Last Thursday, June 9, 2022, the special commission of the United States House of Representatives investigating the attempted of coup d'etat on January 6, 2021, held its first public hearing, out of a total of eight scheduled sessions during June 2022, to bring to light the facts that until then were unknown to the population about the invasion of the Capitol. The first hearing was broadcast live on numerous news networks across the country, except Fox News, which continues to support Donald Trump’s false allegations of fraud.

According to the New York Times, the meeting chaired by Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson (MI) and Republican maverick Liz Cheney (WY), the testimonies and images that are being released reinforced the thesis that the capitol invasion was not spontaneous, but strongly encouraged by Donald Trump and organized by radical groups. He drew attention to the fact that Ivana Trump, the former president's daughter, said that she disagreed with the arguments about electoral fraud that had harmed Trump's re-election. A second fact worth noting is that two far-right paramilitary organizations, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, planned sabotage actions to prevent Biden from being nominated by the Senate.

Even though the public hearings are still in progress, the theme that emerged from the first session is of particular interest to the Latino Observatory: the performance of far-right groups that count on the participation of Latinos/Hispanics, such as the specific case of “Proud Boys”, led activist by Cuban-American Enrique Tarrio, whose profile we highlight in this weekly website update.

The Proud Boys militia was mentioned directly by Donald Trump during the election debate held on September 30, 2022. As reported by Reuters, “Debate moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was willing to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and tell them to ‘stand down’ and not add to violence during recent protests in U.S. cities such as Portland, Oregon, and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Trump agreed to do that, asking, ‘Who would you like me to condemn?’ Biden interjected: ‘The Proud Boys’.’ Trump then urged the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,”. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what. Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left because this is not a rightwing problem.’ In a Proud Boys channel on the messaging app Telegram, members shared a version of their logo that included the words “stand back, stand by” following Trump’s remarks. Joe Biggs, a Proud Boys member, celebrated the group’s mention on the social media platform Parler, saying: “President Trump told the proud boys to stand by because someone needs to deal with ANTIFA...well sir! we’re ready!’”.

According to Wikipedia, The Proud Boys is an American far-right, neo-fascist, and exclusively male organization that promotes and engages in political violence in the United States. Five leaders of the group, including its former chairman, were federally indicted on seditious conspiracy charges in June 2022, for their alleged roles in the 2021 United States Capitol attack. The group originated in the far-right Taki's Magazine in 2016 under the leadership of Vice Media co-founder and former commentator Gavin McInnes, taking its name from the song "Proud of Your Boy" from the 2011 Disney musical Aladdin. Although the Proud Boys initially emerged as part of the alt-right, McInnes distanced himself from this movement in early 2017, saying the Proud Boys were alt-lite while the alt-right's focus was on race. The re-branding effort intensified following the white supremacist Unite the Right rally. Enrique Tarrio, an afro-cuban-american, has been the chairman of the Proud Boys since late 2018. According to a former federal prosecutor and the transcripts of a 2014 federal court proceeding, Tarrio had previously served as an informant to both federal and local law enforcement. 

On the profile traced by the newspaper The Guardian, “The Proud Boys, for those unfamiliar, are a self-described “western chauvinist” men’s club established in 2016 by Gavin McInnes. The group sometimes paints itself as a wacky fraternal organization; in practice, it is much closer to a street gang, and McInnes has publicly described the group as a gang. Their gatherings tend to involve large amounts of drinking and violence. Members partake in unusual rituals to gain status within the group. They have a uniform (Fred Perry shirts), gang colors (black and yellow) and a mascot/symbol (a cockerel). Traditionally, the Proud Boys would be considered nothing more than a modernized version of racist skinheads. They package themselves, however, in a hipster persona that uses humor and irony to spread far-right talking points opposing feminism, immigration, political correctness and establishment politics.”

