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The battle to curb America's deep-rooted and systemic issues with racism, hatred and oppression grew violent Saturday, after a white supremacy rally dubbed "Unite the Right"clashed with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A car plowed through swaths of demonstrators rejecting a group of racists, neo-Nazis and members of the alt-right,killing one person and injuring 19 others. Organizers of the right-wing demonstration provided shields for those in attendance, encouraging them to respond to the counterprotesters with physical aggression.

Related: Fox News Blames The Media, Not Nazis, For Charlottesville And White Supremacy

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Across the country, Americans are seekingways to add their voices to the fight against white supremacy, terror and violence. But the nonprofit advocacy organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) tells Newsweek there are better ways to defeat hate groups besides showing up to their ralliesand that clashing with counterprotesters is exactly what the alt-right wants.

"Charlottesville is not the end of this;this is going to continue,"Lecia Brooks, the centers director of outreach, tells Newsweek. This was just the most coordinated event to date."

The alt-right has a number of upcoming major demonstrations across the nations college campuses, including one at University of California, Berkeley, and another at Texas A&M University, where the group has heavily recruited young white males since its inception. While theyre on college campuses, alt-right leaders such asRichard Spencer and Milo Yiannopolous expect to be met with countless demonstrations from activists and the left. "They feed on attention,"Brooks says.

But reclaiming the national conversation on intolerance will require activists to drown it out from afar, according to the SPLCs community guidelines on fighting hate.

"Take part in hosting alternate events far away from [the alt-rights] scheduled demonstrations, and draw all the attention away from them,"Brooks said. "If it's an upcoming event and you cant make it to the area, standing in solidarity where you may happen to be is just as effective. We have to take back the narrative and take over the story. That would be a beautiful thing."

Protesters bearing slogans against white nationalism in New York City's Times Square on August 13. Reuters

The Indivisible movement, created in the aftermath of Trump's shocking electoral victory, announced on Sunday plans for at least 682 "events in solidarity"with the counterprotesters of Charlottesville, writing in a statement to Newsweek that thegroup will combine with other organizations such asDemocracy for America, Women's March and Peoples Action "in solidarity with our brave friends in Charlottesville who put themselves at risk to fight against white supremacy."

The SPLC and other advocacy organizations also recommend donating to groups on the ground, organizing against the alt-right and responding to such rallies in real time. Interfaith organizations like Congregate Cville, a Charlottesville coalition that came together ahead of "Unite the Right"and called on nearly 1,000 religious leaders to travel to the city for the rallies and reject the groups message, are often some of the most vocal opponents to major alt-right demonstrations, notes the SPLC.

To be sure, drowning out the alt-right with demonstrations across the country and away from their controversial rallies wont put a definitive end to the movements intolerance. That will require a swift rejection of the groups hateful ideologies and practices from the most powerful people in the worldone that did not occur when the president initially spoke about the demonstrations over the weekend.

After initially describing the rally as an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides,"Trump said Monday groups like the KKK and neo-Nazis are "repugnant"and represent the opposite of American values.

But "this is by no means over,"Brooks says, "and it won't be over just because we finally said the right words."

More:
How To Stop The 'Alt-Right's' Hate And Intolerance After Charlottesville Riots - Newsweek

Alt-right protests against Googles allegedly anti-white-male diversity policies were already being planned before the white-supremacist violence in Charlottesville this last weekend. And organizers of the March on Google in (at last count) nine cities are trying to distinguish themselves from the motley gang of neo-Nazis, Kluxers, and open white supremacists who held the Unite the Right rally in Virginia. They issued a statement that closely tracks the evasive take on Charlottesville of you-know-who in the White House:

We, the organizers of the March on Google, join the President in condemning the actions in Charlottesville on August 12th. Despite many false rumors from those seeking to discredit us we are in no way associated with any group who organized there.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms any display of hatred and bigotry from any side. It has no place in America. No citizen should ever fear for their safety and security in our society.

But inevitably, given the timing, what looks and feels like a proliferation of far-right public events is going to attract attention, and probably counter-demonstrators. The march will be directed at Google facilities in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Los Angeles, New York, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., in addition to the companys headquarters, GooglePlex, in Mountain View, California.

The protests, of course, were spurred by the now-infamous memo on Googles hiring practices that made its author, Google engineer James Damore, a conservative hero, particularly after he was fired over it. As Madison Malone Kircher notes, Damore chose to show some solidarity with the alt-right.

Since confirming his firing, Damore has done very little press, but his first public interview, posted online Tuesday evening, is with alt-right YouTuber Stefan Molyneux.

