Mediaboss Marketing

Over the past few weeks, there have been two major controversies regarding far-right speakers and their potential to speak at universities. Richard Spencer was supposed to speak at Auburn University, but the university decided to cancel the event. Subsequently, a federal judge overturned the decision to cancel the event, deciding that Spencer did indeed have the right to speak at the university, andprotests ensued. The following week, U.C. Berkeley cancelled an event with Ann Coulter due to safety concerns.

In these cases, and in cases like these, many opinions come out on the side of protecting free speech. The thing is, only one kind of free speech has champions of its protection. The far-right racists opinions and ability to express themselves take precedence over the opinions and concerns of the protesters.

Of course, this makes sense. Based on the precedents set in this nation, we protect all kinds of speech, unless that speech directly and immediately endangers the physical safety of the people that hear it. These precedents created this situation in which alt-right free speech is heavily protected. The problem with having a legal system based on precedent is that it is inherently conservative. It is resistant to change and preserves systemic abilities to maintain injustice.

At another level, though, the fact that these particular protections are happening at universities is deeply troubling. Arguments for hearing the arguments of the far-right often include a line or two about the importance of students learning about perspectives that arent their own. This would make sense if this perspective didnt represent majority opinions that are present in our daily interactions. Sure, most people arent actively advocating for the KKK or alt-righters, but racism in America is the norm. Hate toward people based on specific identity categories (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability, socioeconomic status, etc.) is our norm. We dont need to hear perspectives articulating that this exists because we know it. We see this hate coming from our peers, our superiors and our elected officials.

When students protest far-right speakers on their campuses, they arent trying to hide away from the hate of those speakers. They are (we are) trying to guide our own educations and get the most out of the time that we and the people around us are paying so much for. It is a waste of time, money and energy to entertain hate when we already so obviously know about its existence. It is also true that if there is any space in which it is appropriate for students to take charge of their own learning, it is a university context. While it is true that no one forces anyone to attend lectures, the statement of complicity says something significant about how the university feels about protecting its students as compared to the free speech of those not even party to the institution.

Folks seem to forget sometimes that, while we are still young, we are adults. Adults who can get married without our parents permission, vote, be conscripted in the case of a draft, make major medical decisions about our healthcare and, presumably, make decisions about the work that we want our education to do on us and for us. We are not young children whining about eating our vegetables, nor are we adolescents complaining about algebra.

In fact, having some of these speakers on campus can actually harm our educations. By creating a space that allows for the alt-right to speak freely without adequate critique, those hosting the speaker are also opening the space to real violence against people from historically marginalized backgrounds.

Furthermore, is not the purpose of attending university to get us to become better adults who can think critically? And shouldnt many people who critique whiny college students be pleased with this fact? In his indictment of students attending elite institutions, Bill Deresiewicz discusses the problem of students getting through an entire tertiary degree without developing critical reasoning skills. Students making decisions about the kinds of people and kinds of thought they want to support is a demonstration against that idea. We are not simply excellent sheep. We develop moral compasses and stick to ours, even when our administrations leave theirs at the door for the sake of growing endowments or being provocative.

The outcomes of these two cases are devastating for the future of building a better, less racist society. A federal judge said that is important for someone from the alt-right to spew his hatred and racism in institutions of learning. He didnt make a point about how its important to learn the logic of the alt-right in order to combat it. There was no move to push readers of his decision to think about how hearing opinions like that can help us refute them in the future.

The rationale given for canceling Coulters event is equally problematic. Canceling the speech for safety reasons is essentially a rejection of the concerns of the student voices speaking out against her presence. It says that if they werent worried about the safety of the speaker, it would be fine for her to defend the racist ideologies she espouses and those of the people she works with.

There is certainly an argument to be made that in order to get things in this nation clean, we must air all of our dirty laundry. And in some ways, this is true. We do need to be able to have open communication about these things. However, we need to talk about them with the understanding that we are getting them out in the open in order to get rid of such hateful thoughts for the rest of eternity. We cannot talk about these ideas or create space for them for the mere sake of doing so. We must create that space if, and only if, the goal is to build a better future by correcting the logic and subsequent behaviors of the people who are hateful towards anyone because of an identity that is a part of who they are.

