Identity Evropa

Identity Evropa
The Dragon's Eye is the symbol of Identity Evropa
Formation March 2016
Founder Nathan Damigo
Type Alt-right
Anti-capitalism
Neo-Nazism
White nationalism
White supremacism
Identitarianism
Purpose To spread support for white nationalism
Location
Membership
300 (claimed, as of February 2017)[1]
Key people
  • Founder and leader Nathan Damigo (2016 – Aug. 2017)
  • Leader Elliot Kline (Aug.–Nov. 2017) [2]
  • Leader Patrick Casey (Nov. 2017 – present)
Affiliations
  • Rise Above Movement [3]
Website www.identityevropa.com

Identity Evropa (/juːˈroʊpə/) is an American neo-Nazi[4][5][6][7] and white supremacist[7][8][9][10][11] organization established in March 2016. The group is identified as a white supremacist organization by the Anti-Defamation League[12][13] and is designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.[14][15]

Leaders and members of Identity Evropa, such as former leader Eli Mosley, have praised Nazi Germany and have openly pushed for what they say is the "Nazification of America".[6]

In an attempt to boost its numbers, Identity Evropa has allied itself with the broader white nationalist alt-right and identitarian movements,[8] and the group particularly targets college campuses,[14] by distributing slogans on fliers, posters, and stickers.[1][8][10] It is one of several groups which have contributed to the rapid growth of white nationalism in the U.S. since 2015.[14][16][17]

In March 2018, it was reported that the group was seeing steep declines in membership. The collapse has been seen in other alt-right groups, and has been attributed to widespread public backlash against neo-Nazism and white supremacy since the 2017 Charlottesville rally.[18]

History

The organization's founder, Nathan Damigo (/dəˈmɪɡoʊ/), is a self-described member of the identitarian movement.[17] Damigo grew up in San Jose, California,[17] and was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps from 2004 to 2007.[8] In November 2007, Damigo robbed a La Mesa, California, taxicab driver at gunpoint, believing that the man was Iraqi.[8][19] Damigo was convicted of armed robbery and was incarcerated for a year in county jail and four years in state prison.[17][8] He said of the event that "it's something that I'm certainly not proud of," attributing his behavior to "major issues" after returning from Iraq.[17]

In prison, Damigo began to read works by far-right figures, including former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke.[17][8] He was also influenced by J. Philippe Rushton and Nicholas Wade.[8] After being released from prison in 2014,[20] Damigo led the National Youth Front,[20][8] the youth wing of the American Freedom Party.[8] The group was classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Anti-Defamation League,[20] with the SPLC reporting that it was founded by "racist Southern California skinheads that aims to deport immigrants and return the United States to white rule."[8] The National Youth Front later disbanded.[20][8] Damigo founded Identity Evropa in March 2016.[8] His activities with "racist organizations" has been disavowed by his father.[21]

In the aftermath of the Unite the Right rally, the leadership position passed onto Elliot Kline, aka Eli Mosley.[2] The group participated in the planning for the October 19, 2017 speech by Richard B. Spencer, a white supremacist, at the University of Florida, where Mosley also spoke. In addition to Spencer and Mosley, the speakers included Mike Enoch, a white nationalist blogger.[22][23] The event drew about 2,500 protestors, vastly outnumbering Spencer's supporters.[24][25]

Views

Identity Evropa is a neo-Nazi and white supremacist group;[10][8][26] the organization and its leader Damigo espouse white supremacist[27] and white separatist views.[20][28] The group endorses racial segregation.[26] It "bills itself as a 'generation of awakened Europeans' who 'oppose those who would defame our history and rich cultural heritage'".[8] Damigo describes it as "an identitarian organization"[1] and says that the group's aim is to "act as a fifth column, over time shifting the edifice of our political establishment" in favor of what he describes as "pro-white" interests.[29] Identity Evropa's spokesman and director of administration, Reinhard Wolff, states that Identity Evropa is engaged in a "culture war" in an effort to create a "90 percent white" America.[28]

The white supremacist slogan "You will not replace us" originated from the group, according to the Anti-Defamation League, after Damigo and other members of Identity Evropa appeared on camera chanting the words during LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner's HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US project at New York's Museum of the Moving Image in February 2017.[30]

Identity Evropa excludes Jews from membership because Damigo regards Jews as non-white.[1][31] Only those "of European, non-Semitic heritage" may join the group.[8] Damigo claims that "Jewish power, Jewish influence" has "been extraordinarily negative for people of European heritage".[1] He has refused to say whether he acknowledges the Holocaust.[31][1]

The Anti-Defamation League has labeled Identity Evropa a white supremacist group,[32] and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks extremist groups in the United States, has designated it as a hate group.[33][34] Their campus-centric advertising posters depict photos of classical Greek sculptures of men overlaid with various short slogans which urge whites to embrace cultural elitism. Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the SPLC, states, "Identity Evropa is merely the latest iteration of the white-supremacist movement. Although you might think, based on their propaganda, that they're all about Plato and Aristotle and Socrates, in fact they're merely a gussied-up version of the Klan."[29] Anna North, writing in the New York Times, states that the group promotes racism under the guise of white racial pride and cultural identity for those who are of European ancestry.[35]

