Part Two: Anti-Racist Action: Because Nazi Punks Need To Be Dealt With

In part two of this week's episode, author Shannon Clay continues his conversation with Margaret about the history of Anti-Racist Action, the coalition that formed to counter racist and fascist organizing in subcultures in the midwest.

We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action: https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-go-where-they-go-the-story-of-anti-racist-action-kristin-schwartz/17909472?ean=9781629639727

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Cool Peoplehood, Cool Stuff, your weekly podcast,
twice weekly podcast. It's a podcast. You can listen to it.
My name is Margaret, I'm the host of it. This
week we are talking about Anti Racist Action or AURA
for short, and with me today explaining all of this
and gate keeping the naming conventions of this group is

(00:21):
the one and only Shannon Clay Shannon, how are you?
I'm I'm fine. It's okay. I can't stop you my podcast, okay.
And we also have a Sophie Ray Lichterman with us.
How are you today? I don't know government name, I
don't know why am I in trouble? I don't know.

(00:43):
I just read it off the zooms the zoom name. Oh,
it's true. Very formal today, Margaret, if that is yeah?
That is my name. Yeah. Sophie is our producer, Shannon
is our guest. Ian is our audio editor. The music
is made for us by a woman. And today we

(01:03):
are doing part two of Anti Racist Action, which was
a coalition, a formal network of people who whose motto
was we go where they go about following racists and
preventing them from doing organizing, sometimes by counter organizing and
sometimes by throwing large rocks that they found next to
train tracks. That a decent, decent start, and where we

(01:28):
just last left our heroes, they had just formally become
mothful lum them the Midwest Anti Fascist Network, I get
that right, Yes, although I dear listener can just kind
of skip over that in their brain if it's easier.

(01:50):
Technically called themselves mid With Anti Fascist Network for a year,
but renamed and I just think of it as always
the inter Racist Action Network. One thing that's really in
just seeing me about it that you know it started
as the Midwest thing, is that, like, the Midwest is
not the part of the country that people who don't
live in the Midwest think about all that regularly, um,

(02:11):
which is a shame. There's very many nice things. There's
probably some windmills. No. I actually really like the Midwest,
but I don't know. That's like one of the things
that's really interesting me about it is that this h
you know, the plate we we always think about like
the places that the right wing comes from, but we
don't realize that the same places that the right wing

(02:32):
comes from are also where a lot of the countering
forces to the right wing come from. UM. I don't know.
That was like one of my takeaways I was thinking
about yesterday, yesterday, Monday, ten minutes ago. I miss meaningless. Yeah,
absolutely though, and I and I you're right, And thanks
for like kind of reminding me of it, because I

(02:54):
I think that is a really cool thing to like
really appreciate about antiret at Action is that they really
did um. So we talked about how they like really
grew and coalesced around like following the clan around the Midwest.
The corollary of that was that like you were starting
to get antiret Action chapters in like exactly in like
small towns, you know. One of one of the big

(03:16):
ones was like you know, there was like maybe a
college town in Ohio. I remember someone told me about
like one chapter that was like just like four punk
kids who lived in the same trailer park in Indiana mhm,
and that it was going to like small town America
and bringing in I think a lot of people from yeah,

(03:39):
just exactly like you said that it wasn't all you know,
I don't know, coastal elites or whatever. You um that
it was bringing in yeah, people from the flyover states basically, Yeah, Yeah,
that's it. Makes sense, and it's like, you know, because
like I feel like that's the thing that we talked
about right now, is like the US is polarizing very hard,
and we people are like thinking things more in terms

(04:00):
of like red states and blue states than ever before,
even though that makes even less sense than usual, as
we see during while an election will have happened by
the time people we're listening to this have heard it.
But you know, like we keep seeing that what is
a red state or what is a blue state can
change very quickly because like you're not talking about huge
percent differences, like you know, um, there's still people of

(04:25):
all different political ideologies in all different types of spaces,
and like just the tiniest shift in percentage will allow
those political ideologies to kind of take over. Which is
why ship like a r A seems so important to me,
right is because it would be so easy for Nazis
or far right things as we're watching happen in real

(04:47):
time to our lives in the United States. When people
are not successfully shut down, they grow, the right wing grows,
and it can really easily shift things. And I don't
know which I guess I like hopeful takeaways and it's
also possible to shift things backwards back the way I
don't know. Never mind, I don't know I'm going with this.

(05:08):
Please please rescue me by telling me what's happening next.
In the A A story, I'll start off with a
more thematic response to the thematic thing you're saying that.
I think another really cool thing and I haven't like
super explicitly touched on this, but another really cool thing
about a A was that it did bring in people
from a lot of different I think ranges of like
political experience and political commitment. And the way that one person,

(05:34):
uh Steve from Michigan, who was like a punk kid
and then got into like hip hop and stuff and
joined as a student at m s U. The way
he described it was it was really cool that you
could be in a room with like people who have
been dedicated like leftists, communists, but most commonly anarchists for

(05:55):
like thirty years, and you could have like a fifteen
year old random punk kid in like the same room, uh,
and they're all like part of the same group anti
racist action and trying to build towards working together and
learning from each other. And so that was another, I think,
really special thing about a ray that maybe I haven't
touched on super briefly, but take my room for it now.

