By David Futrelle
Today in Portland, members of far-right street gang Patriot Prayer and assorted other brawlers on the fascist right are rallying around the banner of #HimToo, a trollish antifeminist response to the #MeToo movement suggesting that many rape accusations are simply false.
I don’t know about the “false” part, but many in and around Patriot Prayer certainly have experience with accusations.
Rose City Antifa has put up a lengthy post documenting that a stunning number of those invited by organizers to the rally today, or otherwise associated with Patriot Prayer or the group’s close ally The Proud Boys, have been arrested in the past for domestic violence and sexual assault. One man formerly associated with Patriot Prayer pled guilty to the sexual assault of a 14-year-old, and a regular videographer for the group “was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy on a victim under age 13,” according to Rose City Antifa.
“Men are certainly also victimized by the sexual and domestic violence and rape culture,” Rose City Antifa declares.
However, [rally organizer] Haley [Adams] and Patriot Prayer’s usage of the #HimToo hashtag has overwhelmingly ignored the possibility that men might be victims of violence in favor of simply “triggering the libs,” and publicly mocking and discrediting any claims of sexual violence.
The hypocrisy is especially ripe given the histories of so many of those involved. Rose City Antifa notes that
Not only is the premise of a “him too” rally ridiculous on its face, the behavior of Patriot Prayer, Proud Boys, Street Preachers and other associated far-right and white nationalist groups, both on the streets of Portland and in their private lives, shows that they are the exact the sort of threat described by the concept of “rape culture.”
Yep.
Local antifascist activists have organized a pushback march highlighting the experiences of sexual assault survivors; as I write this, the counterprotest has attracted several hundred, easily outnumbering the twenty or so who have shown up at the #HimToo rally. See live coverage of the even on the Twitter hashtag #PushbackPDX.
Here’s what the #HimToo rally looked like about a half hour ago:
https://twitter.com/DonovanFarley/status/1063917430873874433
You know, here’s a certain similarity in the way they treat accusations of rape and racism.
They’ll swear up down and sideways that racism is really bad, but what they just did isn’t racist, no Siree. “Prefering the white candidate over the slightly better qualified PoC 27 times in a row isn’t in the least racist. I’m not in favour of gas chambers and I have black friends!”
They’ll swear up down and sideways that rape is really bad, but what they just did isn’t rape, no Siree. “That wasn’t rape because she voluntarily invited him in to use the toilet. Rape-rape is a dreadful thing. Besides, some of my friends are female!”
In both cases they agree that the bad thing is rape, but it never applies in this case. Or any other case they come across.
@Katherine the Adequate and Jane Done
Yeah, his lack of self-reflection is one of the reasons why we no longer move in the same circles. There are times I regret not trying to make him understand just how much he has hurt people, but whenever I start thinking like that, I remember how many times I’ve seen other people try to redirect him, ranging from “Dude, not cool!” to more sophisticated arguments. None of it ever seemed to make a difference.
What scares me the most is that he’s a teacher. Not in the public school system, but he’s in a position to influence kids.
@MissEB47:
It sickens me as well, and yet it is all too common among perpetrators of sexual assault and domestic violence. It’s one of the key reasons that various redemption programs for sexual assault perpetrators focus so strongly on admitting guilt. The type of people who commit these crimes are also the types of people who never accept responsibility for anything.
Sorry I meant “don’t understand what rape is”
Apparently some of them are complaining that we don’t just let landowners vote:
https://eugeneantifa.noblogs.org/post/2018/11/16/weed-nazis-rent-house-to-white-power-couple-meet-the-kilgores/
@heebee
That makes more sense!
@Mogwitch
Everyone deals with emotionally difficult situations uniquely. This is in the same vein as assuming how someone should mourn a death or respond to a violent attack. There’s no script for how people process pain. If the story is true he has spent years coming to terms with this and has now reached a point where he’s just done with the son. I don’t find it hard to believe he would no longer be dwelling on the child he once knew.
Didn’t #metoo start with Harvey Weinstein and a large number of accusers? Considering how these women were then accused of “seeking attention”, and how many other men were subsequently exposed, I’ve sometimes thought in retrospect that the movement should’ve been actually named #himtoo.
Now, you can call me weird for this (and I suspect that the men at that rally probably would), but I’ve found that the easiest way to avoid getting accused of doing things is not to do them. I’m sure it’s just me being lucky and all that (/s, obviously).
@Jane Done:
(1)
Art Spiegelman’s portrayal of Jews as mice–i.e., just about everybody’s prey and stock plucky cartoon underdogs–prompts this thought; bear with me.