Sure, the logical progression of arguments from the far right may work. However, a progression of logic that starts from faulty assumptions cannot possibly end with correct conclusions. Those arguments start from faulty premises and completely ignore the fact that historical inequalities have created a system in which the deck is stacked. The dice are weighted. And until we can get to a point where the die are no longer weighted and the deck is no longer stacked, we cannot be so complicit in the spread of hatred, and we must support students in their endeavors to think critically.

Contact Mina Shah at minashah at stanford.edu.

Original post:
Spread your hate elsewhere: in defense of student protesters of alt-right speakers - The Stanford Daily

|

Posted: Apr 23, 2017 12:01 AM

As a regular reader, you would know that after the election I spent some time investigating the Alt-Right which was supposedly a major force in the Trump election. Mycolumnput a damper on the relevance of this group despite all the hoopla. Since the election, the Black Bloc has become a major disrupter in our country yet it is barely written or spoken about.

A friend asked me if I was aware of the group which in itself speaks volumes. The group traces its roots back to Europe during the 1980s. It had its most pronounced debut in the United States during the 1999 Seattle riots during the World Trade Organization meeting, but really traces back to 1991 protests at the World Bank building during the Persian War.

To be fair, while doing research I did find that the MSM has written about the Black Bloc. But in their inimitable style, the publications write one or two columns to cover their butts and say they have addressed the issue only to drop the subject. Reading accounts in the beacons of the MSM the New York Times and the Washington Post -- did not really address the lawlessness of the group and tended to romanticize the group because of their anti-Trump strains.

It is fascinating how, when covering Republican activities, the MSM almost always injects colorful adjectives or adverbs to characterize the subject. When addressing the Black Bloc, they seem to revert to being reporters. A February 2nd NYT article gave the Black Bloc a platform to define and defend their actions. They quoted the following about their actions in Berkeley, CA, on February 1: Yes, what the black bloc did last night was destructive to property wrote Eric Laursen, a writer in Massachusetts who has helped publicize anarchist protests, using another name for the black-clad demonstrators. But do you just let someone like Milo go wherever he wants and spread his hate? That kind of argument can devolve into just sit on your hands and wait for it to pass. And it doesnt.

The group is characterized by showing up to events dressed head-to-toe in black. The only thing you might see are their eyes. The idea is that the players retain anonymity. They typically meet near a planned protest like the one that occurred in Berkeley to protest Milo Yiannopoulos' speech. They were the ones responsible for the violence there and the violence at the Trump Inauguration. Though the police were near useless in stopping the violence in Berkeley, over 200 people were arrested in D.C.

A recurrent theme that the press repeats is that the group is not an organization, but kind of an ad hoc spontaneous activity. An article in The Nation by Natasha Lennard who participated in the January 20th violent protests amplifies this idea. She starts her column by heralding the beauty of actual Alt-Right leader Richard Spencer being sucker punched in the face. She goes on to state The black bloc is not a group but an anarchist tacticmarching as a confrontational united force, uniformed in black and anonymized for security. Once deployed, the tactic has an alchemic quality, turning into a temporary objecttheblack bloc. This theme was repeated throughout multiple articles in the MSM as if it were fact. Notice elements of the MSM who abhor violence throughout the pages of their publications accept violence against Trump supporters, Republicans and in general white men.

If we may, let us go over some concepts regarding the Black Bloc:

The police need to get serious about apprehending and imprisoning these criminals. If there is a protest planned, they can count on the fact that the Black Bloc will piggyback onto that protest and the police need to plan accordingly. The FBI should also be tracking the activities of the ring leaders. If some of these anonymous people are tried and imprisoned, it could deter the others from diverting their lives into this organized hooliganism. Also, the peaceful protesters have an obligation to either help the police or disband once these criminals show up.

The police and the MSM need to start some hysteria about these people before the violence escalates even further. That is what we do in a civilized society.

WATCH LIVE: White House Daily Press Briefing

See the article here:
While MSM Focuses on Insignificant Alt-Right, They Should Be All Over the Black Bloc - Townhall

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has been an alt-right favorite for a long time. Serving as the head of Frances right-wing nationalist party the National Front, the countrys hardcore conservatives want her in power.

And on the Internet, the alt-right thinks feminists should vote for her, too. Why? Because she would bethe first woman to serve as Frances president.

So-called feminists are trying to block people voting for a woman, Infowars editor-at-largePaul Joseph Watson tweeted. She would be the first female president of France. Let that sink in.