(06:17):
A draw drew in a pretty wide variety of I
think it was accessible to people who were like first
wanting to get involved because maybe they just hear about like, oh,
like the clan. Obviously that's bad. Yeah, I want to
go funk up or I want to go oppose the clan.
You can suck them up. That's completely fine from my
point of view. I would never tell anyone what to do,

(06:37):
but fucking up the clan is always a moral good. Yeah.
Maybe I stopped myself because I don't know how often
that's going to be someone's like first intro. Uh but ye,
fair enough, Yeah, yeah, someone who closing them in other
ways it's great too. Yeah, like oh, you know, for
my first ever political anything, like yeah, I'll go opposed
the clan, and but they're like joining the same group

(06:59):
where there I don't know what. People like this dude Mac,
who was like an anti racist lawyer who had been
involved in in like sort of new less left stuff
out of like the sixties and students for Democratic Society,
and he had this different experience he had like you
had some of the old heads brink coming in and
bringing in that that lived experience and knowledge and wisdom

(07:22):
along with you know, fourteen year old kids, and that
was really cool about anyway, that's cool. Okay, So so
where we last left him, they had just formed a
RARA not more or less a year from now, they'll
change their name to a Rara net, but the concept
is there, So so what happens then? Yeah, so I
will just give a really brief overview of basically the

(07:42):
like network formally, so are A. It's worth keeping in
mind was always a pretty like decentralized group. I think
that was informed by like of any like super involved
political tendency. Anarchists were the biggest one, but it wasn't
just like an anarchist thing. It was also just that
you had so many different people with different beliefs. It

(08:04):
was a very decentralized group, so that you could have
everyone in the same room working together towards the common
goal of like fighting Nazis. And so you know, it's
kind of that there there are a lot of the
time the best way to understand, uh something about a
r A would be to like look at specific chapters
maybe doing things. But because it's such a rich history

(08:24):
and so many different chapters got up to so many
different things. We could be here all day and of
course I would love that, and I know everyone else
with But but yeah to to we'll we'll zoom out
and give a more bird's eye view of maybe like
what the network was doing. And then I think maybe
we will we will zoom in um and give some
like specific examples of different chapters. But so the network

(08:47):
as like formal grouping of different people coming together. I
think a lot of the driving force in bringing people
together again continues to be plan rallies, for example, And
so it's the same thing that brought people together into
this conference that happened in October. That same stuff continues.

(09:10):
Different clans are still doing the same thing and having
public events and trying to get their message out, and
are A chapters are continuing to oppose them, Like I said,
as are A goes around and you know, they're they're
printing out pamphlets and they're signing people up on their
mailing list and they're traveling all over. So areas growing
and you're getting people, like I said, like from college

(09:31):
town in Ohio or from a trailer park in Indiana,
an area is really growing pretty meaningfully, especially like in
this Midwest context of fighting against clans, and they continue
to have some really cool victories against the clans. You
continue to have a lot of like a very high
rate though of of clan events. Clan events are happening

(09:54):
on a really regular basis, and I think at this
time Area's model really becomes what one person, Jerry from
Columbus described as a like grinding consistency and so getting
into like I think it was five I want to say,
there was like one clan for example, where the head
of that clan said that they were going to have

(10:16):
rallies in like a year because that was like how many.
So it's like at least one for every county in Ohio.
And so like I've I've done political stuff, I haven't
done like rallies in a year. That's like a lot.
So that's like easily one every weekend. And so what
it becomes about is like following them just really consistently

(10:40):
and trying to take what is for the clan meant
to be like a cool encouraging Well maybe they wouldn't
put it in those terms, but what is for the
clan meant to be like a constructive event of them
like pushing forward and getting their message out. Instead are
a just trying to make it basically a not fun
time for them that like every weekend they're going out

(11:01):
and every weekend they're getting shouted down, being told that
them and their ideas are very unpopular. You know, maybe
they are getting things thrown at them. I think the
physicality UM is sort of maybe going down over time,
not because people are less militant, but basically the police
are learning over time and wanting to be a bit
more yeah, and basically realizing how sort of serious they

(11:24):
have to take this and that, or well realizing that
if the cops don't do anything, then it's very possible
for the clan to like get the ship kicked out
of them, uh at once. To the police sort of
catch up to that over time and start being you
get very significant police presences and maybe you'll have like
a hundred clan people and like two hundred cops or something. Yeah,

(11:45):
and so yeah, it just becomes this grinding consistency over time,
and UM are a really growing from this, and honestly,
like I don't want to skip too much chronologically. If
you read the book. We have some like really you know,
great examples, but again, like so much of it is
just consistency that I can kind of, like to an extent,

(12:07):
say that, like that's pretty much what they got up to.
At least those are a members who were involved in
anti clan stuff for like a couple of years. So
like I'm going to have a quote now from like
nine Okay, and so we've you know, skipped ahead, but
like I don't don't feel like we're missing things really
because I just said we've skipped ahead. We haven't really

(12:27):
skipped ahead. Is it like the stuff that they were
doing in nine two, um, and then in the nine
four with the mathnet conference that established the network. They're
continuing to do that with just really significant dedication and
you know, getting more people out over time. But it's
a lot of the time the same ideas. So that

(12:47):
then by like nineteen seven this I mentioned the same
guy Jerry uh said that, as he put it, that
the clan was having failure after failure after failure after failure.
So there was one event that they had in April
in Pittsburgh, and I remember reading in the newspaper that
the clan like gathered at like a burger king in

(13:09):
the next town, and like there was I think the
way the newspaper put it, there was like a local
there was a disturbance at the local burger king or something.
I don't know anything about that, but I just think
that's a funny sentence. Disturbance of the king um and
then go out and try to have their rally and
like just like they never get anywhere because there was

