Another journalist assaulted by idiot protestor

Chase Karacostas (l) & Eric Nava-Perez
[source 1 | source 2]

There are two main schools of thought for dealing with racial supremacists and fascists. There’s the pragmatic argument, which states we should rebuke their hateful message with love, exposing the emptiness of their arguments by showing them how the targets of their hate are just ordinary people, a method that’s already used by anti-radicalization groups to deconvert bigots by the hundreds. Then there’s the emotional argument, which is to punch Nazis until they stop being Nazis, or something. (That’s how psychology works, right?)

I’m not going to pretend that watching endless remixes of Richard Spencer getting socked in the face isn’t mildly satisfying, but anyone who cares about accomplishing their goals (presuming those goals are to stop Nazis as effectively as possible, rather than merely “feel good for a brief while”) should oppose tactics that don’t work and that actively strengthen the other group’s cause, because that’s what happens when you beat on people who already believe themselves to be society’s underdogs. And even worse is when those tactics and the furor behind them lead to bystanders getting caught in the crossfire.

Bystanders like this college reporter, who was covering a small pro-immigration demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin when a protestor sucker-punched him, presumably because he didn’t look anti-fascist enough.

Chase Karacostas, a city/state reporter for the student newspaper, was conducting a routine interview with a bystander when, he says, a protester approached him, aggressively hitting Karacostas’ phone into his head, where it cut him near his eyebrow.

[…]

"It was really random," he told the [Student Press Law Center], noting that he was surprised, given that the protest was otherwise peaceful. "I’ve been at protests that were a lot more violent and a lot angrier and where lots of people had been arrested, but this one was pretty small by comparison," he said. The Daily Texan’s article on the incident reported that about 25 protesters were present.

Karacostas said he identified his assailant to police using videos he had recorded earlier and then headed to the University Health Services’ Urgent Care Clinic, where he received six stitches.

"I actually for a time thought that I had a bloody nose, too, because there was so much blood," he said.

Police shortly thereafter arrested Eric Nava-Perez, a graduate student and organizer with Sanctuary UT (the group that held the protest), and charged him with assault and bodily injury.

Of course, with one of their number arrested for sending a journalist to the hospital without provocation, other members of Sanctuary UT stepped up and … blamed campus police for their presence at the until-then peaceful protest.

[Sanctuary UT organizer Charles] Holm, who […] said he has spoken with Nava-Perez, argued that it is inappropriate to blame Nava-Perez for what transpired.

Instead, he and the petition blamed the UT Austin police department and the Austin Police Department for generating tension by deploying an "unnecessary and intimidating" number of officers, which he said at times outnumbered the protesters.

The presence and actions (or lack thereof) of the police notwithstanding, they aren’t to blame for Nava-Perez’s decision to punch a journalist who was just doing his job. That’s all on him.

But wait – Holm argues Karacostas himself is at fault:

He also argued that Karacostas should have more clearly identified himself as a reporter so that he would not be mistaken for a right-wing agitator. Karacostas responded he did not yet have a press badge because it’s so early in the semester.

Karacostas said he had asked protesters who Nava-Perez was a few minutes earlier so he could identify him in a video he had taken. Holm said Nava-Perez may have interpreted this as an attempt to dox him.

At the time he was hit, Karacostas was interviewing a conservative bystander in what Holm said he had heard was "a friendly manner" which may have led Nava-Perez to assume he was a counter-protester.

So, for his failures of a) not looking sufficiently like a journalist, b) asking for information about the key individuals involved (something journalists do a lot, so I hear), and c) not being needlessly antagonistic towards the person he was interviewing, Karacostas brought it upon himself. Airtight logic, that.

I’d remark how the stupidity, thuggery and victim-blaming on display here doesn’t reflect well on UTA for having these assault-excusing morons as students, or on Sanctuary UT for having them as members, but that’d be just as unfair and baseless as blaming Karacostas is. In both cases, the blame and shame rests squarely on Eric Nava-Perez and Charles Holm, who both need to not punch random people for no good reason and not blame those people when some asshole punches them, respectively.

The fact remains that even if Karacostas was a bad person with bad ideas, that still wouldn’t excuse assaulting him. Leaving aside the argument that physically attacking people you disagree with goes against the fundaments of a civilized democracy (though that should damn well be enough), no-one’s ever changed their mind about anything because they got punched. We know what methods actually work, and physical thuggery isn’t one of them. As many former neo-Nazis and skinheads and so on have said (with a lot more authority on the matter than any pro-punching advocates), attacking someone who already feels persecuted not only reaffirms their beliefs, it drives them to act out even more viciously. It also makes it incredibly easy for them to portray themselves as martyrs, making them appear more sympathetic and their cause more attractive for potential recruits. It may seem counter-intuitive to say that punching Nazis makes them stronger, but that’s what the preponderance of logical and experiential evidence makes clear.

In short, punching Nazis is an own goal. That alone is reason enough to find another way.

(via @reason; RT: @Popehat)