In reality, feminists largely disprove of Le Pens platform due to the socioeconomic damage she would create for immigrants, women of color, and Muslim residents.

But thealt-right wants to pit feminists against each other, suggesting that Western feminists cannot truly support women if they dont support every single woman that runs for office. Its an attempt to point out supposed hypocrisies in feminism, even though Le Pen isnt exactly a feministcandidate.

Other alt-right users quickly chimed in after Watsons post, claiming that Le Pen would make the best type of woman for the presidency. Some proceeded to attack Islam, connecting the election back to xenophobic fears against refugees in France.

Ironically enough, Watson proceeded to attackcontroversial feminist figureChristina Hoff Sommers,claiming that she is shilling for an establishment puppet in refusing to support Le Pen.

A Pew Research Center report on the French National Front revealsthat the National Front is popular among Catholics, men, and French citizens who have not gone to college. National Front supporters are more likely to dislike Muslims, fear refugees, reject the European Union, and view globalization as an unfavorable phenomenon.

Its safe to say that the alt-right has found apleasant home with the National Front.

Le Pen now is onto the second round of the French presidential election,facing off against Emmanuel Macrona pro-European Union candidate who will be in direct opposition to Le Pens anti-EU sentiments. Whether Le Pen will win or not is unclear, although it seems like the alt-right is bolstered by Sundays news.

H/T Rossalyn Warren

Original post:
Twitter's alt-right wants feminists to vote for Marine Le Pen because she's a woman - The Daily Dot

In March the Georgia Board of Regents adopted a system-wide freedom of expression policy limiting outside speakers and large demonstrations to specifically designated campus areas as a way of handling protests.

But its unclear if that policy would provide any protection against the type of speech that roiled the Auburn University campus Tuesdaywhen white supremacist Richard Spencer spoke in a rented campus auditorium.

Spencer, who became known nationally for coining the term alt-right to describe his mix of racial and populist conservatism, spoke before a crowd of at least 430 in Auburns Foy Hall, which included supporters, critics and reporters.Outside hundreds of counter-protesters demonstrated against him.

Late last week, Auburn administrators sought to block Spencer from speaking, claiming the event presented a danger to the campus. But a federal judge overruled the university on free speech grounds, allowing the event to go forward.

Experts who monitor racists and other extremist groups saythe alt-right is targeting universities. Lecia Brooks, outreach director for the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said Auburn officials erred by trying to cancel the event. First, it flies in opposition to established First Amendment rights. Second, it handed Spencer a talking point.

Richard Spencer will use this event at Auburn to catapult himself to events at other universities, she said.

Is Georgia prepared for the campus recruiting efforts of white supremacists?Read more in this weeks AJC Watchdog column here.

See the article here:
Alt-right targeting colleges, experts say. Is Georgia prepared? - Atlanta Journal Constitution

Steve Bannon on April 20th, 2017.

From AP/REX/Shutterstock.

Its all Steve Bannons fault. Three months into the Trump presidency, many in the Movement Formerly Known as the Alt-Right are in full rebellion against the term, and, ironically, many believe their acknowledged leader, currently President Donald Trumps chief strategist, gave it currency in the first place.

Trumps election, and Bannons ascendance, seemed likely to make the term a badge of pride, and a blow against political correctness. But thats far from what happened. In my reporting on the right over the months of Trumps presidency, almost nothing could make my sources more infuriated than affixing them with the alt-right label. I just think we have to be very careful about this kind of thing, [to] the extent that people want to describe that racism and anti-Semitism and all that kind of stuff, said Jeffrey Lord, CNN commentator and Trump surrogate. I mean, theres just not room for that kind of stuff in the conservative movement, period. Not under any circumstances, ever.

The alt-right label had been in use for years, partly to describe a vivid, largely online subculture of trolls who reveled in their racialist ugliness, often claiming it was an antidote to the reign of political correctness, which they saw as ruining the country. Populist nationalism joined hands with white supremacism and immature 4Chan trolls, borrowing its language from the latter and a deliberate, ironically blasphemous embrace of the former. Whether it was a belief system, a fully formed ideology, or a form of rhetoric, a way of poking at the nostrums and sacred cows of liberalism, was left deliberately murky.

