Haters Hate -- The Proud Boys Want You

 

“Members of the group (Proud Boys) espouse misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, and/or white supremacist ideologies and associate with white supremacist groups. The group and its members have openly encouraged, planned, and conducted violent activities against those they perceive to be opposed to their ideology and political beliefs … The Proud Boys played a pivotal role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”

– Bill Blair, Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness

Canadian officials on February 3, 2021, declared the far-right Proud Boys to be a terrorist organization. The decision makes Canada the first nation to name the Proud Boys a terrorist group. The designation makes it a crime for banks or financial institutions to deal with the group’s assets and criminalizes providing financial or material support to the group, according to CBC News and government officials.

And just hours after the announcement, the US Justice Department announced it had arrested and charged a top member of the group's Seattle chapter. Ethan Nordean, 30, who is also known as Rufio Panman, is at least the eighth group member to be charged in connection with the Capitol riots.

A total of six white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups have been designated by terrorist entities in Canada. Prior to 2018, no such groups were listed as a terrorist threat.

Unlike Canada, the United States has no legal basis for sanctioning domestic terrorist groups. That’s the reason why even when more than 1 million people sign a petition to label the Ku Klux Klan as a terrorist group, it results in no action. The State Department can, according to U.S. law, designate “foreign organizations.” Lawyers involved in terrorist designation decision-making have interpreted this as excluding groups that have a “significant domestic presence.”

The group’s own literature touts the fact that it has a global presence with chapters in more than 40 countries. While terrorist groups certainly have been prone to exaggeration, it is quite clear that the Proud Boys do have a sizable international presence.

Jason M. Blazakis – professor of practice at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and a senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, who led the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism Finance and Designations between 2008 and 2018 – says …

“Simply put, the Proud Boys aren’t solely a U.S. phenomenon. Thus, the U.S. government should work with allies, like Canada, to flesh out the Proud Boys international presence. With additional intelligence, the U.S. may just be able to demonstrate the Proud Boys are an organization with a sufficiently foreign presence. If that happens the U.S. government just may be able to sanction it, or at a minimum designate its international chapters. It won’t be easy, and the U.S. legal hurdles will be high, but the Proud Boys are worthy of being considered for what they truly are—terrorists.”

(Jason M. Blazakis. “Can We Call the Proud Boys Terrorists?” Slate. February 04, 2021.)

In the United States, the Proud Boys are considered an alt-right hate group.

Hate groups are defined as “social groups that advocate and practice hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or any other designated sector of society.

The Southern Poverty Law Center found that the number of likes and comments on hate group accounts grew by 900 percent during 2016 and 2017. The number of active hate groups tracked in 2020 by the law center was 838 – a decline of 11% from the previous year. But the SPLC notes that the numbers are still historically high, hovering above 800 for the duration of the Trump presidency. The number of such groups spiked to more than 1,000 after the election of Barack Obama, the country's first black president.

What is a profile of someone who joins a hate group like the Proud Boys?

Most of America's hate groups are rooted in white supremacy

Who Wants To Hate?

Hate is a visceral basic emotion that runs the gamut of being simply accepted to all-embracing. People who join hate groups don't typically start off with the violent views they espouse. Rather, they join to find a sense of belonging and become radicalized after joining.

Dr. Tristan Bridges, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says …

"It basically means that the men who join do not hold the violent extremist views these groups are known for before joining up. The radicalization comes later."

According to Bridges, people who join hate organizations like the Proud Boys tend to be heavily invested in a specific view of masculinity and feel they have been denied their ability to achieve it. Bridges says …

"Lots of men understand masculinity as implicitly tied to economic success, heterosexual access to women, achieving social status among groups of other men, and the like, and this is where groups like the Proud Boys come in.”

Dr. Brian Levin, Director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino explains …

"They (extremists) feel this change results in an unfair society that is losing its most revered traditions.”

Dr. Arie Kruglanski, professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, posits …

"Many of them would have suffered humiliation in some form, either bullying in their childhood at home by their parents and other adults and in their adulthood of feeling denigrated and humiliated by experts and other elitists and threatened by their significance being taken away from them by ascending minorities.”

