Skin in the Game: Working Class Insights and Updates from the Proud Boys Whisperer

Threat Assessment Training Presentation April 2019

Good Evening,

If you would have told me that I was not going to be a dance therapist in 2016, that instead I would become a countering violent extremism researcher, I would not have believed you.

I have my first psychology professor to thank for helping me fall in love with the empirical side of helping people, along with all of my mentors who have shaped the trajectory of my work.

I know this work is important. This is the path I’ve chosen and I accept the inherent difficulties and uncertainties associated with.

I’ve spoken truth to power to defend my research when being told to bite my tongue and I would do it again. I refuse to compromise my integrity for a higher paycheck or an academic stipend.

If you are doing the right thing, for the right reasons, you will go much farther than someone with more nefarious motivations. I am grateful to my patrons, and others who understand what I am trying to accomplish and have been with me since January when I started a patreon account.

Your support enables me to continue/survive this summer until I am funded for my research.

I am grateful for the academics who understand the people in the field should be consulted, trusted, and not seen as any less academically rigorous. If our work can be cited by for profit tracking organizations, if we know enough to push back against two dimensional representations of Incel members and consult with news outlets, than our work has value deserving of compensation and citation.

Allow me to clarify my position. I am an academic (Psych B.A., Com M.A.) who became more public facing when an online ethnographic research project nearly went awry.

My Encounter With Gavin McInnes

In November of 2017, I was pulled into a public space by a man who could not handle the questions I asked him. He initially engaged with me in the hopes of redpilling me, of portraying himself as a victim of the liberal media and his Proud Boys as a misunderstood fraternal drinking organization.

When he realized I was studying the group as a radicalization vector, when he saw de-identified interview transcripts attesting to the radicalization of some of his boys, he did what every free speech absolutist would do: he weaponized my university’s complaint system in an attempt to shut down my research project.

He claimed I was “Starting a war,” I, “couldn’t finish,” before attempting to destroy my credibility as a researcher.

FIGHTING WITH THE MEDIA AND ACADEMICS

Thankfully, his plan backfired.

McInnes inadvertently strengthened my IRB protocol, and allowed me to share my insights on the Chilling Effect at a 2018 conference, for which I won a research integrity award for persisting against the chilling effect. It also won the trust of some of my research participants, who felt his characterization of me was unfair.

After they realized I was not a rogue researcher, my university came to understand the following: the truth can never be defamation.

Over a year has passed since I was approved by my review board to continue my research project. On July 6th, 2019, I watched footage of the Proud Boy’s Demand Free Speech rally from my teammates’ hotel room. I saw the signature black and yellow Fred Perrys…and then I saw him.

The irony of McInnes showing his face at a free speech event does not elude me.

Neither does his endorsement of the group he claimed to leave. And yet his group still seems to mystify reporters and prominent extremism researchers without subject matter expertise in regard to the group.

Here are some of my key findings from my ethnographic research (2017-Present)

• Being of another race, class, ethnicity, or gender does not absolve an individual of being a bigot.
• The Alt Light Distinction is irrelevant, and designed to mainstream Proud Boys further, as the Alt Right term did for white nationalists and neo nazis.
• The concept of a multi racial white supremacist organization will take some time for the public to get used to, but it is an accurate description of the group.
• Proud Boys are not just a men’s group, they are a Violent Crypto Fascist Extremist Organization, meaning the FBI’s original classification of the group was accurate and should be re-instated.
• You do not need to identify as a nazi (SS), white nationalist (WN), or white supremacist (WS) to support the implications of SS/WN/WS ideology. This involves the structural violence that dehumanizes asylum seekers, endangers marginilized communities and prevents experts from utilizing best practices to combat violent extremism.
• You cannot champion free speech while aggressively policing it in others.
• Freedom to impose only one narrow view of the world on others is not freedom, it is objectively fascism.
• The far right are better organized and without some efforts to unify the left, they will be successful in their efforts to mainstream hatred, bigotry, and violent extremism.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will be gathering receipts to generously support these claims. To do this, I will triangulate from multiple sources, in addition to my own data.

Supporting each claim made about the Proud Boys with extensive evidence reduces the liklihood of it becoming fodder for far right propogandists like Andy Ngo and Tim Pool.

OSINT Tracking Updates

I am clearing the small backlog of incidents in the US that have occured from June-July. After struggling with custom coding since February, we will be moving our web dashboard to another plartform.

Web Dashboard Resource Updates

To be fully comprehensive, this new website will need the following:

• Word Press Website Subscription: $300
• Libsyn Subscription: $180
• Proton Mail Subscripton: ~$60 US
• Digital Audio Rcorder: $34

Conferences I’ve been asked to present my findings on which I cannot afford.

• ATAP Threat Assessment Conference Travel, Hotel, and Registration: ~$1,500
• NCA Annual Conference: Travel, Registration, & Hotel: ~700

Why the public dashboard will take longer than expected.

There is no web crawler I can use to input and analyze incidents because of the variations in journal, in phrasing, in reporting, and in coverage. I assess, input, and analyze every incident manually, adding a notification update through twitter with pertinent details on the public facing map.

I then add it to the private dashboard with all information available.

I am revising the first statistical analysis conducted with my data set, which has shown promising results. The fascism index is making progress.

If I were compensating myself for my time with normal consulting rates, the amount for 10 hours a week would equate to $800. I put in far more than that each week. The monthly amount I earn is less than one fifth of what I would earn in one week at my consulting rates.

Without accounting for basic survival needs, which are less than $600 a month, materials, and travel funds for each project amount to roughly $2,600. For a recent graduate deferring her PhD to gain more fieldwork experience, these efforts become impossible without external support.

But I work regardless, My teammates have taken to calling me by my Hebrew name whenever they want me to stop working. I pretend not to hear immediately, so I can respond to the last email, DM, or call.

Here are other projects I will start in the near future.

• I will be writing a grant proposal for the CVE organization I’ve been consulting with because I believe in their vision and the team I am a part of.
• I will be combing through hours of interview tapes with an individual, who played a key role in the Unite the Right Rally.
• I will be writing a brief which will inform the public about Proud Boys as they began, evolved, diminished, and are trying to return to the election cycle to recruit more members and recoup their losses.

Under the Trump administration, we all have skin in the game, and we all have something to contribute.

If you are in a position to provide financial support, send a one time contribution through Venmo: @ashkenaz89.

If you cannot provide support financially, there are other ways to contribute.

• Share the information you have with me through Twitter/signal DM or email. Info: samantha@proudboyswhisperer.com.
• Spread awareness of my academic and #OSINT research on and offline.
• When you can, listen to others with different viewpoints, persist against the initial discomfort against these types of interactions, and innoculate yourself against misinformation and propoganda. With enough practice, you may be in a position to combat misinformation the next time you see it.

That’s all for now. I hope you’ll keep fighting the good fight with me.