Bix dot Blog

While the image that comes to mind when most people think about “antifa” is a legion of black-clad militants ready to throw punches, this kind of research is antifascist work too. In fact, monitoring is integral to antifascist operations. Antifa is a series of organizing tactics and an ethos, not any specific organization; while any decentralized group encompasses a variety of ideas, antifa consists of opposing fascist groups by any means available, including, if necessary, violence. For many antifascists, however, infiltration, monitoring, and research are their primary or sole ways of engaging in antifascism. Fighting militant fascist groups is a large and complicated endeavor, and while aiming a fist at a Nazi’s face can be part of that opposition, it is only one way. Just as other forms of social activism require a diversity of tactics—the protester who marches, the planner who puts together a city budget to defund police forces, the person who attends city council meetings—so too does antifascism. The research is unglamorous, exhausting, and involves psychologically torturous degrees of deception. You have to expose yourself to a disgusting mass of racist bile, which takes a grinding toll on the spirit. It also must be done carefully: Members of far-right groups can and do target activists and their families with death threats, harassment, and even violence.

—Talia Lavin, in “How to Be an Antifascist From Your Couch”