FBI Harasses Anti-Racist Organizers in Bloomington After Far-Right Militia Shows Support for White Nationalists

Following a 2018 arson attack on an Indiana synagogue, members of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, now rebranded at American Identity Movement, were outed as vendors at a farmer’s market in Bloomington, Indiana.

Community members and antifascists began to mobilize against them, only to have members of the far-Right militia the Three Percenters, linked to a string of bombings against mosques, refugees, and other targets, show up to the market with guns to support and protect the white nationalists.

The market was then hit with a wave of violent threats from the far-Right, forcing the event to shut down for several weeks. It’s in this context that the FBI has begun to conduct door knocks of anti-racist organizers.

BREAKING — Yesterday, August 14th, the FBI targeted as many as 10 suspected anti-racist organizers in Bloomington, Indiana. This comes days after the second anniversary of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, in which white supremacists murdered Heather Heyer and injured many others. FBI agents went to the homes, workplaces, and families’ homes of suspected anti-racist organizers throughout the day on Wednesday to question people about anti-racist organizing efforts. In at least one case, the Indiana University (IU) Police Department was directly complicit in the process.

Though it may seem surprising to some that the FBI would target anti-racist efforts, we are not surprised. It is happening here in Bloomington and also in Virginia, where the FBI recently began knocking on the doors of people who were connected to Charlottesville as anti-racist protestors, according to the Virginia National Lawyers Guild.

The presence of armed 3%’ers at the Bloomington farmer’s market seems to concern the city and federal government very little as the death toll wrought by racists, bigots, police, and fascists in recent shootings continues to grow. In July 2018, members of the white supremacist group Identity Evropa plotted to burn down a synagogue in Carmel, Indiana. Last week, just days after the mass shooting in El Paso, another man showed up armed at a migrant shelter in the border city. It was impossible to tell whether that man mimicked an ICE agent or the gunman that took the lives of 22 people a few days prior. Of course, the police only gave him a stern talking-to and released him back onto the same street as the shelter, weapons and all.

All this, and it is the anti-racists who are under investigation as “extremists”. Across the country, people are getting organized to respond to the crisis of white supremacy — inextricably linked to the crises of state violence, mass shootings, family separations and mass deportations, and climate change — and the FBI can only humiliate itself
by once again focusing its resources on those of us who seek collective liberation.

We understand yesterday’s FBI solicitations as harassment.

Harassment that is not unique to this presidential administration.

Harassment that is meant to neutralize our position against white supremacy and make us too fearful to rebel against its trappings, the very status quo of our society.

We will not be afraid.

We will not let the police make us suspicious of each other.

We will continue to find each other and get organized.

We stand with countless others who will refuse cops, FBI, and ICE agents entry into our homes without a warrant signed by a judge.

We will give cops and federal agents no more than our name (by legal obligation) and say “I refuse to answer any questions. I would like to see my lawyer.”

#WeAreAllAntifascist #NoSpaceForHate