The Boogaloo movement
Yes, at times. Most antifa activists, says Mark Bray, a history professor and author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, focus on trying to identify the names, addresses, and jobs of white supremacists who are active on the internet, and “outing” them to their employers and the public. “It’s a lot of a kind of private investigator work that sometimes spills out into the streets with confrontations,” Bray said. Still, there have been violent attacks. In 2012, militants from Anti-Racist Action, loosely associated with antifa, stormed a Chicago-area restaurant where a white-supremacist group was meeting, attacking with baseball bats and hammers and injuring several people; five of them pleaded guilty to armed violence. After President Trump’s inauguration in 2017, a masked activist punched neo-Nazi Richard Spencer in the face. The next month, a group of some 150 masked, black-clad activists interrupted what had been a peaceful protest against an appearance by right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos in Berkeley, Calif., throwing fireworks, smashing windows, and hurling rocks. Later that year, antifa activists battled white supremacists in
Charlottesville, Va.
What happened in Charlottesville?
Hundreds of counterprotesters, including some who identify as antifa, showed up at a Unite the Right white-supremacist
Boogaloo—which takes its name from the ridiculously titled 1984 movie sequel Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo— is a loosely organized, farright movement that includes gun enthusiasts and white supremacists who say they want to trigger a race war that will bring down the U.S. government. Like antifa, there are no formal leaders or organization, and most of the action seems to take place online. But many Boogaloo followers have appeared at Covid-19 lockdown protests, armed and wearing Hawaiian shirts, and some have now begun showing up at the ongoing protests against police brutality. In recent years, police say they have foiled several domestic terrorist plots by those claiming to follow the ideology. Last week, three ex-military men who police say self-identify as Boogaloo Bois were arrested on the way to a Las Vegas Black Lives Matter protest with full gas cans and Molotov cocktails in their car.