(13:31):
I don't even know what the numbers are I've I've
been told. I think it might have been like literally
like ten people on the streets of Pittsburgh for this
you know, pretty small clan rally that they were trying
to a pretty small clan grouping and trying to give
their speeches, and instead they come out and just like
you know, imagine the streets just like packed to the

(13:51):
gills with people, so that like you wanted impossible oppers.
But they were like twenty years too early exact Vegan
time travelers were very upset about the way that the
whole thing went because people from the future went back
to go fight Nazis back then, and they assumed that
when they got there they'd be able to like, well,

(14:12):
look it's at a burger King, so at least there's
gonna be something we can eat. And imagine they're surprised
when they found out the impossible whopper was um still
considered impossible at that time. Exactly. I'm so I'm glad
we're teasing out the burger kingness because so the clan rally,
the clan gathered at the at the burger King. But

(14:33):
I just thought that was hilarious. This is all then
happening on the other side of town. Okay, well never mind, Yeah, sorry,
I maybe confusing. I just any any opportunity to mention
burger King, Yeah, I just yeah, apparently funny. I am
also I am vegan, and they're impossible whopper he is
just okay, so pious lapping um. But yeah, So Pittsburgh,

(15:04):
I think just like a really cool example of like
it wasn't there there was some super dramatic like you know,
street fighting or something like that, and you know, street
fighting can be cool with the ones that you're street
fighting or Nazis. But instead they just had like so
many thousands of people in Pittsburgh that like the clan

(15:25):
never got their message across the street, even just totally
drowned out. I think the way that Jerry put it,
for yeah, he put it that there were the event
was a success because the anti clan protesters had, quote Jerry,
such great numbers that we didn't even have to fight,
such great fighters, such great numbers that the only picture
you can see of your rally is of the counter
rally from the helicopter, Like journalists trying to get a

(15:48):
shot of a rally and all they see is like
a sea of people saying that the clan is not
welcome here. Well, that's such a classic example of what
the media tries to be. Like, let's look at both
sides of the story, and one is the story of
thirty five people, and one is the story of thirty people.
And like the media will be like both of these
are equally weighted, and you're like that makes that makes

(16:09):
no sense, but so and and so this is also
a good opportunity to understand more of how are was
doing that not when percent of the people were like
A are a members Like a A was not you know,
this mass organization with like ten thousand members coming to
one rally, but they were doing a lot of the
work maybe organizing and so in the case of Pittsburgh specifically,

(16:30):
for example, they were in uh like a coalition. Um,
I think there were like campus people involved. Uh, there
were like I want to say maybe even like religious groups.
There were like you know, local communists and stuff, leftists
who are going to come to a clan rally of
like a coalition bringing out like a ton of ton
of people. And are A are one of the forces

(16:51):
who are there at the specific Pittsburgh rally and are
doing a lot of doing these rallies like all the
time on a really regular basis. And so yeah, are
A really brought the clan the people, I think, and
this is like a credit to them that people who
were involved in ra who I spoke to are not

(17:12):
you know, instantly looking to like just take credit for
the sake of it. Um that they want to sort
of like let's do what is politically best, Like if
this works, let's say it works. If it doesn't work,
let's not. And so I think some people I spoke
to were hesitant to like they didn't want to say
that are A like could take of the credit that

(17:32):
like the a A quote unquote like stopped the clan.
But this was like a very dynamic period of clan
organizing from like through maybe like nine ish, But it
was really like at every step of the way they
were hounded by a A and by other people and so, um,

(17:53):
I'll just go ahead and read from the person who
was there who put it past. You could just see
we limited what the clan could do. They had marches,
and we funked up their marches. Then they had to
be stationary, and then they had to be in a pen.
It's like they were up in like big fences, like
protected by the police basically, and the police and the
clan were constantly reacting to what are A was doing.

(18:14):
We could see in real time that we were having
an effect attracting the attention of the motherfucker's. We fought
the clan to a stand still. I wouldn't say we
beat them, but we made it very, very difficult for
them to do their work, and we changed the parameters
of how they could even organize. Yeah, hell yeah, and
so yeah, by like into like two thousand one ish, Uh,
you like, we're still having clan events going on. But

(18:38):
like that quote just said, a A had had done
a really good job of kind of getting in their
way at every turn pretty much and keeping it limited.
And so by like two thousand two one, the clan
is really pretty much out of the picture and much
maybe that's a little strong to say, but but like
much less of a significant thing than they were in

(18:59):
like ninety when you know, was having one rally a
weekend stuff like that. Yes, because like we can't go
back and we can't run the experiment of the nineties
twice and and see what happens if we take out
the A R A, Right, so we can't say that
without the A R A the KKK would have had
explosive growth or something. But it it's still when we see, oh,

(19:22):
well we tried to smash the KKK, and the KKK survived,
so therefore we failed. And that's like not true at all,
because yeah, when they stopped the KKK is organizing, they
stopped the kkks growth, they stopped the allowing them to
be unchallenged or whatever. Right, Like, I don't know, there's
this thing that a lot of the discourse around this

(19:42):
time period, Um I remember I lived, you know in
the mid Atlantic or during this time, is that people
would talk about like well, if you go fight them
in the streets or you go confront them in the streets.
You give them what they want. They want a big spectacle,
they want um, you know, they want the fight so
that they looked tough and and all of this stuff.
And this is a thing that people talk about an

(20:02):
anti fascist organizing a lot, and I'm curious what the
a r AS kind of stance on this was. Um.
The thing that I've run across the most part is
the realization that it only looks good when they get
into street fights, when they like give as good as
they get and or win, ideally win because overall, I
would can claim that fascism is a cowards ideology, and