Damore doesnt express any beyond-the-pale views in the interview, but Molyneux a mens-rights blogger and accused cult leader with, uh, unorthodox views on race is, well, a pointed choice for a first-interview host.

The alt-right not those prone to cavorting in sheets or goose-stepping, but the kind of people who view Breitbart News as their daily bread and mobilized for Trumps presidential candidacy has reciprocated this embrace avidly. And that has led to next weekends march, as the San Jose Mercury News reports:

We are going to raise awareness about Googles one-sided bias and campaign against dissenting opinions and voices, activist and protest march organizer Jack Posobiec, a self-identified member of the new right that seeks to distance itself from the white-power politics of the alt-right, told this news organization via Twitter.

Googles firing of James Damore is the flashpoint here, said the pro-Trump Posobiec, known for peddling conspiracy theories such as Pizzagate.

Posobiec was also special projects director for Citizens for Trump, a leading outside pro-Trump group during the 2016 presidential campaign. One problem for him in distinguishing the March on Google from Unite the Right is that he was accused by his own former employer, The Rebel, earlier this year of plagiarizing a video script from Jason Kessler, the white supremacist who organized Unite the Right. Oops.

Its likely next weekends protests will mark a point either of convergence or divergence for the alt-right and white-supremacist groups.

As J.M. Berger observes at Vox, the events in Charlottesville represent an existential challenge to the idea of the alt-right as a playful and essentially harmless online phenomenon:

Charlottesville put to rest the idea that the alt-right can be primarily defined as fun-loving transgressive hipsters or an elaborate practical joke (if anyone still really believed that). Even before the culminating act of terrorism, the rally in Charlottesville illustrated that the umbrella of the alt-right is an effective means to mobilize a highly visible mix of old-school white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Offline, at least, this isnt the new white nationalism; its the old white nationalism as the primary beneficiary of the activity generated by a looser collection of people online.

How the March on Google turns out could have significant implications for the alt-right and for their daddy Donald Trump. Charlottesville was a turning point.

As he dragged his feet on condemning racist violence this weekend, the president was thinking fondly of the nativist demagogue Joe Arpaio.

The 23-year-old would-be terrorist told an FBI informant that he wanted to start the next revolution.

Alabama GOP voters likely to vault the wheezing campaign of Trumps endorsee Luther Strange into a runoff with the grim celebrity theocrat Roy Moore.

In the White House on Monday, Trump said racism is evil and called out white supremacists by name.

Alt-right activists who would like to distinguish themselves from the white supremacists who rioted in Charlottesville will march against Google.

Blending neo-Confederate and Nazi ideology, our white nationalist movement is part of a frightening international phenomenon.

More than words are needed to absolve the GOP and Donald Trump of collaborating with racists. But very direct words are essential as well.

A far stronger response than the president has mustered.

Kenneth Frazier, who runs Merck, said leaders must reject expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy.

And helped its key player escape to the United States.

A former teacher said he expressed white-supremacist views throughout high school, and he was kicked out of the Army after four months.

We still dont know if Trump plans to sabotage Obamacare, which is whats driving up 2018 premiums.

Republicans need to do a lot more than say the right words about Nazis to atone for their role in the revival of the racist right.

Many sides are to blame for the haphazard defense of the presidents response to Charlottesville, but none more so than Trump himself.

The wounds are raw in the city.

It calls the media enemies of the president.

Thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer had a very strong sense of right and wrong and was dedicated to ending injustice, according to her mother.

By professing neutrality between those who support and oppose racial equality, Trump is joining the generations of pols who whitewashed Jim Crow.

Republicans are continuing to call out the president, this time over white-nationalist violence.

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Don't Look Now, But Alt-Right Demonstrations Are Scheduled for Nine Cities Next Weekend - New York Magazine

Its almost impossible to get Donald Trump to criticize one of his supporters. Last March, when former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke supported his campaign, Trump initially declined to disavow him and at one point blamed a bad earpiece for his failure to do so. A couple weeks later, when a Trump supporter punched an African-American man at a stadium rally, Trump said the man obviously loves the country and suggested he might pay his legal bills.

And, of course, after Saturdays alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one woman dead, Trump blamed many sides and refused to single out white supremacists and neo-Nazis, even as a growing chorus of Republican elected officials called on him to do so.

One reason for Trumps mystifying refusal to criticize the alt-right racism in Charlottesville is that he came under similar pressure during the campaign, didnt buckle, and still won the election.