Those who have felt recent social, demographic, and political changes and who feel powerless to these changes are more likely to join hate groups. The vast majority of “participants” in hate group activities are male and white. The rising death rate for white middle-aged Americans with no more than a high school diploma from drugs, alcohol and suicide in what economists are calling “deaths from despair” has contributed to a polarized electorate. Even the debate over history and symbols of the Confederacy has led that segment to embrace white nationalism and aggression.

Loving To Hate

Psychologists who study hate report that hatred surfaces when people are highly insecure. They’re lonely and seeking connections, even hateful ones. These people join hate groups because it fills their need for friendship and belonging. When hate involves participation in a group, it may help foster a sense of connection and camaraderie that fills a void in one’s identity.

According to Washington, D.C., clinical psychologist Dana Harron, the things people hate about others are the things that they fear within themselves. She suggests thinking about the targeted group or person as a movie screen onto which haters project unwanted parts of the self. The idea is, “I'm not terrible; you are.”

When people are taught to hate the enemy – anyone different from them – it leaves little room for vulnerability and an exploration of hate through empathic discourse and understanding. In our current society, one is more ready to fight than to resolve conflict. Peace is seldom the option.

SPLC senior research analyst Cassie Miller says … 

"My concern is that their form of politics, where they use violence and intimidation to silence their political adversaries, is going to continue to be normalized,” noting that some Republican elected officials have seemingly endorsed the idea of a civil war, and have used threatening language to talk about even their own colleagues across the aisle. "So these seemingly dangerous ideas have really moved more and more into the mainstream."

(Laurel Wamsley. “The Number Of Hate Groups Declined Last Year – But Hate Did Not.” NPR.February 1, 2021.)

The Pyramid of Hate

The Pyramid of Hate adopted by the Anti-Defamation League shows biased behaviors, growing in complexity from the bottom to the top. Although the behaviors at each level negatively impact individuals and groups, as one moves up the pyramid, the behaviors have more life-threatening consequences.

Like a pyramid, the upper levels are supported by the lower levels. If people or institutions treat behaviors on the lower levels as being acceptable or “normal,” it results in the behaviors at the next level becoming more accepted.

In response to the questions of the world community about where the hate of genocide comes from, the Pyramid of Hate demonstrates that the hate of genocide is built upon the acceptance of behaviors described in the lower levels of the pyramid.

About the pyramid …

Level One: Biased Attitudes The base of the pyramid describes biased attitudes we see and hear every day in schools, workplaces, communities and even at the dinner table. These include things like non-inclusive language, stereotypes, microaggressions or insensitive remarks.

One might regard these attitudes as “not a big deal” or they don’t necessarily hurt anyone. But biased attitudes that begin with a simple stereotype about a group, if left unchallenged, can easily grow into sustained feelings about that group. These attitudes serve as the foundation of the pyramid, supporting more extreme levels of hate.

Level Two: Acts of Bias

Based on biased attitudes, we then form prejudicial FEELINGS about a group which can lead to actions like bullying, scapegoating, biased jokes, ridicule, and name-calling. ACTS of bias move the biased ATTITUDE that “All those people are lazy and stupid” to ACTS that perpetuate that “I don’t like or trust those people.”

Level Three: Discrimination

Once biased ATTITUDES and ACTS of bias have taken hold, DISCRIMINATION can follow. Discrimination moves the biased ATTITUDE “I don’t like or trust those people” to DISCRIMINATION, “I won’t hire those people to work in my store” or “I won’t let those people live in my neighborhood.” Once hate has progressed up the bottom three levels of the pyramid, it is not a far step to move from ACTIONS to Acts of Violence.

Level Four: Bias-Motivated Violence

When discrimination is unchecked, acts of bias-motivated VIOLENCE can occur in schools and communities, including desecration of property, threats and assaults, but also arson, terrorism, vandalism, assault and murder.

Level Five: Genocide The top level of the pyramid is Genocide, the act of or intent to deliberately and systematically annihilate an entire people. During the Holocaust the Nazi’s committed genocide against the Jewish people, Gays, people with disabilities, Roma and Jehovah’s Witnesses.