(20:24):
it's an ideology were like, you know, I was reading
about historical KKK the other day and how most of
the fights that they would take on were forty two one.
You know, they like wouldn't fuck with people in a
fair fight, and and so the KKKK whatever, how many
case the clan will say like, oh, we're the underdogs,

(20:46):
and they'll play the underdog card because it's the only
card in their hand, but it doesn't play to their strength.
Like when they're the underdog. When fascism is the underdog,
it doesn't do as well Fascism does really well when
it seems ascendant, when you can be part, when you're
breaking through and no longer being the underdog. You know,

(21:06):
That's that's fascism when it's at its best recruitment. And
when they just keep getting their asses handed them or
when they keep getting shouted down. I mean, they can
recruit off of that, but not as well. I don't know.
That's my take, and I'm wondering what the case, what
the AIRA is take around that kind of stuff was.
I'll try to give a couple answers really briefly. That one.

(21:29):
I think this is a cool like sort of analytical question,
which is very important. But the air A sort of
by its nature of being like very decentralized, wasn't super
you know, didn't didn't have a super defined like party
line and stuff like that, and so you could find
a variety of viewpoints from that like sort of analytical

(21:51):
tactical stuff of like these were conversations that are a
people absolutely had that actually reminds me of sorry to
cut off. It reminds me of our our our new
sponsor political pluralism, in which you work in coalition with
people that you don't have the exact same ideas as um,
that's the new right. Sophie, you managed laurealism. Thanks to

(22:17):
everyone who tweeted a hashtag I believe in Sophie. Who
can ben Sophie to continue to sing the jingles? And
it's sorry for those of you who are like, please
don't tweet at her. Here's some other ads. We are
back and I accidentally derailed capitalism derailed Shannon. Okay, does

(22:45):
it again? So there's no party line? Yeah, but so
so from us sort of like from a standpoint of
like sort of the efficacy of it, from the like
politics of it. Absolutely, like the baseline of are A
was always willing to be militant and willing to be

(23:05):
confrontational in a way that like more traditional liberal politics isn't. Um.
They were as like a political principle. They never believed like, oh,
let's look the other way and this will like wither
away or something like oh, don't don't feed them. They
definitely believed that like fascism needed to be actively opposed

(23:25):
and not just ignored. I think maybe one thing that
I will just say, and so this is pretty much
just me speaking and not are A. Who do I
think I am, I'm a historian, but now I will
I will briefly give just my own opinion that one.
I think you put it really well, and so I
don't want to just restate what you said. But yeah,
it's like explicitly a part of fascist politics in a

(23:48):
way that it is not part of other politics to
be like we run the streets and are tough and
masculine and wind fights. Like if the if you know,
the talking Democrat pick party or something like gets their
asses handed to them in like physical violence or something,
then that does like that doesn't conflict with the Democrat

(24:12):
Party platform. They're not like the platform is not We're
really good at fighting. It's that can play into their
like sort of liberal conception of free speech. They're like, oh,
look at these our opponents who are really bad and
aren't respecting our liberal idea of free speech, and so
vote for us in order to defend free speech. We
don't believe that fighting is the way to go. That

(24:32):
that works for the Democratic Party. It does not work
for fascists. Fascists their politics is we are the like
Ubermensch master race who are really strong and tough, and
so then if they're getting their ship kicked in. Then
it's a very quick and objective demonstration that like, oh well,
I guess you're not though, are you? And it really

(24:52):
kind of undermines their whole politics really yeah. Yeah. And
then the same also without numbering them constantly, is that
like we are the real America. We are the majority,
the silent majority. You're like you're not though you're just not.
There's like ten times as many of us. Fuck off. Yeah, okay, okay,

(25:14):
I'm sold um okay, So so let's let's continue onward. Yeah.
So I think the clan stuff, I try to bring
us up to like maybe nine ish, and I will
uh sidestep two again from like the national perspective around
like nineteen ninety seven and ninety nine. By national, I

(25:35):
mean like are A as a network, not just like
the specific chapters that were in it, but Area is
like this national network is having huge, huge growth at
this time for one like pretty specific reason of like
music tours. Huh. So are A has been pretty closely
linked with youth culture from its beginning of skinhead scenes

(25:56):
and kicking Nazis out of punk scenes, but in of
then and I think are A has enough sort of
like organizational capacity maybe to allow this. But they go
on like multiple tours all across the country with different
starting but through I'm I'm gonna say, at least with
like different national music tours, and so they're in that

(26:19):
context able to get their message out to like just
so many people. Is this d I Y or is
this like Warp Tour? Both so the I think the
first example chronologically I can remember is a Veil, who
are like an influential early like email hardcore band. They

(26:39):
invited are A on tour. I think that was a
much funnier example is the Mighty Mighty Bostones. I had
no idea that they had any politics that rules third
wave Scott to the Rescue said no one before after

(27:02):
but um okay, so but yeah, but might might of
Boston's was like, Okay, we see this cool political thing
going on and we want to pick it up. I
see who you did that. But so they did meet
are A at literally the Warp tour, and I think,
like this twenty five years ago, that work tour was

(27:25):
did have a bit more sort of the I Y cred.
Maybe I gather I was not around at the time,
but anyway, but still the Boston's were like on a
major label. They were a very big band, um, and
they met a r A when A A was tabling
at a warp tour or no, I think it was
Lollapaloosa actually in Chicago, but then invited a r A

