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Counter-protest drowns out small Washington neo-Nazi rally
WASHINGTON, Aug 13, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A white supremacist rally outside the
White House fizzled out Sunday after only a handful of neo-Nazis showed up
and were massively outnumbered by hundreds of counter-protesters.
In an effort to avoid a repeat of the chaos of a deadly protest in
Charlottesville, Virginia exactly a year ago, Washington police closed
streets and threw a ring of steel across a public park to make sure the white
supremacists and rowdy counter-protesters did not come into contact.
Officers used pepper spray toward the end of the demonstrations, targeting
a group of black-clad anti-fascists who scuffled with police a few blocks
from the White House, but the day appeared to end without major incident.
Early in the afternoon, about 20 white nationalists trickled in from
nearby Vienna, Virginia — under heavy police escort — at Washington’s Foggy
Bottom Metro station, as a larger group of at least 300 counter-protesters
awaited them, shouting “Shame!” and “Get out of my city!” and jeering them
loudly.
After marching to Lafayette Square in front of the White House, the small
group was driven in police vans back to a different train station.
“Behold the master race,” one counter-protester mockingly yelled.
By the end of the day, only a smaller group of six individuals remained,
ashen-faced as a crowd of about 200 counter-protesters screamed at them,
separated by scores of police officers.
Heavy rain helped bring the so-called United the Right demonstration to an
early end, hours before the scheduled finish of what had been billed as a
“white civil rights rally” protesting, among other things, the social media
shut down of some voices on the extreme right.
At Freedom Plaza, located on one end of Pennsylvania Avenue that leads to
the US Capitol, a few hundred counter-protesters of all ages, including
children and retirees, gathered in a seemingly light-hearted atmosphere.
One group danced in the street.
“The US is for all of us, NOT just some of us,” one sign read, while
another said, “Fighting Nazis: An American Tradition.”
Last year, torch-bearing white supremacists marched through
Charlottesville in two days of chaos that culminated with a man driving a car
into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 people.
In that case, some of the white supremacists carried guns, including
assault rifles, but all firearms were barred from Sunday’s rally.
Charlottesville police faced massive criticism for their response and
their failure to keep demonstrators and counter-protesters apart.
Washington police, who had begun massing near Lafayette Square as early as
8:00 am, appeared intent on avoiding the same pitfalls.
– ‘Like Nazi Germany’ –
Kei Pritsker, 22, a Washington-area volunteer for the Answer Coalition
that organized this year’s counter-protest, said it was necessary to send a
strong message to neo-Nazi sympathizers.
MORE/MSY/0836 hrs
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“It would be a major mistake if we allowed fascists to just walk into the
nation’s capital and go in unopposed,” he said.
The white supremacist movement is enjoying a greater sense of empowerment
under President Donald Trump, he added.
“When Trump was elected, a lot of those people that were harboring a lot
of racist sentiments felt like, because they had a president’s backing, they
could just go out and say this stuff,” Pritsker said.
In the immediate aftermath of last year’s march, Trump drew broad
criticism when he appeared initially reluctant to condemn the extreme right-
wingers — many of whom have rallied behind him since his election.
On Saturday, the president issued a generic condemnation of “all types of
racism and acts of violence” via Twitter.
A black man at the counter-protest who would only give his name as Jim
said America feels more racist under Trump.
“It has emboldened white folks now. If they are walking down the sidewalk,
their position is you better get out of the way,” he told AFP.
“It was subtle, now it’s not subtle, it’s in your face. It’s like Nazi
Germany.”
Washington’s population is about 50 percent black.
– Wearing masks –
Rally organizers encouraged supporters to bring only US or Confederate
flags — not neo-Nazi emblems — and cautioned them to avoid reacting angrily
to counter-protesters.
The few demonstrators who showed up for the most part wore masks or
concealed their faces. Counter-protesters ridiculed the group for not having
the courage to show their faces.
Their police escort was such that it was all but impossible to get close
enough to interview any of them.
Trump has retweeted white nationalist material, said Mexicans crossing the
US border are rapists and drug dealers, and tweeted demeaning descriptions of
black athletes and politicians.
A black former White House aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman, wrote in an
upcoming memoir that Trump repeatedly uttered a racial slur while making his
hit reality TV show “The Apprentice” prior to his presidential run, and that
there are tapes to prove it. Trump called her a “lowlife.”
BSS/AFP/MSY/0836 hrs