San Diego, CA: Identity Evropa Run Off By Antifascists While Attempting Banner Drop

Report from antifascists in San Diego, who managed to disrupt and stop a banner drop attempt by the white nationalist group, Identity Evropa, which was instrumental in organizing the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

On Wednesday July 4th, 2018 around 1pm a group of 8 Alt-Right trolls attempted to display and photograph a banner of the white nationalist organization Identity Evropa on the outskirts of the Sherman Heights neighborhood in San Diego. The attempt occurred on the 19th street on-ramp to the eastbound 94 freeway. While the photographer stood on a fence on the entrance to the on-ramp, the other seven held the banner and amerikkkan flags where the on-ramp joins the freeway.

As the photographer was approached, they hopped off the fence, returned to their white, unmarked van, and were startled when confronted. The photographer and the van’s back license plate were photographed. The photographer’s van struck the 94 East Freeway sign while they were attempting to flee in reverse, and then they continued eastbound on G street.

White, unmarked van of photographer: California license plates 8Y653.

Green Toyota Camry LE of group one: California license plates 7NJB830.

When those holding the banner and flags heard the confrontation with the photographer, they rolled up the banner and flags and proceeded down the on-ramp and then downtown, attempting to minimize attention from people around. As they were followed, they split into two groups, one group turning left on 17th Street towards a Green Toyota Camry LE, and the second group headed west on G Street to a white Toyota Tundra, plate number 24762C2.

This right-wing white nationalist organization known as Identity Evropa is a rebranded version of the former National Youth Front, which was the youth wing of a white supremacist organization, the American Freedom Party, founded by southern California skinheads. A propaganda campaign by Identity Evropa this past year has targeted students on college and university campuses, and has included attempted banner drops at different locations in San Diego. At the University of California – San Diego, they disrupted ethnic studies classrooms and dropped anti-immigration banners. At San Diego State University, they posted fascist flyers.

We reject white supremacy and white racism, which are forms of colonialism.
We will not allow fascists to conduct propaganda campaigns in and around our neighborhoods.

We call on the people of San Diego to confront the activities of these fascists on sight.
We ask that community members help us gather more information on the membership and leadership of Identity Evropa, including full names, schools and jobs.

In closing, we offer the following words, adapted from a report back from an anti-colonial, anti-fascist workshop at the Taala Hooghan Infoshop:

We recognize the limitations of anti-fascism on stolen land. We’ve experienced the heavy hand of the state in ‘California’ long before Trump was elected. We’ve resisted widespread attacks on migrants (many of whom are our Indigenous relations) through state mechanisms, many of these institutions designed to ensnare or kill migrants also enforce a colonial rule on un-ceded Indigenous lands.

Indigenous resistance to these efforts is long, while accomplices are still new to this struggle. We have organized projects of solidarity to oppose the colonial networks of control, because we understand that an anti-fascism that is not grounded in anti-colonialism is certain to reproduce the same structures of settler colonial violence that has existed for over 500 years on this continent, and over 200 years of representative democracy in the ‘United States.’