Last August, Trump hired Steve Bannon to take over his presidential campaign. Bannon was executive chairman of Breitbart News, the hard-right populist website that he had described a month earlier as the platform for the alt-right. Seeking to highlight Trumps unsavory connection to racists and anti-Semites, Hillary Clinton gave an August 25th speech in Reno, Nevada, explicitly warning about the danger of embracing white supremacy. Trump, Clinton declared, is reinforcing harmful stereotypes and offering a dog whistle to his most hateful supporters. Its a disturbing preview of what kind of president hed beThese are racebaiting ideas, antiMuslim and antiimmigrant ideas, antiwoman--all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the altright. She added: A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party.

Most Americans had never heard the term alt-right until Clinton highlighted it inher speech. The term was just beginning to enter the political lexicon, a Clinton adviser told me, in an interview for my book Devils Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency. We thought it would be catnip that would fuel peoples curiosity [about the altright] and what Bannons place was in that world. Trumps campaign was built on stoking xenophobic impulses, so you could take a process story on Bannons hire and turn it into a bigger critique of how Trump was uniquely unacceptable.

In one sense, Clintons speech had the desired effect: it sparked a nationwide debate about alt-right racism. But it didnt prompt Trump to fire Bannon or distance himself in any way from his alt-right supporters. And as a political attack, it plainly failed. A month later, Trumps poll numbers had improved.As Bannon told me in Devils Bargain, We polled the race stuff and it doesnt matter. It doesnt move anyone who isnt already in her camp.

Its not clear why Trump has so far refused to call out the neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville whose rally produced deadly violence. He has come under withering criticism not only from Republican senators like Orrin Hatch and Cory Gardner, but also from conservative media outlets like Fox News andthe New York Post.

On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence offered an explicit condemnation of the Charlottesville instigators during a visit to Colombia. "We have no tolerance for hate and violence from white supremacists, neo-Nazis or the KKK, Pence said at a news conference with Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos. These dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life and in the American debate, and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms," he said.

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Having survived Clintons attack over alt-right racism, Trump may simply feel impervious to the pressure to speak out more forcefully about Charlottesville. But the differences between the two episodes are significant. Last year, Trump was being attacked by a Democratic political opponent; the basis of the attack was a website most people dont read; and the specter of alt-right violence that Clinton invoked in her speech was theoretical.

Charlottesville was different in every respect: The bloodshed and deadly assault were vividly on display for all to see. Those responsible for it were not Democrats, but Trump supporters (some marchers shouted Heil Trump!). And this time, the calls for Trump to show moral courage and condemn the Nazis and white supremacists are coming from his fellow-Republicans.

Trump may find himself forced to say something more specific or he may continue to refuse, as he did in the campaign. But its hard to imagine his poll numbers improving in the wake of the tragedy, as they did last August. The difference between the two episodes couldnt be more stark or more obvious to everyone except Trump.

View post:
Why Trump Refuses to Call Out Alt-Right Violence - Bloomberg

AnthonyScaramucci, the former hedge fund manager who very briefly served as the White House communications director, is continuing his feud against President Donald Trumps top adviser Steve Bannon. The man known as The Mooch is essentially blaming the ex-Breitbart News CEO for the controversy thats surrounded the president for his weekend-long refusalto denounce white nationalists after one was accused of murdering a woman with his car over the weekend.

In a Sunday interview with ABC News, Scaramucci essentially called Bannon a member of the white supremacistalt-right movement. He also accused Bannon of tolerating racists, an offense which Scaramucci deemed inexcusable.

There are elements of the alt-right I mean people are not going to like me saying this there are elements of the alt-right that I think have actually been quite beneficial, Scaramucci said in an effort to damn Bannon with faint praise as he called the former Breitbart News chief a great speech writer.

Later on in the interview, Scaramucci slightly backed off on his accusation.

Ive never sat down with Steve Bannon and said, Hey are you a white nationalist or a white supremacist? But I think the toleration of it by Steve Bannon is inexcusable, he said.

Scaramucci argued that Trump should have been more vocal in condemning racism in light of the neo-fascist rally in Charlottesville, Va., which resulted inthree deaths.

He needed to be way tougher with the white supremacists thing. Anybody that has experienced any level ofracism, any level of prejudice, knows that this is disgusting. Its un-American and it cannot be tolerated, he said.

Scaramucci was fired last month afteronly 10days on the jobafter New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza reported on an on-the-record conversation that the two had in which Scaramucci used vulgarities to criticize Bannon and other Trump figures.

In his ABC interview, the former communications director also accused Bannon of leaking confidential information to reporters.

Thepresident has a very good idea of who the leakers are inside the White House. The president has a very good idea of the people who are undermining his agenda that are serving their own interests, hesaid.