In 2019 and 2020, the Proud Boys were involved in clashes against the Black Lives Matter movement in several cities across the United States. On December 12, 2020, they attacked Ashbury United Methodist Church, the oldest black church in Washington, D.C., after participating in a pro-Trump rally and reviewing election results. Because of this event, Enrique Tarrio was arrested on January 4, 2021, and released on bail. Because of this, he was not directly involved in the attack on the Capitol, as justice forbade him to return to Washington (D.C.). On July 19, 2021, he pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of property and a reduced charge of attempting to possess a high-capacity power supply device. On August 23, 2021, Tarrio was sentenced to 155 days in prison.

This is a thought-provoking question because, as Enrique Tarrio defines himself, he has Latin and Afro-Cuban origins, which would place him in the opposite camp of Anglo-Saxon white supremacists, also known as "red neck." However, like Tarrio, many other Hispanics/Latinos have embraced the far-right movements, particularly the Cuban exile and Venezuelan newcomer communities in Florida who fear the "communism" supposedly represented by the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

This week, on June 14, a very significant event was associated with the adhesion of segments of Latino communities with radical conservative groups: Republican Mayra Flores, an anti-abortion and pro-gun activist, defeated Democratic candidate Dan Sanchez in the election. That filled the vacancy in the 34th District for the House of Representatives following the resignation of the incumbent, Filemon Vela (D). Flores' victory was considered historical, as Democrats had long held hegemony in this region of South Texas. It is even more significant because there is a large concentration of Mexican immigrants in this district, who have a different political and demographic profile than Cubans. In the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden won Texas’ 34th district by only 4 points in the 2020 election.

To think about the phenomenon of why Latinos, including Afro-Cubans, adhere to the extreme right, we use the reflection extracted from the report by Marcela García, columnist for the Boston Globe newspaper, in which she analyzes explicitly the case of Enrique Tarrio in verifying anti-black prejudice in sectors of the Latino community. She begins the text by calling attention to the participation of the Proud Boys and Tarrio in acts against the manifestations of the Black Lives Matter movement that took place in Miami on May 25, 2021, and asks the following question: why a person from a marginalized group and would the oppressed identify with the ideology of white supremacy?

Despite Tarrio's many participations in far-right acts, he seeks to refute the accusations of being a white supremacist by stating: “I'm very dark, I'm Cuban, there's nothing white supremacist about me”. Marcela Garcia states, “Of course, the Proud Boys’ links to white supremacist activism and violence were well documented, even before the January 6, 2021, insurgency far-right groups are attractive to dark-skinned Latinos like Tarrio”.

Garcia interviews Fordham University School of Law law professor Tanya Katerí Hernández, author of the book “Racial Innocence: Unmasking Latino Anti-Black Bias and the Struggle for Equality”, in which she analyzes the false perception that being mixed-race Latinos, there would be no space between them for the racism that marks American society. Thus, according to Hernandez, "Latinos could not be discriminatory, but there is embedded in much of our language and many of our actions many anti-black and prejudiced attitudes."

In addition to Tarrio, Garcia’s text cites other examples of Latinos involved with the racist far-right, such as Colombian-born Juan Cadavid, who participated in violent pro-Trump clashes in Southern California in 2017; Alex Michael Ramos, a Puerto Rican from Georgia who beat up young black man DeAndre Harris during the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, also in 2017; and Nick Fuentes, the young white nationalist influencer of Mexican-American descent. For Professor Hernandez, what drives a person of color to participate in violence against racial minorities is unconscious self-defense because “what is the best way to distance yourself from feeling part of an oppressed group? It is aligning with those who are part of the oppressors”.

In this context, where social networks contribute to people's political radicalization and tribalization, hate speeches gain ground, along with conspiracy theories such as Q-Anon and the “Great Replacement”, which are instrumentalized by the extreme right. On the side of progressive segments, there is also intense atomization around identity agendas. As these agendas advance in political debate, they attract even more hatred and resentment from those who fear changes in the status quo with the rise of new groups and dissenting voices.