http://observers.france24.com/en/20181019-proud-boys-gavin-mciness-new-yorkSupporters of a far-right group called the Proud Boys were filmed kicking and punching three men curled up on the pavement in Manhattan’s Upper East Side on the evening of October 12. In the videos, some of the assailants can be heard yelling homophobic slurs and cheering. The incident, which was caught on camera by several people, reveals the group’s violent tendencies, according to some experts who study the far-right in the United States.
The incident took place moments after the end of a speaking event featuring the Proud Boys’ leader, Gavin McIness, who was one of the founders of VICE media, but left the company in 2008. McIness founded the Proud Boys in 2016, following Trump’s election. The Proud Boys self-describe as “Western chauvinists” and say they are a fraternal organization promoting “anti-political correctness” and “anti-white guilt”. They deny all accusations of racism and distance themselves from the “alt-right”.
However, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which monitors extremists in the United States, has classified the Proud Boys as a hate group, “because of its frequent denigration of Muslims and Islam, misogynistic rhetoric and its role as a ‘gateway’ group to other extremist groups,” said Keegan Hankes, senior research analyst for the SPLC.
On the evening of October 12, McIness had been invited by the Metropolitan Republican Club to give a lecture about Otoya Yamaguchi, a teenaged Japanese ultranationalist who assassinated a Socialist leader with a sword in1960. (On his Instagram page, McIness called this an “inspiring moment”). The night before the lecture, the club was vandalized with anti-fascist graffiti; police say that vandals dressed in black also threw bricks through the club’s windows and glued the locks on its doors.
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