USA Today published an article Tuesday by reporter Will Carless targeting anti-communist Chinese-Americans for donating to the Proud Boys. The list of private donations to the Proud Boys via GiveSendGo was revealed by a leak last month by the leftist group Distributed Denial of Secrets.
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Will Carless was targeting donors to a fund to help Proud Boys who were stabbed in Washington, D.C. during protests last December.
Carless’ email along with a note that read, “I am resident of Naples, Florida and saw your article about the Utah reporter harassing the paramedic. Despicable. However this reminded me of an email I received a few weeks ago which I have attached below. I donated money on givesendgo for medical expenses to brothers who were stabbed in DC back on 12-12-20. I know I’m not the only one that got this email and they are trying desperately to destroy conservatives. Thank You to you and your staff for getting the truth out to the public.”
Now Will Carless is targeting Chinese-Americans and even has the gall to lecture people who fled Communist China on who and who isn’t communist (Hint: Carless says Antifa and Black Lives Matter are not communist.)
Will Carless posted his article to Twitter with this comment targeting donors to the Proud Boys with “Chinese surnames”, “A Proud Boys fundraiser received a wave of donations 2 wks before the Jan. 6 insurrection. 80% of the donors were Chinese American or had Chinese surnames. A look at how “Western chauvinists” have built a following in the Chinese diaspora.”
Proud Boys saw wave of contributions from Chinese diaspora before Capitol attack
The donations started coming in around 10 p.m. on Dec. 17.
A donor named Li Zhang gave $100. A few minutes later, someone named Jun Li donated $100. Then Hao Xu gave $20, followed shortly by $25 from a Ying Pei. In all, almost 1,000 people with Chinese surnames gave about $86,000 to a fundraiser on the crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo for members of the extremist street gang the Proud Boys.
Their gifts made up more than 80% of the $106,107 raised for medical costs for members of the Proud Boys who were stabbed during violent clashes in Washington in mid-December.
The donations, which are included in a trove of hacked GiveSendGo data provided to USA TODAY and posted on the whistleblower site Distributed Denial of Secrets, raise several questions. Chiefly: Why would people from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and members of the Chinese American community, donate to an organization with deep ties to white supremacists, whose members flash white power signals and post racist memes on social media?
The surprising answer to this question is that the Proud Boys enjoy significant support from a slice of the Chinese American community and the broader Chinese diaspora.
Some Chinese Americans have bought in to the rhetoric spread by the Proud Boys, conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones and conservative commentators that America is under attack from communism. They believe the Proud Boys are on the vanguard of protecting the country from a communist army controlled by antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement – claims that have been widely debunked.
For some who left China in rejection of communism, particularly those who support former President Donald Trump, the Proud Boys have taken on an almost mythical status as tough street soldiers on the front lines of this battle between democracy and communism.
“You have to understand how we feel – we came from communist China and we managed to come here and we appreciate it here so much,” said Rebecca Kwan, who sent the Proud Boys $500 on Christmas Day. “The Proud Boys are for Trump and they are fighting antifa, and can you see anything good that antifa did except destroy department stores and small businesses?”
Donors praise Proud Boys
The Proud Boys have long sought to portray themselves not as a white supremacist organization or a violent street gang but as a group of patriots willing to do the hard work they say America’s police departments and politicians won’t do.
Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio claimed that his group primarily exists to protect American citizens from anarchists and communists aligned with the antifa movement who are trying to overthrow the U.S. government.
End excerpt. Will Carless and staff put a lot of effort into this hit piece and it should be fully read to understand the campaign against anti-communist Chinese-Americans.
Question: In this era of heightened awareness of violent attacks against Asian-Americans, are USA Today and Will Carless sending a dog whistle it is okay to attack Chinese-Americans because of their anti-communist political beliefs?
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