Posted: 10/4/2017 2:29:00 PM
Author: Ian Miles Cheong
Source: This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller website on sept. 28, 2017.
NYU Librarian Endorses Antifa Violence As Necessary For Social Justice
by Ian Miles Cheong
A New York University librarian wrote an essay earlier this month endorsing and justifying political violence from the far-left extremist movement, Antifa, praising it as “vitally worth doing.”
Writing on her personal website, former corporate litigator and current Scholarly Communications Librarian at NYU April Hathcock wrote that she “doesn’t care” about the violence conducted by members of Antifa because it’s for the greater good of social justice.
In her essay, titled “On Antifa and Social Justice Struggle,” Hathcock decries “white supremacists and other Trumpsters” for condemning Antifa (whom she refers to as “anti-fascist resistance groups”) for their violence — aimed mainly against white men.
“Apparently, some of their tactics have involved violence,” writes Hathcock, whose essay was first highlighted on Campus Reform Thursday. “I don’t know, I haven’t been keeping tabs on all their actions. But I have seen all the finger-wagging hot-take think pieces from both sides of the political divide.”
“And to be quite honest, I just don’t care,” she says. “I don’t care what or how Antifa is fighting oppression. I’m more interested in the age-old narrative emerging here in which the oppressed are only allowed to fight oppression in ways deemed acceptable by the oppressor. This is a tone-policing tale as old as time.”
“Tone-policing” is what happens when two people have an argument and one of them starts yelling. When the other person tells them to calm down and be civil, the action is considered “tone-policing.”
Citing historical individuals like Nat Turner and the Black Panther party, Hathcock claims that “fighting oppression is messy.” “It’s not always going to be done right or peacefully or with perfect grace,” she says. “And that’s okay. It’s still vitally worth doing.”
Hathcock dismisses the idea of peaceful protest, calling it ineffective because “even peaceful movements get denigrated as divisive and dangerous,” citing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for being jailed multiple times despite his peaceful rallies, and NFL player Colin Kaepernick for being out of work after kneeling for the national anthem.
She also takes the opportunity to attack liberals who aren’t extreme leftists for their refusal to support violence.
So, you’ll excuse me if I refuse to care about what Antifa has or hasn’t done. You’ll excuse me if I choose to take those finger-wagging hot-take think pieces by so-called liberal allies and toss them right into the rubbish bin. Because I know what they’re really saying. Violence against oppression is just as bad as violence within oppression. Translation: I’m all for anti-oppressive praxis as long as it leaves my privileged comfort bubble intact.
Hathcock concludes her essay by asserting the necessity of violence against oppression with a quote from Frederick Douglas. “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
