Unpopular opinion: By condemning the Antifa as perpetrators of violence, you are saying that violence against white people is morally abhorrent, but violence against minority groups is normal and just to be expected. You are being complicit to institutional violence. Hold that thought.

I spent a lot of time on Richard Spencer's website the other day, because he released a 17-minute video describing how he got punched (in slow, deeply dramatic, cringeworthy, hilarious detail, and he acted SO traumatized). He said, "It didn't hurt that bad," and, "Anyone who thinks this is funny on Twitter should not be laughing," and described removing himself from the area to a "safe space." He also said, "To the members of the Alt-Right, our ideas are not just fun and games anymore." (When was being a white supremacist fun and games?! Dude.) It looked like he realized for the first time how much people actually hate him, and he legit looked scared.

Yet instead of examining his actions or perhaps why people might hate him SO much, (hint: it's not "free speech"), he called on his supporters to start sending money so they could hire Alt-Right "vigilante squads" to "defend against these types of people." He said they should "prepare to raise militias." Fam, you got punched in the face- just YOU, not some overall threat to a generalized group- so maybe you should take a self-defense class, not tell your radical homophobic supporters to raise militias and, I quote, "prepare for Civil War."

His website is peppered with mentions of the "coming Civil War" and how people of the Alt-Right must "defend their ideology by any means necessary" (?).

At first, I find myself mildly frustrated with the protesters who are playing into this narrative of violence, and, by lighting stuff on fire, are probably succeeding in convincing the Alt-Right that they are indeed "persecuted" and that they should indeed prepare for some kind of "war of violence in the streets."

But arming these people sounds like a TERRIBLE idea.

And I think, before we pass judgment on the Antifa, we should thank them.

Because look at the mosque burning in Texas. The mosque attack in Canada. Both last week.

Look at the acts of violence against African-Americans by the LITERAL police. By the KKK. Look at the trans people who are killed, actually killed, at an extremely high rate just for existing and being trans. Look at the amount of Muslims and Hispanics that are regularly, loudly harassed as they go about their daily lives, having their hijabs ripped off their heads, being called dirty names, being told they'll get "sent back where they came from."

Those incidents happen so often we don't even think twice.
But when they do, do we decry violence?

Or do we shake our heads at "the way the world has become"?

Why is violence against minorities okay, but when it's white people, suddenly we develop a moral conscience?

Why is violence against minorities "the way of the world" and "to be expected," but violence against literal white supremacists is a matter of ethical debate?

Do we have some kind of unexamined beliefs here about race and morality?

In the way we respond to the Antifa vs. reading about the actual KKK like a normal part of our news and history books, do we not find, in our own minds, a little bit of white supremacist?

I support the Antifa. I do not support violence. But the people suffering from violence are not these white supremacist speakers. Why do we only see pain when it's male, cis, and white?

No. Just, no. I don't think so.