Scaramucci, who supported Democrats before flipping to Trump shortly before the 2016 election, also urged the president to move toward the center with his policies.

Hes got to move more into the mainstream. Hes got to be more into where the moderates are and the independents that love the president, so if he does that hell have a very successful legislative agenda, the former communications director said, calling the nationalist-oriented Trump wing of the party a snag on the president.

Bannons former employees at Breitbart News responded sharply to Scaramuccis criticism running an article headlined Anthony blows whatever was left of his credibility with Trumps base. In the piece, written by political editor Matthew Boyle, the site accused Scaramucci of being a turncoat.

The tune he is singing now is in almost every way exactly the opposite of what he was saying just a few weeks ago, during the beginning of his brief tenure as White House communication director, Boyle wrote.

See the rest here:
Anthony Scaramucci lashes out at Steve Bannon, calls him alt-right - Salon

The Google engineer who blamed biological differences for the paucity of women in tech had every right to express his views. And Google likely had every right to fire him, workplace experts and lawyers say.

Special circumstances -- from the country's divisive political climate to Silicon Valley's broader problem with gender equity -- contributed to the outrage and subsequent firing. But the fallout should still serve as a warning to anyone in any industry expressing unpopular, fiery viewpoints.

"Anyone who makes a statement like this and expects to stick around ... is foolish," said David Lewis, CEO of Operations Inc., a human resources consulting firm.

Why He Lost His Job

The engineer, James Damore, wrote a memo criticizing Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for "alienating conservatives." The parts that drew the most outrage made such assertions as women "prefer jobs in social and artistic areas" and have a "lower stress tolerance" and "harder time" leading, while more men "may like coding because it requires systemizing."

Google's code of conduct says workers "are expected to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination." Google's CEO, Sundar Picahi, said Damore violated this code.

Yonatan Zunger, who recently left Google as a senior engineer, wrote in a Medium post that he would have had no choice but to fire Damore had he been his supervisor.

"Do you understand that at this point, I could not in good conscience assign anyone to work with you?" he wrote . "I certainly couldn't assign any women to deal with this, a good number of the people you might have to work with may simply punch you in the face."

Though one might argue for a right to free speech, however unpopular, such protections are generally limited to government and other public employees -- and to unionized workers with rights to disciplinary hearings before any firing.

Broader protections are granted to comments about workplace conditions. Damore argues in a federal labor complaint that this applies to his case, but experts disagree.

"By posting that memo, he forfeited his job," said Jennifer Lee Magas, public relations professor at Pace University and a former employment law attorney. "He was fired for his words, but also for being daft enough to post these thoughts on an open workplace forum, where he was sure to be met with backlash and to offend his colleagues -- male and female alike."

Uniquely Google

The fallout comes as Silicon Valley faces a watershed moment over gender and ethnic diversity.

Blamed for years for not hiring enough women and minorities -- and not welcoming them once they are hired -- tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Uber have promised big changes. These have included diversity and mentoring programs and coding classes for groups underrepresented among the companies' technical and leadership staff. Many tech companies also pledge to interview, though not necessarily hire, minority candidates.

These are the sorts of things Damore's memo railed against.

As such, experts say Damore might not have been fired at a company that doesn't have such a clear message on diversity.

In addition, had Damore worked for a smaller, lesser-known company, an internal memo might not have created such a "media storm," said Aimee Delaney, a Hinshaw & Culbertson attorney who represents companies on labor matters.

A Different World

Still, bringing so much public, negative attention would spell trouble for any worker. That's especially so in this age of fast-spreading social media posts, when internal company documents can easily leak and go viral.

It didn't help that this was in the heart of Silicon Valley, where typing fingers are on 24/7 and people rarely disconnect from social media, even on a quiet August weekend. Or that Google is a brand consumers interact with all day -- and want to read about when memos go viral.

Perhaps the biggest lesson is this: Don't be so quick to post your angry thoughts for thousands, then millions, to see.

Michael Schmidt, vice chairman of labor and employment at the Cozen O'Connor law firm, said that while workers might have refrained from such remarks around the physical watercooler, "people treat ... electronic communications much more informally than face-to-face speech."

But the consequences are similar, if not more severe.

Explosive Climate

Initially shared on an internal Google network, the memo leaked out to the public over the weekend, first in bits and pieces and then in its 10-page entirety.

It took a life of its own as outsiders weighed in. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange took to Twitter to offer Damore a job. One conservative group, Americans for Limited Government, criticized what it called Google's politically correct culture and left-wing bias. Others called for a Google boycott.

