Proud Boys

SOURCE:  Wikipedia, 2020-05-26

The Proud Boys is a far-right   neo-fascist organization that admits only men as members and promotes political violence. It is based in the United States and has a presence in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. The group was started in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder and former commentator Gavin McInnes, taking its name from the song "Proud of Your Boy" from the Disney film Aladdin. Proud Boys emerged as part of the alt-right, but in early 2017, McInnes began distancing himself from the alt-right, saying the alt-right's focus is race while his focus is what he defines as "Western values". This re-branding effort intensified after the Unite the Right Rally.

The group sees men -- especially white men -- and Western culture as under siege; their views have elements of white genocide conspiracy theory. While the group claims it does not support white supremacist views, its members often participate in racist rallies, events, and organizations. The organization glorifies violence, and members engage in violence at events it attends; the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has called it an "alt-right fight club".

In late November 2018, a news story which attracted national attention reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism; however, two weeks later, an FBI official, briefing Clark County, Washington law enforcement officials on the group, denied that it was their intent to classify the entire group in this manner, and ascribed the mistake to a misunderstanding. During the briefing, FBI agents suggested the use of various websites for more information, including that of the SPLC. The official said that their intent was to characterize the possible threat from certain members of the group.

The organization has been described as a hate group by NPR's The Takeaway and the Southern Poverty Law Center. In February 2019, despite having claimed to have broken ties with the group in November 2018, McInnes filed a federal defamation suit against the SPLC over their "hate group" designation, saying that it was untrue and had damaged his career. Shortly after McInnes filed the suit, the Canadian far-right media group The Rebel Media  [now Rebel News], for whom McInnes had previously been a contributor, announced that they had re-hired him.

Organization

Gavin McInnes co-founded Vice magazine in 1994 but was pushed out in 2008 after several years of turmoil following a New York Times interview in which he talked about his pride in being white. After leaving, he began "doggedly hacking a jagged but unrelenting path to the far-right fringes of American culture", according to a 2017 profile in the Canadian Globe and Mail.

The Proud Boys organization was launched in September 2016, on the website of Taki's Magazine, a far-right publication for which Richard Spencer was Executive Editor. It existed informally before then as a group centered around McInnes, and the first gathering of the Brooklyn chapter in July 2016 resulted in a brawl in the bar where they met. The name is derived from the song "Proud of Your Boy" used in the soundtrack of the Disney film version of Aladdin (1992), which had become a running theme on McInnes' podcast hosted by Anthony Cumia's Compound Media. McInnes had heard the song at a children's talent show in December 2015 and took immediate dislike to the perceived "fake, humble, and self-serving" nature of the lyrics.

The organization has been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and NPR's The Takeaway, and Spencer, McInnes, and the Proud Boys have been described as hipster racists by Vox Media, and Media Matters for America. McInnes says victim mentality of women and other historically oppressed groups is unhealthy: "There is an incentive to be a victim. It is cool to be a victim." He sees white men and Western culture as "under siege" and described criticism of his ideas as "victim blaming". Their views have elements of the white genocide conspiracy theory. The group is part of the "alt lite" and it is "overtly Islamophobic".

In early 2017, McInnes began to distance himself from the alt-right, saying their focus is race and his focus is what he calls "Western values"; the rebranding effort intensified after the Unite the Right Rally. In 2018, McInnes was saying that the Proud Boys were part of the "new right".

The organization glorifies political violence against leftists, re-enacting political assassinations, wearing shirts that praise Augusto Pinochet's murders of leftists, and participating directly in political violence. McInnes has said "I want violence, I want punching in the face. I'm disappointed in Trump supporters for not punching enough." He stated, "We don't start fights [...] but we will finish them." Heidi Beirich, the Intelligence Project director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that this form of intentional aggression was not common among far-right groups in the past; she said: "'We're going to show up and we're intending to get in fights,' that's a new thing." In August 2018, Twitter shut down the official account for the group, as well as McInnes' account, under its policy prohibiting violent extremist groups; at the time, the group's profile photo was a member punching a counter-protester. In late November 2018, it was reported, based on an internal memo of the Clark County, Washington Sheriff's Office, that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalism. Two weeks later, however, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Oregon office denied that the FBI made such designations, ascribing the error by the Sheriff's Office to a confusion over the FBI designating the group as such, as a designation made by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and other outside agencies.

The organization is opposed to feminism and promotes gender stereotypes in which women are subservient to men. The organization has a female-member-only auxiliary wing named "Proud Boys' Girls" that supports the same ideology. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) states that McInnes and the Proud Boys are misogynistic and states that they call women "lazy" and "less ambitious" than men (and "venerate the housewife"); McInnes has called for "enforced monogamy" and criticized feminism as "a cancer".

Some men who are not white have joined the Proud Boys, drawn by the organization's advocacy for men, anti-immigrant stance, and embrace of violence. The ADL states that the Proud Boys' "extreme, provocative tactics -- coupled with overt or implicit racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism and misogyny and the fact that the group is so decentralized, inconsistent, and spread out -- suggest the group should be a significant cause for concern".

