Antifascist tells why she won’t be silenced on Trump
As Sunsara Taylor stood on the steps of Sproul Hall on UC Berkeley’s campus Sunday, she held a protest sign high above her head.
Police officers circled Taylor and two others, forcing them to the ground as Taylor and her companions chanted in unison. “No fascist USA. No fascist USA. No fascist USA.”
Taylor, who was wearing a tank top with “NO!” printed on the front, was ejected from Sproul Plaza — for allegedly sitting on a barricade — shortly before Milo Yiannopoulos’ 15-minute appearance, his most masterful troll yet.
But I didn’t see Taylor’s ejection as it happened.
Taylor showed me the video of her brief detention, which didn’t lead to an arrest, days later on her phone. She scrolled through her Twitter feed to find it as we
sat in Old Brooklyn Bagels & Deli on College Avenue earlier this week.
I know why some conservative speakers, white supremacists and the president’s supporters flock to Berkeley, and it has nothing to do with free speech. What they want to do is normalize hate and spread it on college campuses.
But I’m curious why groups like Refuse Fascism, recently one of the most visible groups organizing in Berkeley, choose to confront the divisive cadre of the president’s supporters in Berkeley when they know there won’t be constructive dialogue?
Refuse Fascism describes itself as a national movement of people from diverse political perspectives who believe the U.S. president and vice president pose an existential threat to humanity. It was founded by supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party in December and has chapters in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, the Bay Area and other cities. Refuse Fascism wants the president and vice president thrown out of office.
At least for the muchhyped Free Speech Week, Taylor, a Refuse Fascism co-founder who lives in New York, said she flew here to combat his vile, divisive and hate-filled commentary with her message: This nightmare presidency is normalizing fascism and white supremacy and it must be stopped.
But she also came to drum up support for her organization’s future plans: Refuse Fascism is organizing daily nonviolent protests against the current White House administration that are scheduled to begin Nov. 4. Taylor expects several thousand people to participate in demonstrations in the Bay Area and in cities such as Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. You read that right —
daily protests. “The people have to be the ones that drive them from power,” Taylor said about the administration, which she referred to as a regime. “You cannot wait it out. You cannot try to weather the storm.”
Taylor said her movement isn’t about suppressing free speech by conservatives.
“No, we’re holding (speakers) accountable for what (they’re) advocating,” she said of speakers like Yiannopoulos.
This week isn’t the first time Taylor has come to Berkeley. She was here in May to give a speech on campus about driving “fascists” like Ann Coulter, whom Taylor said promotes xenophobia, unvarnished white supremacy and hatred of women, off campus.
“There’s been a whole concerted assault on Berkeley the city, on Cal the campus, because these are sites and symbols of opposition to everything that this whole rising fascism in America stands for, and now there’s a fascist regime in power,” she said.
She said fascism more than 20 times during our hour-long conversation. She refused to share much about her life. She wouldn’t tell me her age or her backstory, but she said she’s originally from the Midwest. She wouldn’t tell me how Refuse Fascism or her travel is funded.
My concern with people booking flights to protest in Berkeley is that most of them have no investment in the area, and no accountability for the conflict they leave behind because they don’t live, work or hang out here.
But Taylor, who identifies as a communist revolutionary and has some radical views and ideas that I don’t support, such as revolution that completely disrupts government, certainly isn’t wrong about what Berkeley represents: a battleground for political messaging.
And I believe she’s here for the right reasons.
“There’s a lot of attention paid to giving a foothold for white supremacy and fascism on the campuses in general, because campuses, they’re not as the right wing portrays them,” she said. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
Berkeley and Cal are “symbols of opposition to everything that this whole rising fascism in America stands for.” Sunsara Taylor