Activities

In December 2016, the group had roughly 200 members.[20] In a February 2017 interview, Damigo claimed a membership of 300.[1] The group has distributed fliers at on dozens of colleges campuses, including the University of Massachusetts Amherst, UCLA, Penn State, Ohio State, and the University of Washington.[10][1][33] According to an ADL count, Identity Evropa was by far the most active white supremacist group on college campuses in 2017, responsible for 158 of the 346 incidents nationwide of the posting of white supremacist propaganda fliers.[36] These fliers typically show photos of classical and neoclassical sculpture. According to art critic Ben Davis, the random use of dissimilar photos demonstrates a poor understanding of European culture and art history.[37]

At Ohio State, the group has considered seeking recognized student organization status.[32] The group's "#ProjectSiege" aims to "siege" college campuses with literature[32] in order to combat what Damigo describes as a "false anti-white narrative" by teachers, whom Damigo calls "charlatans."[29]

In late 2016, Damigo and Identity Evropa members traveled to Washington, D.C., for a post-election conference hosted by the white supremacist National Policy Institute, at which keynote speaker Richard B. Spencer and several other attendees rendered a Nazi salute.[20]

During the 2017 Berkeley protests, Damigo punched a young woman, captured on video that subsequently went viral.[38] Footage showed Damigo punching the woman in the face, then running away into the crowd.[27] The attack prompted calls for Damigo's arrest or expulsion from Cal State Stanislaus, where he is a student; the university subsequently said that it was investigating Damigo.[27]

Damigo has been identified as a leader in the August 2017 Unite the Right rally. A news source that has interviewed him states that "Damigo has made these rallies a key driver for recruiting new members of the group".[39] Additionally, Peter Cvjetanovic, one of the members of Identity Evropa, was dubbed as the "angry torch guy" in the Unite the Right rally.[40]