Membership

The Proud Boys say they have an initiation process that has four stages and includes hazing. The first stage is a loyalty oath, on the order of "I'm a proud Western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world"; the second is getting punched until the person recites pop culture trivia, such as the names of five breakfast cereals; the third is getting a tattoo and agreeing to not masturbate; and the fourth is getting into a major fight "for the cause."

The Proud Boys have adopted a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow piping as their unofficial uniform. Fred Perry was previously associated with the Mod subculture and skinhead groups, including the British National Front. Fred Perry's CEO John Flynn denounced the affiliation with the Proud Boys in a statement to CBC Radio, saying "We don't support the ideals or the group that you speak of. It is counter to our beliefs and the people we work with."

Women and transgender men are not allowed in the organization  [transphobia].

The Proud Boys discourages its members from masturbating and watching pornography so as to motivate them to get "off the couch" and meet women. McInnes added no masturbation to the group's core ideas after interacting with Dante Nero, a relationship expert and comedian with a podcast on Riotcast, who came to serve as a sort of "pope" for this idea within the organization.

Leadership

Gavin Miles McInnes

Gavin Miles McInnes (born 17 July 1970) is a Canadian writer, podcaster, and far-right   political commentator. McInnes is the host of the podcast Get Off My Lawn, on the online video platform   Censored.TV - which Innes founded. Innes co-founded Vice  [Vice Media] in 1994 at the age of 24, and relocated to the United States in 2001. In more recent years, Innes has drawn attention for his far-right political activism and his role as the founder of the Proud Boys  [Proud Boys] - an American far-right   neofascist organization designated as a terrorist group in Canada. Gavin McInnes has been accused of promoting violence against political opponents, but has claimed that he only has supported political violence in self-defense, and that he is not far-right or a supporter of fascism.

Born to Scottish parents in Hitchin,   Hertfordshire, England, Gavin McInnes immigrated to Canada as a child. Innes graduated from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario before moving to Montreal, Quebec and co-founding Vice with Suroosh Alvi and Shane Smith. Innes relocated with Vice Media to New York City in 2001.

During his time at Vice, Gavin McInnes was called a leading figure in the New York hipster subculture. After leaving Vice in 2008, McInnes became increasingly known for his far-right political views. Innes is the founder of the Proud Boys, a neo-fascist,  men's rights and male-only organisation classified as a "general hate" organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Innes has rejected this classification, claiming that the group is "not an extremist group and not have ties with white nationalists". Innes holds both Canadian and British citizenship and lives in Larchmont, New York.

In 2018, Gavin McInnes was fired from Blaze Media, and was banned from Twitter,  Facebook, and Instagram for violating terms of use related to promoting violent extremist groups and hate speech. In June 2020, McInnes' YouTube account was suspended for violating YouTube's policies concerning hate speech, posting content that was "glorifying inciting violence against another person or group of people."

Gavin McInnes founded the group and served as its leader. In November 2018, shortly after news broke that the FBI had classified the Proud Boys as an extremist group with ties to white nationalists -- a claim later disavowed by an FBI official, who said they only intended to characterize the potential threat from some members of the group -- McInnes said that his lawyers had advised him that quitting might help the nine members being prosecuted for the incidents in October. During the announcement he defended the group, attacked the reporting about it, said white nationalists don't exist, and at times he said things that made it appear he was not quitting, such as "this is 100% a legal gesture, and it is 100% about alleviating sentencing", and said it was a "stepping down gesture, in quotation marks".

Henry "Enrique" Tarrio

As of November 2018, the group said its leaders were Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, designated as "chairman", and the "Elder Chapter", which consists of Harry Fox, Heath Hair, Patrick William Roberts, Joshua Hall, Timothy Kelly, Luke Rofhling and Rufio Panman. Jason Lee Van Dyke, who was the organization's lawyer at the time, had been briefly named as chairman to replace Gavin McInnes when he left the group, but the organization announced on November 30 that Van Dyke was no longer associated with the group in any capacity, although his law firm still holds Proud Boys trademarks and is the registered agent for two of the group's chapters. In December 2018, arrest warrant was issued for Van Dyke over his death threat to a person he previously sued.

Although McInnes had earlier said that any Proud Boy member who was known to have attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 was kicked out of the organization, the new chairman, Enrique Tarrio, admits to having attended the event.

Events

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Disruption of Halifax Indigenous Peoples' Protest

On July 1, 2017, five Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members who self-identified as Proud Boys disrupted a protest organized by indigenous activists, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, at a statue of Edward Cornwallis, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia. Indigenous activists had previously protested at the site and called for the removal of the statue because of Cornwallis's actions against Natives, including ordering a bounty for scalps of Mi'kmaq people. The Proud Boys carried the Canadian Red Ensign flag from the time of Cornwallis and one of them said to the indigenous protesters, "You are recognising your heritage and so are we."

