San Luis Obispo, CA: Lauren Southern Protest Report Back

On May 25th 2017 students and community members mobilized in a black bloc against a lecture given by Lauren Southern and hosted by the Cal Poly College Republicans. After a rather intense campus wide debate arose months ago in response to the bloc that was called against Milo Yiannopoulos—administration and the Republicans wised up and kept this event on the down low. The school came under a lot of pressure back in January and they are doing all they can to avoid reigniting it. Because SLO has never seen a bloc before 2017, our last action had campus administration and UPD shitting their pants. The school spent almost $70k on security for Milo, bringing in a garrison of militarized troops from other police forces and fancy army gear to play soldier with.

In response to Southern’s appearance, the on campus liberal organizations planned a “march against rape culture” in which many on-campus groups and even some members of college Greek life came out to speak against the misogynistic aspects of the events rhetoric (the night’s theme was “a Return to Traditional Women”). Some students addressed the murder of former Cal Poly student Kirsten Smart and the negligent ways in which the school responded.

Our first plan of action was to have the bloc march with the other groups; to possibly get the event shut down. After receiving word that the Proud Boys would be in attendance, we decided that our objectives for the day would need to adjusted accordingly. Additionally, we understood that our presence is something that worries the higher ups, and so we wanted to do our best to keep police targeting away from other activists. When it came down to the day of, we decided it would be more beneficial for the bloc to post up outside of the venue and wait for the march to arrive, as opposed to attempting to coordinate last minute with a number of on-campus organizations. We also didn’t want to deal with the police liaisons or “peacekeepers.”

We arrived on campus and began walking towards the lawn in front of the venue, when this author and another comrade were walking, a few students said “thank you” as we passed which honestly threw us off guard. We were not expecting such a welcome response so quickly. Shortly after meeting with our main group, the campus police that were deployed began watching our every move and set up cameras around the front door of the venue. While we waited for people to line up we talked with a number of students and handed out literature as well as explained who antifa was and what we do. A few math professors came up to us and began to yell and condemn us for “the violence that happened at Berkeley.” They told us they had watched videos of the event which had proved our “criminal affiliation,” these videos apparently outweighed the knowledge our personal connections we have in Berkeley have brought us..but we digress. Someone sent us pizza during the action, which was cool, we have heard rumors it was the Republicans, however. Not that it matters, either way we were able to give away free food to some students which they appreciated.

The crowd that began to arrive for Lauren was very docile, there wasn’t a MAGA hat in sight. Someone showed up with a “don’t tread on me” flag as a mask, but it quickly fell off their face and they ran away to hide behind all of their friends. After a bit of time we saw some large white flags approaching and we knew we would have to prepare to hold our ground.

Soon there were 4 or 5 Proud Boys in front of us holding ancap “anti-communist action” flags. A few of them had goggles around their necks, others mentioned having other “supplies” on the ready. They worked very hard to bait us into a fight; taunting us with their flags, yelling about free helicopter rides, and generally just talking shit. We kept our composure and held our ground, as an antifa chapter that is still working to gain the full support and trust of our community we did not want to just simply jump headfirst into a fight. Our goal for the day was to defend students and local activists from whatever harassment the Proud Boys were going to bring to our campus. The only thing they showed up for was to pick a fight, and the number of police around forced us into a situation where we could not going to engage with them unless it was after one of them had already attempted to attack someone.

The fascists eventually became bored at one point and attempted to steal our literature, at which point—surprisingly?—the campus police detained them. They came back a number of times to attempt to verbally harass us and others, but they grew bored once they saw how little we cared about their bullshit. We got as close as we could and said as little as possible. They kept shouting about how “low energy” we were. (Side note, a comrade who was there who has been involved with SHARP since the 90s said that this was the most pathetic gang of fash they’ve ever seen in their career).

When these mayonnaise bois were attempting to bait us into fights, many other students stood around to see what was going on, and a number of them attempted to debate with the fascists, but the Proud Boys were unable to form cohesive arguments and then responded with hospitality. Fash screamed “fake news” at the local TV station and overall just looked incredibly idiotic. During the number of times that they came and left a large amount of the students that were there expressed sympathy to us and even stated that everything and made them understand why we bloc up. Overall it was very obvious to those around that we were not the aggressors and that we were there for a genuine cause. We gave out literature to numerous students who seemed very interested in becoming involved with ARA themselves, we are even hosting a BBQ this week to attempt to meet with our community members in a non-action setting and explain what antifascism is.

A Reflection of the Action

While organizing for this event, many of us were very stressed out and overwhelmed that we did not have the resources or people available at this time for tactics like shutting down the fascist’s platform. Some of us advocated for less public actions that were deemed “more effective” towards the goal of shutting down the event; many of us left the campus feeling slightly frustrated that kicking the Proud Boys off our campus was not a realistic possibility either. However, at the end of the day we recognize that it is important to pick our battles and not rush into the fray for the sake of rushing. We believe that our action was very successful in the fact that it helps establish and normalize an anarchist presence in San Luis Obispo. Standing our ground in the way that we did allowed us to further connect with our community and show people that antifa is not just a movement that works to militantly confront fascists and racists. They saw that we are working to defend the town and campus against racist hatred that would otherwise go unnoticed.

We think we made a very good impression on our community, and for that we are thankful. We are also glad that we were there to confront the Proud Boys and had the opportunity to do some recon. All of the individuals present on May 25th travel around to various far-Right events. We are unsure who exactly funds their excursions, but throughout the day they made numerous references to other events in California and other states (a number of them have been identified at these locations as well).

Ben Daly, Levi Romero, and Johnny Benitez were all individuals that we recognized from Berkeley. Johnny Benitez has been seen in leftist circles and events and is suspected of being an individual who works undercover during antifa actions to gather information to doxx people. A comrade of ours says that they had a friend who was reported to the cops by this very same person. We are working to gather any and all information we can find to help pass along to any and all comrades who might benefit from that knowledge.

At the end of the day, our unwillingness to throw the first punch—while difficult to maintain—did give the fascists a weak impression of us, but it gained us a lot of admiration and support from our community. When it comes down to it, that is more important to us than anything else. SLO is a reactionary area in California and it is going to take a lot to build up a solid movement to stand against that. We will make sure to not rush ourselves to ensure that we can build up the most diverse movement we can. We are so grateful for the amount of solidarity we have received from others, stay safe comrades!

P.S.: The Proud Boys told us to “meet them at Chapman Square on June 4th to settle things,” were too broke to afford a way up to Portland, but please make sure to knock a few of those fascist fucks around nice and good for us.

-SLO ARA