Punching Nazis Totally Works

Everyone who grew up in the hardcore/punk scene in the 1980s and 1990s knows it

by DARIEN CAVANAUGH

When alt-right poster boy Richard Spencer’s face ended up on the receiving end of the punch memed around the world on Inauguration Day, it raised questions among liberals and leftists about the role of violence in politics.

The debate quickly intensified following reports that an anti-fascist protestor was shot at the University of Washington as Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos gave a speech there on the night of the inauguration. Then on Feb. 1, 2017, violent protests at the University of California Berkley shut down a scheduled appearance by Yiannopoulos.

The recent discussions of political violence, particularly as it relates to punching neo-Nazis, tend to center on ethical concerns and skepticism over whether or not it’s an effective tactic.

I’m not going to attempt to address the ethical question. There are reasonable arguments for both nonviolence and the use of force.

But I will say this — punching Nazis is absolutely an effective tactic. In fact, it’s been proved time and time again to be the most effective means of simply communicating with Nazis.

Violence between anti-fascist and neo-Nazis is nothing new. It’s been getting more attention since the rise of the alt-right and Pres. Donald Trump’s inauguration, but it’s been going on for decades.

Recent incidents include anti-fascist protest at a white supremacist rally in Sacramento in 2016. Several people were beaten and stabbed at the rally. Likewise, protestors at a November 2016 conference for the National Policy Institute, which Spencer heads, attacked one attendee and harassed several others.

In the 1980s and ’90s, much of the violence between anti-fascists and neo-Nazis occurred in the hardcore and punk music scenes.

I started listening to metal, punk and hardcore when I was 12 years old in 1988. The first show I ever went to was DRI, Sick of It All and Nasty Savage at the Cuban Club in Tampa on March 3, 1990. I was 13 at the time.

That night, there were several hundred people, maybe a thousand, in the enclosed courtyard behind the club where the bands played. Most of the people at the show were metal heads there to see DRI and Nasty Savage, but around 50 neo-Nazi skinheads were also there to see Sick of It All.

Vicious fights broke out almost as soon as the music started.

The skinheads targeted random metal-heads for no reason — just picked one or two of them out of the crowd, isolated them and ganged up on them. Any time one of the metal-heads dropped to the ground, they were immediately swarmed by a bunch of skins who kicked and stomped them.

Eventually several police cars and a few ambulances showed up and things calmed down for the rest of the night.

It was a terrifying introduction to the hardcore/punk scene, especially since I was a scrawny teen with long hair and was probably wearing a sleeveless Sacred Reich shirt. I looked like a metal-head, and Nazi skinheads have no qualms about beating up kids.