General Jonathan Vance, the head of the CAF, announced an investigation, Rear Admiral John Newton, Commander of the Maritime Fleet of the Royal Canadian Navy, was "personally horrified" by the incident and said the Proud Boys were "clearly a white supremacist group and we fundamentally stand opposed to any of their values." The CAF's investigation concluded by August 2017, Later that month, Newton announced the CAF had taken "appropriate measures to address individual shortcomings" and that four of the members had returned to duty, warning, "Any further inappropriate behavior could result in their termination from the Canadian Armed Forces." In 2018, the statue was removed from the site by the City of Halifax.

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Additional Reading

A leader of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group was arrested Tuesday [2022-03-08] on a conspiracy charge for his suspected role in the co-ordinated attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the United States Congress from certifying Democratic   President Joe Biden's 2020 presidential electoral victory. Henry "Enrique" Tarrio wasn't there when the riot erupted on 2021-01-06. Police had arrested Tarrio in Washington, D.C. two days before the riot and charged him with vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during a protest in 2020-12. The day before the U.S. Capitol was attacked, a judge ordered Tarrio to stay out of Washington, D.C.. But Tarrio didn't leave town as he should have, the indictment said. Instead, Tarrio met with Oath Keepers founder and leader Elmer "Stewart" Rhodes and others in an underground parking garage for approximately 30 minutes. "During this encounter, a participant referenced the Capitol," the indictment said.

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The new riot-related charges are among the most serious filed so far, but they aren't the first of their kind. Eleven members or associates of the antigovernment Oath Keepers militia group, including Stewart Rhodes, have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the 2021 United States Capitol attack. Enrique Tarrio, who has since stepped down from his post as Proud Boys chairman, didn't immediately respond to a text message seeking comment on his arrest and indictment. Tarrio served five months for the unrelated case.

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Proud Boys members describe the group as a politically incorrect men's club for "Western chauvinists." Proud Boys members frequently have brawled with antifascist activists at rallies and protests. Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, sued the Southern Poverty Law Center for labelling the Proud Boys as a hate group.

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Prosecutors have said the Proud Boys arranged for members to communicate using specific frequencies on Baofeng radios - Chinese-made devices that can be programmed for use on hundreds of frequencies - making it difficult for outsiders to eavesdrop. Over three dozen of the more than 750 people charged in the U.S. Capitol siege have been identified by federal authorities as Proud Boys leaders, members or associates.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday [2022-03-08] a Texas man was convicted of storming the U.S. Capitol with a holstered handgun, a milestone victory for federal prosecutors in the first trial among hundreds of cases arising from last year [2021-01-06]'s riot. A jury also convicted Guy Wesley Reffitt  [Criminal charges in the 2021 United States Capitol attack] of obstructing the United States CongressUnited States Electoral College vote on 2021-01-06, of interfering with police officers who were guarding the U.S. Capitol, and of threatening his two teenage children if they reported him to law enforcement after the attack. Jurors deliberated about three hours and convicted Guy Wesley Reffitt on all counts. The verdict could be a bellwether for many other U.S. Capitol riot cases. It could give United States Department of Justice prosecutors more leverage in plea negotiations and discourage other defendants from gambling on trials of their own. ... Reffitt - who will be sentenced 2022-06-08 - could receive 20 years in prison on the top charge alone, but he's likely to face far less time behind bars. Other rioters have pleaded guilty, and the longest sentence so far was the five years and three months handed to Robert Palmer, a Florida man who pleaded guilty to attacking police officers at the U.S. Capitol. The riot resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer. More than 100 officers were injured. Rioters caused over $1 million in damage to the U.S. Capitol. ...

Enrique Tarrio - who was the chairman of the far-right extremist group the Proud Boys - was arrested and charged with conspiracy for his alleged role in planning the 2021-01-06 2021 United States Capitol attack, the United States Department of Justice   announced on Tuesday [2022-03-08]. Although Enrique Tarrio is not accused of physically taking part in the breach of the U.S. Capitol - or even being in Washington D.C. at the time - the U.S. Justice Department said Tarrio "conspired to corruptly obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding, the certification of the United States Electoral College vote." As the leader and creator of a special chapter of the Proud Boys known as the Ministry of Self Defense, the 38-year-old "led the advance planning and remained in contact with other members of the Proud Boys during their breach of the U.S. Capitol," according to prosecutors.

The U.S. Justice Department also said Enrique Tarrio claimed credit for the attack on social media and in an encrypted chat room during and after the attack. Enrique Tarrio was indicted on one count of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding and another count of obstruction of an official proceeding. Tarrio also faces two counts each of assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and destruction of government property. The U.S. Justice Department said Tarrio was named in a superseding indictment returned Monday [2022-03-07] in the District of Columbia, along with five previously charged defendants - Ethan Nordean, 31, of Auburn, Washington; Joseph Biggs, 38, of Ormond Beach, Florida; Zachary Rehl, 36, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Charles Donohoe, 34, of Kernersville, North Carolina; and Dominic Pezzola, 44, of Rochester, New York. Enrique Tarrio was arrested in Miami, Florida and is scheduled to make his initial court appearance in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

• [2017-07-31]  Military personnel in Proud Boys incident return to regular duty.  No criminal charges or demotions against men who disrupted an Mi'kmaw ceremony in Halifax

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