Underneath my yellow skin

My Thoughts on Punching a Nazi in the Face

raise a fist of defiance!
Unite in the fight.

A few weeks ago, there was a video of Richard Spencer, a self-proclaimed white supremacist*, being interviewed on his views when someone comes up and cold-cocks him in the head. Many liberals gleefully passed it along on social media, crowing over this asshole getting his. Predictably, conservatives denounced the action, and even some liberals tsk-tsked, saying that violence was not the answer. A debate raged on Twitter whether it was OK to punch a Nazi in the face or not.

Around the same time, the story of two Dutch sisters who were part of the resistance as teenagers was also circulating around the interwebs. They were recruited to be part of the resistance because it was believed that no one would think teenage girls were part of the resistance. Truus and Freddie Oversteegen were 16 and 14 respectively when they joined the resistance. Can you imagine doing such a thing at that age? If they were caught, they would most certainly have been imprisoned or killed. Their family had been hiding Jews before this, and their mother readily agreed to let them join the resistance. Truus, the older girl, would flirt with Nazi collaborators and invite them for a stroll in the woods while Freddie, the younger sister, would keep an eye out on her sister. Once Truus and the collaborator went into the woods, one of men of the resistance would fabricate an excuse to shoo Truus away before shooting the Nazis. There was no push back to this story, and rightly so. These girls were very brave and heroes, and they should be remembered as such.

The thing is, though, we have the luxury of knowing the outcome to the second story. We know the Nazis were horrible people and did terrible things, so any story of ordinary people resisting them is something to be celebrated. However, I’m sure there were plenty of people at the time who would have been horrified and/or scared if they’d known. It’s not as clear in the moment what is the right or wrong thing to do. I bring it up because all the people right now who are saying violence is not the answer and that we should talk to white supremacists in hope of changing their minds probably would have been saying the same thing back then.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Fascism doesn’t come in one fell swoop. It’s done in incremental steps. It wasn’t full-on Hitler from the first day, which is sometimes how we Americans imagine it. “This couldn’t happen in America!” we declare as we read about concentration camps and gas ovens. But, it has happened here in different ways, and it’s happening right now.

One thing that has stayed in mind during this debate is how we as a society denounce the actions of the oppressed, including but not exclusively, violence, but we allow the violence of the majority to flourish unchecked. It’s partly because we have a basic idea of what violence is. It’s a punch in the face. It’s setting a building on fire. It’s firing a gun at someone. By the way, you are a kajillion** times more likely to die by a gunshot wound in America than to be killed by a terrorist, and yet, we know how much Americans fucking love their guns. It’s the same reason Americans are more afraid of flying than driving, but that’s another post for another day.

Violence is more than a physical expression. Passing laws that are based on the sub-humanity of certain groups of people is an expression of violence because the end result is the same as punching them in the face. In some ways, it’s worse because you can recover from a punch–being systematically oppressed on a daily basis is harder to combat. It’s also more diabolical because the creators of such laws (and executive orders, ahem) can sit back and say, “Hey, I didn’t lay a hand on them” while watching the mayhem and distraction he’s created wreak their havoc on his intended victims. I would call it Machiavellian, but I don’t think this president knows the meaning of the word, and to be fair to him, he’s not the only politician by far to use this method to enact his horrifying world view.

“I’m just following orders” and “I’m just doing my job” are covers for doing awful things. One of my tweets this week that went viral*** said this:

Again, it’s not my funniest tweet or my most elegant tweet, but it’s never been truer than right now. This is a fascist regime that aims to rule by fear and fiat. Anyone who stands up to it, such as the former acting US AG Sally Yates, will suffer the wrath of the regime. She refused to enact the Muslim ban, and this president fired her, citing her insubordination. Her job is to defend the Constitution, not to be at the president’s beck and call. She did her job, and she was punished for it.