The average hearing range of humans in their prime runs ~20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
The hearing range of dogs–extremely subject to breed and age, of course–averages around 67 to 45,000 Hz.
The hearing range of mice runs 1Hz to 70,000-100,000 Hz.
Ergo: mice can hear dog whistles.
(In other words: Gentiles need to pay attention when Jewish people become nervous about seemingly happenstance things like too many occurrences of the numbers 14 and 88. This applies with other privileged and marginalized groups, of course, although the specific dogwhistles differ.)
(1)Note that this was Spiegelman’s rightful story to tell; the grump was based on his own father.)
No…I just don’t see that catching on.
/s
Speaking of dogwhistles involving 14s and 88s… anyone remember there was a bit of a brouhaha about White Wolf apparently winking to the far right, including suggestions that vampires could join the alt-right online, and 1488 being snuck into dice roll examples? So I mentioned this to a chum who’s more of a tabletop gamer than me, and he laughed in my face and said there was obviously nothing to it and why would a gaming company court fascists anyway? (To indicate that their official forums were a good place to recruit, perhaps? But what do I know…)
Anyhow, White Wolf’s just been integrated into their parent company and had their leadership ousted as a result of bungling a story about persecution of queer folks in Chechnya. I don’t know all the details, but, given this isn’t the first time something like this has happened (including a book about the Holocaust, if memory serves), I feel faintly vindicated.
Oh sweet internet… if you’re not connecting me to the furry community that changed my life, you’re connecting chronic sexual batterers for virtue signalling public spectacles.
@Jane Doe
What makes that so laughable is that they just take things from all sorts of civilizations and cultures that warred and competed over the years and just dump them under the heading “Western.” I was listening to Natalie “Contrapoints” Wynn on the Chapo podcast and they were riffing on YouTube The Golden One (basically a Swedish Nazis bodybuilder who’s really into Skyrim), and how he cosplays in Roman helmets while holding a Celtic sword and a Norman kite shield. Just zero historical or even self-awareness.
@Katamount:
OMG. That actually hurts. This kind of crap is sadly common in some neo-pagan circles, too.
@Full Metal Ox:
Mind. Blown. Seriously. That adds a whole new dimension to Maus.
There was another similar incident in Philadelphia that was even more demeaning to the alt-right than this one in Portland:
‘Proud Boys’ Outnumbered at Protest, Taxis Refuse to Drive Them Home
In Liverpool they chased the Nazis out of town, whilst playing the Benny Hill music.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/edl-laughed-liverpool-benny-hill-13133627
Katamount:
…with an arrow in his knee.
(sorry)
I already had no patience for the “you should be as or more outraged by false sexual assault charges as you are by actual sexual assault” argument, because… well, it’s dumb… but that took a whole new level when it was pointed out to me that because false sexual assault charges are so vanishingly rare, it is far, far, FAR less likely for a man to be falsely accused of sexual assault than it is for a man to… be sexually assaulted.
Anyone actually concerned with the plight of men, and not just about being the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club, might want to consider that.
Katamount: A Celtic sword, a Norman kite shield, and no shirt. “You will not get past my solid defence, for my shield is as…” “just stab him in the anywhere guys, i mean, literally in the anywhere”
Diptych: White Wolf has a serious problem with that, as I recall. The conflation of “edgy with an artistic purpose” (which is often great) with “edgy for edginess’s sake” (which is always terrible).
Jane Doe: I’d say it’s about as often white chauvinism as it is male chauvinism, but you’re right, it’s definitely frequently the latter.
The good news is that more and more people are starting to see exactly what the alt-right is and are taking it seriously and mobilizing against it. (Note that taking them seriously is different from treating them seriously; playing Yakkety Sax is definitely the former but not the latter. They need to be taken seriously, but they don’t necessarily deserve to be treated seriously.)
The bad news is that this sort of thing is just giving them more reason to move from the ‘gaslighting’ page to the ‘look what you made me do!!!’ page of the abuser’s handbook. Which, of course, a number of them already have.
Doesn’t mean we can afford to stop standing against them. Don’t give them the Heckler’s Veto.
Proud Boys and Junior Fascists having criminal records of rape and domestic abuse?
“I’m shocked. Shocked to my foundation. Gambling, here!”
“Your winnings, Captain Renault.”
“Oh….thank you.”
“Don’t be that girl”, “#HimToo”, the Men’s ‘Rights’ ‘Movement’ can only think of activism as reaction. They only get off their asses to attempt to disrupt the efforts of feminists rather than find their own ideas to promote. They’re focused on bringing women down rather than helping the men they say supposedly need it.
They’re a bigot’s idea of what a social justice movement is like.