Known for its motto, "don't be evil," Google is broadly seen as a liberal-leaning company, something Damore criticized in his manifesto. Liberals and tech industry leaders came to Google's defense and denounced Damore's claims as baseless and harmful.

"It's fair to say that whatever side of the political aisle you are on, ... we are in a climate where we are dealing with very highly charged and emotional issues," Schmidt said. "And those issues are spilling into the workplace."

Instead of looking for a bright-line test on what is permissible, he said, "both sides need to understand there has to be a sensitivity to the bigger picture," a level of respect and cultural sensitivity across all demographics.

2017 Associated Press under contract with NewsEdge/Acquire Media. All rights reserved.

Tom Graham:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 12:37pm PT

Google can fire or hire anyone they want, this is not a freedom of speech issue. This is a fraud issue, and Google is the fraudster. How, exactly, is someone supposed "to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination" in a climate so closed minded? Google encourages employees to contribute "out of the box thinking" on every project they work on. The ex-employee saw Google's hiring and recruitment practices and feared they might be illegal and brought that to Googles attention, at the same time expressed the scientific reasons that he felt that Googles employee sex and nationality mix should reflect the Actual Application Pool of people who have chosen a career in IT and not the 50:50 men:women ratio of the general population. He then explained why more men than women choose to go into IT and why more men than women tend to go into high stress jobs which might explain the gender disparity in management and IT. But apparently now, siting psychological studies and evolutionary biology is deemed "progressing negative stereotypes" Wake up Google snowflakes! Hens and Roosters ARE DIFFERENT BIOLOGICALLY! They do not learn their behavior socially. All sexually reproducing creatures have male and female tendencies. It is illogical and untruthful to claim that humans are so separate from nature that biology doesn't have any effect. The memo asks that we acknowledge that effect and move toward ways of addressing it. Googles management handled this inappropriately, and perhaps, depending on how their policies are worded, fraudulently.

Carl:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 12:33pm PT

As a male who has worked in engineering for more than 20 years, I felt that many of Damore's observations were true. Women in engineering usually gravitate to functions such as project management that have more human interaction. And why not? They are often very good at it, and very appreciated for their contributions. Not too many women like the nitty gritty stuff. But if they do, no one resents that or tries to hold them back. We know from our extended families that women play a far different role in our social interactions. And, again, why not? One thing, though, women are a little sensitive and most men in the work place learn to do the rope a dope rather than speaking the unspeakable as this poor fellow did.

Koko Banes:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 12:23pm PT

We could discuss the immorality of gender-exclusivity but the fact remains: biological characteristics form a large part of normal activity.

The problem with tech is at the higher levels of programming. The fact remains that most women are not dedicated to a 10x programmer's lifestyle from 1st grade on. Once you realize choices in early life impact later life it's too late.

No one can "wish" themselves onto an NFL team. No one can "dream" their way into Hooters. However, to create 10x jobs not only takes a long ramp but discussions on how to achieve it must be open to all manner of mind-state. Keep the discussions open and a solution occurs. Encouraging emotional reactions ... NOT !

WLR:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 12:02pm PT

That sends the message that you don't "really" have freedom of speech -- unless, of course, it follows the liberal politically correct guidelines. Why do people that say: "Women and minorities deserve men's job's even if the men are more qualified..." get fired? Oh, I see because they are righteously "correct.

Jack Daniels:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 11:51am PT

Then they should be fired, not Damore. No one should punch someone for a differing opinion, and this one is based on science. No one's actually disputing Damore's views, only that he had the balls to express them by a company that encourages its employees to do so.

Aillen:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 11:50am PT

No, the biggest lesson is companies like Google need to rewrite their policies about allowing free speech. This firing is clearly in the wrong. The memo circulated for a while without any issues until extrasensitive people in power blew it out of proportion.

andy:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 11:47am PT

Go ask the women why they don't pick electric engineering or software engineering or computer science as major in college. Jesus Christ. Women make the choice and now they come back and ask company why they are not hired. Cause it is geeky and hard and no women want to be around geeks all day long. They rather go have fun.

Gary:

Posted: 2017-08-14 @ 11:45am PT

Thinking women get a fair shake? Think again! It will be CENTURIES be4 women are treated even 50% like men...

Reality Bites:

Posted: 2017-08-13 @ 1:41pm PT

Google managers are a special kind of stupid... the kind that is visible from space.

S.:

Posted: 2017-08-12 @ 2:05pm PT

But no, because they don't want diversity, and they don't want the most qualified competent, they won't.

More:
Google Gender Debacle Speaks to Tech Culture Wars - NewsFactor Network