(27:47):
on a national tour. Are A toured with yeah, just
various different bands, and through that was getting their name
out to like all kinds of different cities and towns,
and again specifically sort of like youth who were the
kind of kids to like go to punk shows or
d I y or maybe like almost d I y

(28:07):
ish shows, and and really grew a lot. And so
that's the sort of bird's ey view that I want
to give us right now that especially although also before that,
just to say that like by this time, Area is
like a big deal, like a lot of people are
in the group. I think it's the peak of the

(28:28):
most chapters that are I ever had at a single time.
I want to say it was a hundred and seventy
nine chapters, Yeah, which is like a lot. And that's
at one time, and so that's not counting chapters that
like popped up and then shut down again, which could
happen pretty regularly and so it was really like a
pretty meaningful like definitely countercultural force, but like but pretty popular,

(28:53):
like small P popular, not capital P like. But yeah,
that was again the like birds of view I wanted
to give us because then maybe two we've covered. I'd
say that the two of the like central um sort
of like point A to point B historical like things

(29:15):
of are A with the Skinheads fighting Nazis and then
the clan stuff. Um, like, there's a reason I talked
about that. But what I maybe haven't mentioned much up
until now is that are A Like, yeah, you just
had a lot of different groups doing a lot of
different things, like a hundred seventy nine chapters all active
at the same time. They were not all going to
clan rallies, or they were not all fighting Nazis. They

(29:37):
were doing all kinds of different things, and that, uh,
maybe we could get into a little bit of that
what are they doing? I up to now have not
mentioned our dear neighbors to the north at all in Canada,
and for that I do apologize to any Canadian listeners
in the know who might be offended. No apologize us

(30:00):
for being left out. Okay, I will very briefly say,
I have a dumbass fucking writing style of like dumbass jokes,
and some of those, understandably or whatever, I guess, got
cut out. But my favorite by far was that the
first time we mentioned Canada in the book, I wrote,
Canada comma a country north of the United States. Thank

(30:26):
you for laughing Margaret that I just wanted to brag
about that. I'm freaking funny. Yeah, I will say that
I will always laugh at Canada jokes. It's easy laughing
with Canada, laughing with you. Sorry, Canada. Actually you should
apologize to me for making me apologize. Um, yeah, Margaret,

(30:52):
were what were you saying? Oh? I just want to
make everyone clear when Shannon said that the jokes got
cut not from this show, from the book, I want
to be really yes, yes, thank you Margaret hum And
so it's okay. We we had good competent editors. But yeah,
that was a good joke. That it didn't make it
into the book, but that you, dear listener, have have

(31:13):
been granted access to So you're welcome. Okay, you're welcome. Okay,
So what were they doing? Okay? Yeah, so that was
a pointless fucking uh side thing, the point being that
Canada was a place where are a was like pretty
much from the beginning. In fact, there were some like

(31:33):
Skinhead crews who were in the syndicate who I could
have mentioned. I think in like Winnipeg, Ontario. I want
to say one of the area's biggest chapters actually was
in Toronto. They started around like but they did really
important work fighting this group called the Heritage Front, who
were like a big deal of like Canada's like biggest fascists,

(31:56):
biggest fascist groups since like the forties easily was Heritage run.
They were, yeah, okay, we're trying to do speed round
for for for more. You can read we can where
they go the story of antiresett action. But Toronto did
really important work there basically stopping the Heritage Fund from
doing what they were trying to do, working in solidarity

(32:16):
with some indigenous activists as well. Up in Toronto. UM
was how it like started UM in order to fight
the Heritage Front, and they just did a really good
job of bringing people out for like really popular mobilizations
but still really militant. The like coolest and most famous
story and we won't do this too much of U

(32:37):
speed Round This is a good a story that divide
that deserves its time. That in Uh, they once did
a rally where like they gathered everyone. The meeting point was,
I don't know, there was a meeting point in Toronto,
and so everyone looks at this meeting point and it's like, okay,
from this meeting point, based on where we're meeting, clearly

(32:59):
we're going to go to this place where um rallies
have been held before. There was I believe the it
was like the house of a pretty well known like
Nazi propagandist was like near this meeting point, and so
everyone was like, okay, so they're meeting at this spot
because obviously they're gonna head to this other house where
this propagandist lives and they've demonstrated there before. But no,

(33:23):
in fact, what happened was they got everyone at that
meeting point so that everyone thought that they were going
to you know, point A, but actually what they did
instead was loaded everyone onto these like street cars and
then went to like a completely different place where like
absolutely no one was expecting them to be. And this
was a popular rally, like they advertised it very publicly.

(33:44):
I don't know specifically if it was the numbers, but
like lots of people showed up, and like even the
people coming to this rally, you know, I didn't know
that this was the plan necessarily. Then you know, the
organizers who were in the know with a r a
direct everyone, Hey, actually we're going to go on these
street cars. They go to the next place, uh, and
they bring like a ton of people to the house

(34:06):
of someone who was involved in the Heritage Front, and
he was the voice on a rather famous thing that
the Heritage Front did, which was was called like a
hate line. It's a very nineties thing, so bear with
me that it was like it was a it was
a telephone land line that you could like call into
and then no one would answer, would go to an
answering machine. But the answering machine it wasn't like leave

(34:29):
a message. It was like a racist diet tribe. So
you like into this line in order to hear the
Heritage Front's racist propaganda. So the voice on that line,
and I gather that they like changed the message pretty regularly.
Avery went to his house, which like no one was expecting.