On July 28, 2018, around 45 members of Identity Evropa, some dressed as construction workers, demonstrated outside the Mexican consulate in Manhattan, New York City, holding large letters that spelled out "Build the Wall". The government of Mexico said it had written a diplomatic note to the U.S. State Department protesting the incident.[41] Later that day, a group of several dozen Identity Evropa members hung a banner in Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan. The banner, which said "Stop the invasion, end immigration", overlooked the Henry Hudson Parkway. The response of the Washington Heights and Inwood communities was to hold a "vigil against hate" at the same site on July 31.[42][43]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Harry Shukman (February 15, 2017). "Meet the neo-Nazi coming to put up white pride posters on your campus". The Tab US.
  2. 1 2 , Hatewatch, Southern Poverty Law Center, September 26, 2017
  3. ↑ Blades, Lincoln Anthony. "White Supremacists Don't Deserve Hugs". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2017-10-29.
  4. ↑ "Meet the neo-Nazi coming to put up white pride posters on your campus". The Tab US. 2017-02-15. Retrieved 2018-01-16.
  5. ↑ Baratti, Nina. "Stockton Investigating Unapproved White Supremacy Group Fliers on Campus". Retrieved 2018-01-16.
  6. 1 2 Kelley, Brendan (27 November 2017). "Identity Evropa's Controversial New Ringleader". Southern Poverty Law Center. But not that long ago, in spring of this year, Mosley a/k/a Kline wasn't shy about the bigotry in his polemics whatsoever. In a report for Andrew Anglin's Daily Stormer about a pro-Trump demonstration in March, Mosley wrote, "In Philadelphia, the city of faggotry love, played out an alliance between the Nazi led marchers and local police departments against their oven-dodging enemies… Spoiler, the Nazis won bigly." He continues, "This is a sign that we have moved into a new era in the Nazification of America. Normie Trump supporters are becoming racially aware and Jew Wise."
  7. 1 2 Gardner, Elena (2018-02-24). "White supremacist decals found at Gonzaga University". KXLY. Retrieved 2018-02-26.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Branson-Potts, Hailey (2016-12-07). "In diverse California, a young white supremacist seeks to convert fellow college students". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  9. ↑ Jones, Abigail (September 11, 2017). "Charlottesville are Coming back with a Vengeance". Newsweek. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Dugan Arnett (March 31, 2017). "For white nationalists, college campuses are a new recruiting ground". Boston Globe.
  11. ↑ "The Right Can't Ignore The Rise Of White Supremacy On Campus". The Federalist. 2018-02-07. Retrieved 2018-02-26.
  12. ↑ Susan Svrluga, 'Unprecedented effort' by 'white supremacists' to recruit and target college students, group claims, Washington Post (March 6, 2017).
  13. ↑ "Identity Evropa". Anti-Defamation League. New York, N.Y. Retrieved July 15, 2018.
  14. 1 2 3 Abigail Hauslohner (February 15, 2017). "Southern Poverty Law Center says American hate groups are on the rise". Washington Post.
  15. ↑ Sara Ganim, Chris Welch & Nathaniel Meyersohnl (February 15, 2017). "'A resurgence of white nationalism': Hate groups spiked in 2016". CNN.
  16. ↑ Sara Ganim, Chris Welch & Nathaniel Meyersohnl (February 15, 2017). "'A resurgence of white nationalism': Hate groups spiked in 2016". CNN.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Alexis Terrazas & Atticus Morris. "Alternate Reality: Growing acceptance of white nationalism in Trump's America". El Tecolote. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  18. ↑ Walters, Joanna (March 14, 2018). "Prominent US neo-Nazi arrested on domestic violence charge". The Guardian. Retrieved March 15, 2018. And the SPLC reported that its team monitoring far-right hate groups had seen recent signs on extremist chat boards that members of the racist US group Identity Evropa have been leaving in significant numbers.
  19. ↑ Sepulveda, John; Johnson, Bert (August 14, 2017). "Berkeley was training ground for some in Charlottesville protests — Berkeleyside". Berkeleyside.com. Berkeleyside. Retrieved August 16, 2017. During a psychological evaluation conducted for the court as part of the criminal case, Damigo said he attacked the cab driver, Changiz Ezzatyar, because he mistook him for an Iraqi.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Alex MacLean, White nationalist leader not from Sonora, Union Democrat (December 14, 2016).
  21. ↑ Gaffey, Conor (August 16, 2017) "Unite the Right Organizer Disavowed by Family After Charlottesville Violence" Newsweek
  22. ↑ "WATCH: Richard Spencer gets drowned out by boos at UF speech". 19 October 2017.
  23. ↑ "'Go home, racist!' Richard Spencer shouted down at University of Florida speech", USA Today
  24. ↑ "Richard Spencer Shouted Down in Florida, Cuts his Speech Short", Newsweek
  25. ↑ "Behind-scenes logistics at protest let officers control chaos", The Gainesville Sun
  26. 1 2 Cecilia Saixue Watt, Redneck Revolt: the armed leftwing group that wants to stamp out fascism, The Guardian (July 11, 2017).
  27. 1 2 3 Branson-Potts, Hailey (2017-04-17). "Cal State Stanislaus to investigate white supremacist student who punched woman in Berkeley melee". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  28. 1 2 Mike Anderson, Pro-white group puts up posters at Mines and BHSU, Rapid City Journal (March 5, 2017).
  29. 1 2 3 Nestel, M. L. (October 10, 2016). "Veteran Posts Signs at Colleges Telling Whites to Be 'Great Again'". The Daily Beast.
  30. ↑ "White Supremacists Adopt New Slogan: "You Will Not Replace Us"". ADL Blog. Anti-Defamation League. June 9, 2017.
  31. 1 2 Gabriel Thompson, Golden State of Hate: Extremism's Long History in California, Newsweek (February 28, 2017).
  32. 1 2 3 "White 'Identitarian' Group Identity Evropa Considers Seeking Student Org Recognition". Onward State. April 13, 2017.
  33. 1 2 "White supremacist posters appear at 2 South Dakota colleges". Associated Press. March 5, 2017.
  34. ↑ "White Nationalist". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved April 17, 2017.
  35. ↑ North, Anna (February 16, 2017). "'Let's Become Great Again,' the Flyers Said". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.
  36. ↑ Rachel Frazin, Identity Evropa Elicits Concern on Campus, U.S. News & World Report (February 21, 2018).
  37. ↑ Davis, Ben (7 March 2017). "White Nationalism's New Love of Art History, Decoded". artnet News. Retrieved 25 June 2018. But when you look into the sources, the images themselves suggest an awareness of this culture that doesn't go much deeper than visual cliché. Instead, what you find is a hodgepodge; an identity pieced together in internet forums, from tourist pictures and Google image searches; militant ignorance masquerading as tradition.
  38. ↑ Christin Ayers, Viral Video Shows Student White Supremacist Sucker-Punch Berkeley Anti-Trump Protester, CBS San Francisco (KPIX-TV/KCBS) (April 16, 2017).
  39. ↑ Johnson, Bert. "Californian Who Helped Lead Charlottesville Protests Used Berkeley as a Test Run". KQED News. Retrieved August 17, 2017.
  40. ↑ Khan, Shehab (August 14, 2017). "Charlottesville photo: Man shouting angrily at white supremacist rally insists he is not an 'angry racist'". The Independent. Retrieved August 14, 2018.
  41. ↑ Reuters. "Mexico Condemns Anti-Immigrant Chants Outside New York Consulate". The New York Times. Retrieved July 30, 2018.
  42. ↑ Del Signore, John {July 31, 2018) "White Supremacists Unfurl Anti-Immigration Banner In Fort Tryon Park" Gothamist
  43. ↑ Ramey, Corinne (July 31, 2018). "White Nationalists Rally in Liberal New York". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved July 31, 2018.


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