Speaking of the ban, it’s an act of psychic violence because the goal of it is to make anyone who’s different afraid. Right now, it’s Muslims (even though it’s purportedly not aimed at Muslims, which is utter bullshit. By the way, a term we all need to learn is gaslighting. It’s a way of manipulating someone to question their own sanity, usually by denying the reality of that person’s situation. Our president and his team are doing this on a daily basis, and we have to call it out for what it is), but the underlying message is if you displease this president, you could be next. It’s especially hard because I’m a Taiwanese American queer unmarried agnostic female, and the child of immigrants (who are now American citizens, but that doesn’t seem to matter), so I’m freaking out about so many of this regime’s actions. In addition, I’m not a climate change denier, and I care a lot about our environment and animals. And our children. It’s really hard to feel at all optimistic about the next few years.

I’m terrified, even if it’s not mostly on my own behalf. I was born in America and am not Muslim or black, so I’m not yet afraid that I’ll be whisked away somewhere forever and without access to a lawyer. However, some of the Muslims being questioned at airports have been citizens, and that hasn’t stopped them from being mistreated. All it would take is for this president to decide that Taiwanese people are the enemy or to not realize the difference between Taiwanese and Chinese, and I could be next on the list of enemy combatants. Less selfishly, my heart is breaking for Muslim Americans who are having their families ripped apart by this inhuman executive order. A five-year -old boy in handcuffs? An eleven-month-old baby separated from her mother and not allowed to breastfeed? This is inhumane. Full stop. I don’t know how anyone can read these stories and not be simultaneously heartbroken and outraged.

The worst part is that this ban is all for show. 9/11 would not have been prevented by this ban because the terrorists of that attack did not come from any of the seven countries on the list. In fact, seven of the twelve were born in the United States. The one country that has sent more terrorists here than any other is Saudi Arabia, and it’s not on the list. Care to guess why this is? Hint: he has business deals there. You be the judge. In addition, white extremists have committed almost twice as many terrorist attacks**** in America as have Muslims, and most of our spree killings are committed by white men, so maybe we should enact a ban on them? I’m being cheeky, but there’s a thread of seriousness running through my question. Why aren’t we scrutinizing white Christian men more carefully given all the destruction they’ve wreaked? Because they’re the norm, so we don’t see them as a group, but as individuals. Any time a white Christian man goes on a shooting spree, we don’t demand that all white Christians answer for him, but we do the same with Muslims or any other oppressed groups. We demonize them and lump them all in the same group, and taken to the extreme, we deny them their humanity and ban them.

That is violence, even if it’s state-sponsored. Especially since it’s state-sponsored. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s moral.

Back to the question I posed at the beginning of this post. Is it OK to punch a Nazi in the face?

My answer: It’s not OK to be a Nazi. Or a white supremacist. Or a fascist. When our media treats it as if it’s a legitimate viewpoint, they are doing a great disservice to the American people. They should not be interviewing Richard Spencer on national TV. He should be shunned from polite society and not allowed to talk in public. There are some ideas that are beyond the pale, and debating them as if they’re valid is not an option. I want white supremacists to be afraid to voice their opinions in public. I want them to feel the fear that they’ve inflicted on people in minority groups, even if it’s just a fraction. I want them to think twice before talking about how white people are superior to black people, and I want them to know there are real consequences for saying that shit out loud–and for acting on it. We all saw the punch and reacted to it, but what about all the vile things he’s said and done that led up to that point?

“Minna,” I hear you saying to yourself. “You haven’t answered the question about whether it’s OK to punch a Nazi in the face. Stop being so evasive!”

I’m not evading; I’m pausing for dramatic effect. Here’s my answer to that question: I don’t care, and I think focusing on it detracts from the actual issues at hand. Even more plainly, while I wasn’t gleeful about it at the time as some liberals were, I couldn’t be bothered to get upset about it. With all that is going on, it’s very low on my list of things about which I give a damn. I’m not shedding any tears for Richard Spencer; I’m saving them for the people hurt by this administration.