(34:50):
So they like did a bait and switch of we meet.
At this point, everyone thinks that they're going to this
one propagandist's house instead they and so, by the way,
that's where all the Nazis went to like defend the
house and like prepared to throw down fights, yeah, the
wrong house. Instead array loads everyone else and goes to
like a completely different place and shows up at the
house of this dude who was a big organizer for

(35:11):
the Herited Front and just had a rally there and
then and so this was not like a super planned thing,
but there was like also no one who is necessarily
stopping it that they had. You know, if certain individuals
we're gonna like throw down, no one was going to
stop them. And so you had like a whole rally
outside of the house. But then some people out of

(35:34):
that rally chose individually to run up and like smash
up the house. And so there's like it makes like
the front page I don't know about the front aage,
but there are photos in like this Toronto newspaper of
anti racists smashing up the house of this like racist
propagandist and sending a very clear message that that kind
of like fascist propaganda wasn't welcome. Sending a message to

(35:56):
the fascist organizers that they could have consequences for the
actions that they were doing, and also maybe sending a
message to the other fascists that are A was smarter
than them because Area had tricked to them all into
going to the wrong place and then went to this
other place that was like totally undefended, which is probably
because they read today's sponsor, uh sun Zoos The Art

(36:18):
of War, which everyone should read, that says things like
attack the enemy where they're a weak, not where they
are strong, which seems very obvious in retrospect. But if
you want a whole book of these obvious in retrospect
you haven't thought about for your activism, I recommend you
pick up this new book written thousands of years ago

(36:39):
called The Art of War by Sun Zoo. So if
he do, you remember the jingle all art of and
we are back and we were talking about bucking up

(37:02):
propagandists houses. Yeah, so that was, you know, one tiny
little slice of the rich which history of are A
in Canada. There was some of some of the Area's
most important work. And so again in the time, we're
not going to do justice to it, but you can
read more about it in We Go Where They Go.
The story of entire is Attaction published by p M Press.

(37:25):
The but some of the area's most important work was
actually pro choice organizing, and specifically it's like it was
like a whole genre um of organizing called clinic defense,
where in in the most sort of simple description of it,
you know, maybe someone is going to get an abortion,
and a clinic has like a designated day that like

(37:47):
abortions around Tuesdays, for example, and then you have lots
of anti choice protesters out front who come to like
harass the women who are trying to get abortions and
harass the clinic, and who might get it pretty raity,
and who might like throw ship um, and who could
be a real danger and a threat, and so h
From as early as like two wish I want to

(38:10):
say is one of the first examples I heard of it,
and and throughout all the nineties a lot of Area
organizers take that on. I think it's a really interesting
example that like the affinity there is kind of like
it's almost less. I mean, I think the reason that
they did that and didn't do other cool leftist things
is like a tactical thing that it involves like going

(38:32):
somewhere and like physically putting your body on the line
in order like physically defend people in a potentially rowdy context.
And it's very like direct action oriented that I think
lined up pretty well with sort of what was in
Area's wheelhouse, and so are A chapters all over supporting
women trying to get abortions, supporting abortion clinics. That was
actually probably the main sort of political development that ever

(38:56):
happened within the AREA network, because like I said, it
was pretty decent, traalized always and didn't have like a
super specific party line. It had the like points of
unity that we heard. But what the like one most
significant amendment that ever happened to those points of unity
was are A voting. I believe the first vote was
in nineties seven and it didn't pass, and then it

(39:17):
did pass in two amend the points of unity to
be explicitly pro choice. Yeah, and that's really cool. It's
cool to see that what you might call an intersection
of an anti racist, anti fascist group taking on reproductive rights.
But also I think it's one thing that I think

(39:38):
is really interesting about it is that we might sort
of take for granted in that like a leftist ish
group is going to be like, yeah, and also like
reproductive freedom is good and important Like for me, I
draw that line pretty obviously, but that was like not
the case for everyone in a r A, which was
a very broad tent and was this like anti as

(40:00):
just thing and so yeah, you had so there weren't
all that many people who were like pro life necessarily,
but you did have people saying like, well, do we
want to put a pro choice platform out and potentially
alienate people who want to be who want to like
fight Nazis but identify as pro life, Like do we

(40:21):
want to kick them out of our organization or organizations
about fighting Nazis? So it was a big debate and
it was It was a really cool development that happened
within a RA, And I think a lot of sort
of education by women, by queer people within are A,
pushing the network as a whole to understand that. Um,

(40:43):
that was an important thing for are A too. Two
that that was an important line for Area account even
though they were still a tent thing. Yeah, Lansing, Michigan
are A was an important chapter and I mentioned them
briefly And it was a one person named Steve who
was very, um, very helpful to me and like getting

(41:08):
me to that's the first place I ever heard Screwdriver. Lansing, Michigan.
Oh yeah, I know, No, I agreed. It was definitely
a bummer. I I met punks there and they were
ironically listening to Screwdriver and I was like, I don't
believe you, and I think I was right, and he's

(41:30):
not very funny. Yeah, this was like twenty years ago. Yeah. Anyway, Uh, well,
Steve was not a Nazi. Steve was awesome, and I
just meant to put out a personal note that he
was very helpful to me, um, like personally and all
this research and stuff. But so Arie Lansing was a
really interesting chapter where um they worked really hard to

(41:53):
work in coalition with other groups in Lancing that we're
doing broader stuff than just anti fascism. And so this
is a really big topic that I don't think we
have time to adequately address um right now. But basically
there was a tension within a ARRA over time that