Last summer, in an interview Bannon gave to Mother Jones during the Republican National Convention, Bannon allowed the movement to be pinned down. He called Breitbart the platform for the alt-right. The phrase multiplied exponentially after he became Trumps campaign chairman, catapulting the movement into the mainstream. Used to fighting a guerrilla war, now the alt-right was in the openand defending the ugliness became a lot harder.

Several people I spoke to thought that Bannons comment was not meant to be taken seriously. I think he was being his provocateur self there, said Lord, who himself scrambled from the label, and said that Bannon had approached him once about writing for the site. I think he probably saw it as an anti-Establishment group, which it decidedly is, and theres lots of us who think being anti-Establishment has considerable merit. But just because they might share a strand of a belief here doesnt make it an endorsement.

Milo Yiannopoulos, as a Breitbart columnist, was the most recognizable face of the alt-rights ugliness-as-provocation, though he never fully embraced the term. Now hes become a poster child for its struggles, after remarks emerged suggesting he condoned pedophilia (Yiannopoulous apologized for the tone of his comments, reiterated that he abhors sexual abuse, and subsequently resigned from the site). Yiannopoulos gives the Bannon interview similar weight in the history of the movement, though characteristically, he blames the media for what transpired. What I think he meant by that, was alt-right defined broadly, as the movement that propelled Trump to power, and that Breitbart was one of the places that they come to read news that is not completely opposed to their point of view, Yiannopoulos said. Calling it the platform for the alt-right, and defining the alt-right as white supremacy, is a journalistic trick, designed to pretend that what Bannon was saying was, if youre a white supremacist, come to Breitbart for your news.

Milo Yiannopoulos at the Republican National Convention in July 2016.

Photograph by Justin Bishop.

Before his exile from Breitbart, Yiannopoulos had identified himself as a fellow traveler of the movement, implying an overlap on some issues, and a rejection on others. When I spoke to him, however, he had scrambled even further away. Now the term alt-right has come to mean something else, and therefore, thats what it means now, he said. Whereas I may have considered myself previously a fellow traveler on some issues with the alt-right, the alt-right as the word is used today . . . I have nothing to do with it, and no fondness for it, and no interest in being associated with it.

If a lawmaker campaigns in poetry and governs in prose, the alt-right, whatever it is these days, is trying to pivot from campaigning in bathroom graffiti to governing in the foreign language of diplomatic tact and deliberate restraint. A movement that spent years on the attack now has to learn to defend.

The term alt-right, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, was created in 2008 by Richard Spencer to describe a strain of white nationalism that rejected every mainstream conservative view and pushed to preserve Western civilization from, in his words, a left-right dialectic...

It was Yiannopoulos, along with fellow Breitbart writer Allum Bokhari, who tried to stitch together a bigger tent for the movement. In their essay, An Establishment Conservatives Guide to the Alt-Right, the self-proclaimed Jewish gay and a mixed-race Breitbart reporter laid out the four groups they believed made up the amorphous blob of a movement fueling Trumps rise: identity politics-loathing intellectuals, migrant-wary natural conservatives, the twentysomething-year-old-white-man meme team, and, of course, the militaristic, white-supremacist 1488ers. While Yiannopoulos and Bakhari attempted to push the 1488ers away from the rest of the group and patted the memelords on the head, they still placed them under the same tent as the normal populist-nationalists. There are a myriad of agreements between its supporters over what they should build, they wrote, but virtual unity over what they should destroy.

But no one sees the alt-right as four groups; they see it as one group. To my mind, alt-right always carries with it self-conscious racialist politics, said David Frum, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and a harsh critic of Trump and the Republican Partys racialist embrace. I would not use it to describe people who oafishly, and often without self-awareness, engage in racial dog-whistling. Id say that what the alt-right people do is take the unconscious and make it conscious.

Ever since last summer, almost everyone in the movement has been trying, and mostly failing, to get out from under the tent. Of all the trolls profiled by Politico in January, only Spencer would wear the label. Yiannopoulos, who had yet to fall, had pushed himself away from the term, but it did little good. The press did such a good job at defining it as white supremacy, that the only people who embrace it are the white supremacists, he said.

In a way, the problem of the Movement Formerly Known as the Alt-Right in the Trump era is precisely the same as Donald Trumps problem: words matter. A Hawaii district judge halted Trumps revised travel ban for its religious animus, specifically citing Trumps previous provocative statements during the campaign. Stephen Miller, a former Breitbart columnist turned White House aide, embarrassed the Trump administration with a few problematic TV appearances and disappeared from the airwaves when his comments were used by the Hawaii judge. Even Breitbart itself began to go mainstream, disclosing its investors and masthead to the Senate Press Gallery when they were denied credentials, and passively letting its radical, burn it all down writers leave.