 

 

*He’s tried to backpedal on the label, but it is what he is.

**Roughly 3,000 times more likely, to be a bit more precise.

***Not one of my better tweets, by the way. It’s rather annoying that the tweets I like best get overlooked while a tweet I just dash off gets so much attention.

****Strict definition of terrorism. I would argue the number should be even higher.

8 Responses to My Thoughts on Punching a Nazi in the Face

  1. I’d be interested to hear what you think of my take on this.

    For me, this is a no brainer. It was not okay to punch him. That’s not because it’s never okay to punch anyone. Sometimes it’s okay to punch somebody. But it’s never okay to run up to someone and punch him because you think he is Richard Spencer and you think Richard Spencer is a Nazi. It’s not okay to punch a Nazi anytime you want.

    • Hi, Thomas. Thank you for commenting. As I said in my post, I don’t think it’s the right question to focus on because it ignores the frustration and the systemic oppression that leads up to the point of that punch. Personally, I want Richard Spencer and his ilk to feel fear for espousing their white nationalistic/genocidal bullshit in public, and I’m not sure how that can be accomplished if he does not fear some kind of repercussion, physical or otherwise, for his opinions.

      I don’t entirely disagree with you in that I’m uncomfortable with vigilante justice, but I’m more uncomfortable with allowing fascism to be discussed as just another viable, if loathsome, idea. I would like to believe there is a middle ground, but I haven’t found it yet, especially when our media will always give a platform to people like Spencer for the clicks and the ratings.

      • Thanks for responding. I of course respect your right to refuse to discuss fascism with someone who is actually proposing it as a political option.

        But my question isn’t really about who it’s okay to hit. It’s about how hard it is okay to hit him. In my post, I ask people who think it was okay to punch him (or people who don’t care that he got punched) whether they would feel the same about blindsiding him with a baseball bat, or even just shooting him. Or whether it would be okay to punch him on a daily basis, making his life like that of the classic bullied kid in the schoolyard. Every day he leaves his home knowing that he’s going to get punched.

        I just can’t get someone’s inner life (his opinions) to justify even the mildest kind of physical harassment. After all, at a certain point we can’t even know whether he’s changed his mind. We’re not talking to him.

        • In answer to your question about how hard to hit him, my honest answer is, I don’t know. I’m not a fan of physical violence, and I think it’s a last resort. That’s why I wasn’t gleeful when Spencer got punched. I do struggle with the point you mentioned–how far should the violence go without coming up with a satisfactory answer. However, I do believe that Spencer and his ilk are wreaking emotional and systematic violence on various minority groups, which is why I can understand a violent response. Am I OK with Spencer and others like him feeling a tenth of what many marginalized people feel on a daily basis? Yes, I am, uneasily so. Do I think talking to him would change his mind? It might, but I’m not the person to do it. If others want to try, I welcome them to give it their best shot.

          At any rate, thank you for the thoughtful counter-opinion. I appreciate an honest and open dialogue.

          • Likewise, thanks.

            Like I say, it’s simple for me because I don’t think people should be punched merely for holding opinions, nor even for making bad policy. They should only be punched when the moment calls for it. And then the moment will also tell you how hard to punch. That’s how violence works.

            For the rest, we really are stuck with talking. If you punch Nazis just for standing there talking (while being Nazis) then you’re handing them an excuse to organize squads of Brownshirts to defend them. I, for one, am less afraid of their ideas than their organization.

  2. […] I wrote a longform thinkpiece in the same vein after someone punched Richard Spencer in the face. I tried to explain why dismissing this as ‘just words’ is dangerous, and while I’m not completely satisfied with the piece, it still does get at the heart of why I believe sometimes words are more than ‘just words’. Gathering for the explicit purpose of terrifying a minority group of people should not be protected under free speech because that’s what terrorism is. […]

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