(42:17):
we're we you know, the name is literally anti racist action.
I think in this podcast. I don't know about you, Margaret,
I definitely have often been using the word racist, but
realistically what they were targeting was very specifically fascists a
lot of the time right in the yeah, which is
different than racism in terms of like organizing models and yeah, yeah,

(42:39):
and so I mean they did absolutely do both, but
that was a continual sort of topic of discussion and
push and pull with an ARRAY was to what degree
are we, like an anti fascist organization versus an anti
racist organization. I think those discussions also overlapped with to
what degree is are A like a quote unquote white
organization versus like a multi race organization. Are A started

(43:02):
in very multi racial skinhead scenes but over time became
much wider white ter with a T. Yeah, so that
by like you know, especially maybe or something like I
think they're there, you know, were important exceptions. Detroit was
a was a chapter that was I think probably like

(43:25):
majority people of color for a bit, but they're kind
of like the exception that proves the rule that like
people I spoke to or a person I spoke to
from Detroit talks about going to the Area National Network
and like are A Detroit kind of knew that they
were different, that they were like they had this multi
racial character, and then they look around at these other
chapters at an Area National Conference and see a lot

(43:47):
of white faces. Really we're gonna say something, no, no,
go ahead. So just then that sort of uh, you know,
tied into conversations of so then is it and conversations
that are still relevant, like oh is it our job too?
Like are are we? Doesn't mean that we're fucking up

(44:07):
our anti racist organizing if like if we're anti racist,
and like, how come there are so many white people
in the room and not as many people of color.
On the other hand, maybe and I think this this
works a little bit better with like anti fascist stuff
of like you know, as one white skin had put
it from Cincinnati that they were fighting for their own
liberation and a lot of people in area who were

(44:29):
white like obviously cared about racism and it's not that,
but they weren't like going out and trying to like
save other people. They were like, I do not want
to live under fascism. I am opposed to these fascists.
So I, as a person, I'm going to go fight
the fascists rather than like a savior complex. Yeah, there's
another line that maybe white people have a unique responsibility

(44:52):
to fight fascism because fascists are organizing in white communities Um.
There was one UM organizer Toronto organizer from Chicago who
put that really well that he was like he was
like sick of seeing like the burden of fighting fascists
fall on people of color. And the way he put
it that like a A should be predominantly white, are

(45:15):
A should be going to like white communities and like
handling the ship. Uh. And maybe one last line that
um the same person who I just quoted as saying
like that he was fighting for his own liberation also
put it as like he was that they were in
competition with the clan for white people. That like every
white person who like joined a r A who was

(45:37):
you know maybe just like you know, it wasn't destined
to be like a committed leftist or something they were
you know again, maybe some random kid from like a
trailer park in Indiana if they were in a ra A,
that meant that they weren't in the clan. Yeah. And
so I don't want to get like disproportionately more oxygen
to that line of like, oh it's okay for a

(45:57):
A to be super white. I think maybe it's kind
of more obvious and intuitive to the average listener on
like it's a little weird, maybe have a group called
Anti Racist Action and have it be a bunch of
white people. But there were sort of I think there
are there are valid points on both sides. Well, I
mean not a sentence. I don't really love saying it

(46:17):
brings up a ton of questions, but it doesn't necessarily
immediately provide answers, and that's that seems like okay, And
then like I don't know, I'm probably not we might
not be the best two people to decide exactly that
kind of thing. Um yeah, yeah, But to try to
briefly tie that up into I mentioned Lansing. Lansing was

(46:39):
one group that was very explicitly wanted to like be
a broader anti racist group and wanted to like and
didn't want to just be like a bunch of white
kids fighting Nazis. They wanted to yeah, maybe address racism
that was like more in like people of colors day
to day lives, for example. And so they did really
interesting work in relition with different groups around Lancing, um

(47:03):
generally fighting police brutality and like fighting austerity at the university,
working with Metcha Chapter U, the I Want Bunch of
the Spanish, the Chicano student movement of Azaplan a Chicano
student group UM still around today, but they their chapter
in Lansing. At this time, them and the air A
chapter were really tight again, fighting like police brutality, fighting austerity.

(47:28):
There was an area group in Moscow, Idaho fighting Area
Nations up in Idaho. There was are a groups like
the whole last chapter of our book is about the
area out of Chicago and more into the East Coast
fighting group called the World Church to the Creator, and
a group called the National Alliance who were making a
big push for fascism in like the nine eleven adjacent

(47:48):
era groups around California fighting the clan Um groups in
Texas are a. You know, we we were able to
just uh scratched the surface of areas deep and rich
history in today's episode. But there were a lot of
different people doing a lot of different and cool things.

(48:08):
And if any of them listen to this and I
didn't cover their stuff, I really apologize. But a lot
of it is really rich from they didn't They didn't
deserve it. I chose very explicitive to deliberately exclude with
spite and malice the forthought. Yeah. But so yeah, you know,
we're just not going to be able to cover everything

(48:30):
in a in a podcast. It's almost like there's a
whole book that people could read. It's almost like that. Well, okay,
my takeaways from from what you I took notes the
things that thank you, because we we live in a
time when fascism is ascendant or at least as growing
in the United States right now, and groups like the

(48:53):
are A have a lot to offer, I think, like
in terms of both positive and negative lessons and things
like that, and the the things that I wrote down
that they seem to be their strengths and part of
why they were so cool. They outsmarted people because they
read Today's sponsor. They gathered diverse ideological positions and avoided
a party line, which is actually, I know there's some