Yiannopolous, of course, sees a bright future for his brand of conservative culture, whatever its called. I think the next 30 years in culture is going to be defined by a colossal pushback in political correctness, which was part of what this movement was about. Libertarianism and punk is coming back now in the form of Make America Great Again hats and conservative comedians and personalities. Thats not going anywhere. But the particular, specific word alt-right, the medias ruined it as a useful term to describe whats happening.

Frum, for his part, doesnt blame Bannon; he blames Trump, the tentpole of the alt-rights big tent. He attracted people who just liked bullying. He attracted people whose primary interest was seeing womens place in society reduced. He attracted people who were nihilistic and hungry for destruction. And he attracted a very small numberthere arent so many of theseof people who are self-consciously racialist. And that last group is what Richard Spencer called the alt-right.

Conservatives of many stripes are rushing to get out of the tent. But getting out is a lot harder than getting in.

Is this an endearing moment of Donald squeezing Erics cheeks, or Donald checking to see if his thoroughbred sons teeth are healthy?

Tiffany, Donald, and Donald junior at Donalds 50th birthday party.

Young Eric attends the U.S. Open in 1991, making one of the few public appearances without shellacked hair.

A 10-year-old Eric is not as camera-ready as his mother Ivana. Hell get there one day.

Don Jr., 38, and Barron, 10, share an inter-generational fist-bump at the Republican National Convention.

Eric and Don Jr., for once not wearing slicked-back hair, pay their respects to their dear father.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. at the Old Post Office, now a Trump hotel, Washington, D.C., July 2014.

PreviousNext

Is this an endearing moment of Donald squeezing Erics cheeks, or Donald checking to see if his thoroughbred sons teeth are healthy?

by Ron Galella/WireImage.

Tiffany, Donald, and Donald junior at Donalds 50th birthday party.

BY RON GALELLA/WIREIMAGE.

Young Eric attends the U.S. Open in 1991, making one of the few public appearances without shellacked hair.

by Ron Galella/WireImage.

A 10-year-old Eric is not as camera-ready as his mother Ivana. Hell get there one day.

by Ron Galella/WireImage.

As Ivanka practices looking gorgeous at her fathers 50th birthday, a 12-year-old Eric appears displeased at his choice of tie.

by Richard Corkery/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images.

Eric and Donald at a basketball game in East Rutherford, New Jersey, in 2007.

BY JAMES DEVANEY/WIREIMAGE.

Don junior in Briarcliff Manor, New York, 2014.

BY BOBBY BANK/WIREIMAGE.

A 23-year-old Eric attempts to smile. Hell get there one day.

by M. Von Holden/WireImage.

Donald disapproved of Don Jr. proposing to model Vanessa Haydon using an engagement ring provided by a New Jersey jeweler who wanted publicity. You have a name thats hot as a pistol, said Trump, a man who put said name on everything from steaks to playing cards.

by Dave Allocca/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock.

It is unknown whether Eric Trump eventually killed this animal for sport.

by Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images.

Don Jr., and baby Barron at the unveiling of their fathers star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Barron is either throwing his fists in the air in celebration of his fathers accomplishments, or is waving for help.

by Hubert Boesl/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images.

We presume that this is Don Jr. impersonating his sister Ivanka at the Eric Trump Golf Tournament in 2014.

by Bobby Bank/WireImage.

A 9-year-old Barron already has his fathers eyes and princely smirk.

by Debra L Rothenberg/FilmMagic.

At a campaign event in Las Vegas, December 2015.

FROM VISIONS OF AMERICA/UIG/GETTY IMAGES.

Don Jr., 38, and Barron, 10, share an inter-generational fist-bump at the Republican National Convention.

By Carlo Allegri/REUTERS.

Eric and Don Jr., for once not wearing slicked-back hair, pay their respects to their dear father.

by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. at the Old Post Office, now a Trump hotel, Washington, D.C., July 2014.

BY PAUL MORIGI/WIREIMAGE.

Read the rest here:
The Movement Formerly Known as the Alt-Right Tries to Evolve - Vanity Fair