Prominent Antifa-supporting prof speaks at UC-Berkeley
Dartmouth College Professor Mark Bray, an outspoken advocate for Antifa, recently visited UC-Berkeley to give a talk on the history of the anti-fascist movement.
When a conservative student asked about Antifa's aggressive, and sometimes violent, tactics, Bray responded that conservatives should "distance themselves from white supremacists and fascists" to avoid being targeted by Antifa.
The University of California-Berkeley hosted an outspoken Antifa advocate Monday for a lecture on the history of the global anti-fascist movement.
The November 13 lecture, “Antifa: The History and Theory of Anti-Fascism,” featured Dartmouth College Professor Mark Bray, who wrote Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook and has publicly expressed support for the Antifa movement.
[RELATED: Dartmouth scholar endorses Antifa violence]
According to organizer Ivonne del Valle, the school’s Spanish and Portuguese Department hosted the event to explore the historical background of the recently-resurgent movement.
“As a department that studies and understands the Spanish Civil War, as a moment of international anti-fascist struggle in which many Latin American writers participated, we believe it was very appropriate for us to host it,” del Valle told Campus Reform. “Mark touched upon Antifa in America only if brought up in the Q/A session; however, that was not the main focus of the event.”
According to video footage of the event posted by the YouTube channel “Very Fake News,” Bray spoke about anti-fascism from the international and historical perspective for 26 minutes, whereas discussion surrounding the American Antifa movement lasted nearly an hour.
A member of the Berkeley College Republicans asked Bray about Antifa’s violent tactics and invasion of privacy of everyday citizens through doxing, according to live tweets from user Caron Creighton.
[RELATED: Dartmouth prof to donate half of book proceeds to Antifa]
“How would you condone violence that has been enacted on by groups like Antifa towards everyday people in the name of [anti-]fascism?” the student asked Bray.
Bray advised those on the conservative end of the political spectrum “to distance themselves from white supremacists and fascists” in order to avoid being targeted by anti-fascist groups, remarking that “track records show conservative groups tend to invite people from those [fascist/white supremacist] groups, which blurs and muddies the waters.”
When pressed about a local Antifa group that has been surveilling and doxing several members of the Berkeley College Republicans, Bray shifted the topic to white supremacists
“Are we as concerned about what happens to students of color, Muslim, and Jewish students, undocumented students who are being targeted by these white power groups?” he asked, adding that he is “skeptical about people who are more concerned about what happens to white supremacist college students.”
Later, however, Bray acknowledged that “it’s really hard to define who a fascist is, and that’s been true since the beginning.”
Towards the end of the discussion, a person asked about an Oakland anti-fascist group that was recently accused of colluding with ISIS, prompting laughter from the audience as Bray replied, “not true.”
He did, however, declare that “the opposite of that is true,” claiming that Antifa groups have been siding with the Kurds in the fight against ISIS.
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