(49:15):
irony here. I think is actually a specifically unique advantage
of UM of anarchists is that we theoretically avoid UM
telling people what to do, and so like working in
coalition and working alongside. Political pluralism is actually like can
be a fairly natural thing because if different groups work together,

(49:35):
they have to work together in a way that respects
individuals autonomy, the autonomy of the different groups and the
different people within them, and so that fits very well
in with my personal political ideology. But that is beside
the point. Be rowdy, go both d i y and
mainstream in your outreach, and don't be afraid of doing both.
Be decentralized and be willing to work in coalitions with

(49:58):
other groups. Those are my takeaway. Um am I missing
any major ones. You know, I have a tendency sometimes
to restate things back to people and make them more confusing,
not less, and so I won't do that. I think
you summarize them very well. I think the only thing
that I will add is that maybe a lot of
the time there was there there was there could be

(50:21):
two different like sort of trends pulling in different directions
in array at the same time. Uh, and that that
sort of tension could be part of what made aar
A what it was. But that there just to say
that there are questions that never were firmly answered and
part of that maybe plays into what you said about like,
um sort of being multi tendency, but like, yeah, there

(50:44):
there were you know how sort of wide air ray
was was what made it able to mobilize like a
lot of different people and get you know, people who
weren't already super committed leftists involved. For example, on the
flip side, there are people who or there were people
who were some times frustrated with like the difficulty of
having a sort of well defined, proactive political line and

(51:07):
that sometimes it could have been cool to have something
that was a bit more like sort of politically tight.
That maybe that's just kind of an inherent trade off
that like, you know, the reason that the Democratic Party
is really big is that their politics is watered down
and meaningless. And the other hand, you have super tight,
well defined vanguard parties with two members. Uh, you know,

(51:31):
the like you know, how much we define and how
much sort of disagreement we allowed is sort of an
internal tension in politics. Um, and so I'll just say
that that and other ones too are like are we
anti racist? Are we anti fascist? Are we multiracial? Or
are we white? Things like that were there could be
questions in areas history that never were resolved, and um,

(51:54):
that's part of what area was was multiple people maybe
doing work in different directions, but that all was part
of the same whole sort of yeah, well, if people
want to know all of the answers, no, wait, if
people want to understand more about the tensions. They can
they can turn to your book, which is called We

(52:15):
Go Where They Go a Store, The Story of anti
racist action. They get that right. Yeah, it's a good title.
Thank you. We stole it from the entire resist action
We Go Where There. You also stole the whole contents
from them. It seems to just be the story of them.
There is a chapter in the middle which is, um,
just my dream journal, okay, but yes, the rest of

(52:36):
it is they are excellent. Yeah. Um, I'm glad you
didn't mark out which parts were which too, so that
was useful. Yes, yeah, anything else that you want to
plug you know what, I'm going to be a little
bit cheesy for a second, that genuinely, Yeah, Like what
the book is is the stories of like the people
who were there and you know, combined with other sources.

(52:58):
And we try really hard not to cheerly. And we
didn't just say that like area was perfect and everything
it did was cool. We did try to like analyze
when it succeeded and when it failed, but nonetheless we
did that from like a pretty unapologetic standpoint of like, one,
fascists have to be confronted and who we wanted it
to be sort of pulled from the perspective, not necessarily
even from the perspective, but told by people who were there.

(53:19):
And so yeah, I was one small part of it, um,
But I'm immensely grateful to uh, the all of those
sources who spoke to me and who spoke to my
co authors, and I hope that we did I will
say that we did do uh them justice, I hope,
and uh there what they said coming through uh in

(53:40):
the book, that it really is their story. H And
also my co authors sick three co authors who are
not here today obviously, but they were all in array
whereas I was not. What are their names, Yeah, Kristen Schwartz,
Mike Stoudenmeyer and lady and the four of us together
co wrote the book. Uh. And you know, as we

(54:02):
put it in the intro, maybe one of the an
example of some of the cooler aspects of Area itself
was this sort of commitment to horizontally working together and
making a cool thing happened cool collectively. And we did that.
And so thanks to the people who were there and
to my co authors and so the whole process I
am just one small part of but thanks to everybody.

(54:24):
The book is fucking good. Yeah, so you should. We've
linked it in our episode description for everyone. Yeah, if
you so desire or are able. Yeah, and if not,
request a library stock it and then go steal get
it out from the library. Yeah, do both. Request it
from your local library. If you're a student, requested at

(54:45):
your school's library. They pretty much always buy those. Heck. Yeah, Sophie,
you have a new podcast. Yeah, you can listen to
Internet Hate Machine with Bridget Todd. And for all cool
Zone Media shows, you can go to at cool zone
media dot com or at cool Zone Media on Twitter
and Instagram while they still exist. Anything you want to plug.

(55:10):
I'm part of a publishing collective called Strangers and the
Tangled Wilderness. We put out a bunch of books and
zines and podcasts and ship. Um not this podcast, but
we put out a different one of my podcasts called
Live Like the World Is Dying, your guide for what
feels like the End times about individual community preparedness. And
we're about to put out our first book. Um it
might be out by the time. Y'all hear this. I
don't even know And it's by Cindy Melstein and it's

(55:32):
called Triannarchism for Life and it has lots of really
beautiful art and really nice essays and you can go
get it at Tangled Wilderness dot org or wherever you
get your books. That's what I got. Awesome. Thanks and
we'll be back next week. Hey, thanks, Thanks Shannon, Thank
you all. Very happy to be here. Appreciated, cool people

(55:57):
who did Cool Stop is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts on cool zone Media, visit our website
cool zone media dot com, or check us out on
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