle Joe’s skin.

I like to consider myself a positive person, and also a peaceful person. I try to put out some positive, peaceful energy in between going off about Nazis in need of punching. My social media posts are:

• Imploring you to punch Nazis, or at least stop condemning people who are punching Nazis

And honestly, while I might be cheering on antifascist violence, I do so pretty, well, cheerfully. Why do we always focus on the negative? When sports fans cheer their team winning, we don’t accuse them of being negative about the team who lost. They cheer on the Golden State Warriors. I cheer on the Golden State Nazi Punchers.

Okay, stop. At the risk of joining the throngs of white people cherry-picking MLK quotes to support their own viewpoint, he also said:

But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? … It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens’ Council or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.”

Unless you’re a scholar when it comes to the complex and nuanced views of the good Reverend—I’m not—maybe be careful about quoting him to support your argument.

And while we’re at it, Gandhi, a veteran, was a brilliant military tactician who managed to beat the British Army in the only way possible. This ain’t that. This is a different situation.

India achieved its independence with these tactics of passive resistance. King tried the same approach here, made some important progress, but over four decades later I don’t think you can fault people for wanting to try a different strategy.

But when Antifa shows up to a protest it’s disrespecting the people who organized the nonviolent event.

That’s true, if the event is a march or demonstration with an arbitrary date and location. But if you’re talking about a protest on a campus where Spencer is speaking, sorry, the peaceful protestors don’t own that space, they didn’t create that event; Spencer did. Go be peaceful against Spencer at another location.

I think private citizens should be sometimes willing to go to jail for something they believe in.

Yes, sometimes, when it doesn’t involve your favorite sports team losing, or winning, and so is everyone who has ever championed the Boston Tea Party or the Stonewall Riots.

When you suffer under systematic oppression, who could blame you for not being so concerned with society’s rules?

Civilization doesn’t mean much to you when you’re hungry. You will steal, cheat, do what you have to do to eat. Civilization depends on not allowing a large segment of the population to starve. Who could expect someone to sit and starve to death as part of their civic duty? So why would we expect someone to be “civil” as the forces that have resulted in the worst violence in human history start to reorganize and gain strength?

Let me explain what should be obvious. I’m not suggesting you should get up right now, find a racist, and punch them in the face. If you did so, I’d totally get it. I’d empathize with you. But let’s be real, what this conversation is really about is punching Richard Spencer, who is actively seeking to cause harm. It’s about stopping white supremacists from speaking at our colleges, claiming our public spaces as safe zones for promoting a historically deadly and disastrous agenda. You have another way to fight their rise to power, great. But I can’t look at the people who have, throughout history, been the victims of white power and tell them how to fight it, or tell them they have to be “civil” because the people who hold the most ethnic privilege and power are being “civil” in their efforts to reclaim America for themselves, to continue the oppression of nonwhites, and to otherwise cling to power. And I won’t criticize the white people who are willing to use their privilege, and their bodies, fists, etc., to stand against the white-power movers and shakers.

Do-good liberals who like to cherry-pick Martin Luther King Jr. quotes also love to point out blues musician Daryl Davis, subject of the documentary film Accidental Courtesy, as someone who is “doing it right.” Davis, a black man, engages members of the KKK and has convinced quite a few of them to not only leave the Klan, but to give him their robes as a trophy for the good guys. Look, I love this. I think it’s great. My hero, Louis Armstrong, could play the trumpet so beautifully, he literally played the racism out of at least one man’s heart according to Charles L. Black Jr., who, at sixteen years old, was so moved when he heard Armstrong play in Austin, Texas, in 1931 that he had to abandon the racism he’d been raised with. Black would go on to help Thurgood Marshall write the legal brief for Linda Brown in the historic Brown v. Board of Education case. Do you have that talent? If so, go use it. Go convert some racists. But don’t sit, feeling lovely about yourself with your handful of formerly racists pals, as the unconverted gain direct influence into the White House (again) and are emboldened to start marching in the streets and holding rallies at our state capitols (again). Don’t look down on those who are standing in their way.