On Wednesday, the chairman of the Proud Boys organization condemned Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden’s characterization of the group. Enrique Tarrio, the group’s Miami-based chairman, called out the former vice-president for smearing the group as “white supremacist.”
The group gained specious notoriety after Tuesday night’s presidential debate when moderator Chris Wallace and Biden mentioned the group in connection with a demand for President Trump to denounce so-called white supremacy. As Biden and Wallace pressed the president for a condemnation of white supremacy, Trump wanted a specific name to denounce and both Wallace and Biden came up with the Proud Boys.
“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” the president said. Some news outlets mischaracterized Trump’s statement as a “call to action” and an endorsement of the group.
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Meanwhile, Biden was not pressed to denounce Antifa or Black Lives Matter, who have been responsible for the vast majority of rioting and burning cities since the May 29 death of Minneapolis criminal George Floyd in police custody.
The day after the debate, Biden had a message for the Proud Boys. “Cease and desist, cease and desist,” Biden told reporters. “My message to the Proud Boys and every other white supremacist group is cease and desist. That’s not who we are, this is not who we are as Americans.”
On Wednesday, President Trump claimed that he was unfamiliar with the group, telling reporters, “I really don’t know who they are…. I can only say they have to stand down. Let law enforcement do their work.”
But Tarrio says that the former vice-president has the organization all wrong. As a black man with Hispanic heritage, Tarrio doesn’t really fit the bill of a white supremacist.
“I don’t see this as an endorsement from the president, at all, by any means. I think he was asked a very pointed question. I think the president was asked to disavow white supremacy, which he did two times within the scope of that question. And I think Biden made a crucial mistake by naming our organization for him to disavow. We’ve been called many names and probably the most inaccurate name that you can call us is white supremacist. As you can see, as your viewers can see.”
Then, in an interview with a local Miami television station released Thursday, Tarrio gave his take on what he believed Trump meant by “stand back and stand by.”
“I think the most important thing was stand back,” Tarrio said. “To me, that meant let the police do their job.”
Later in the interview, Tarrio offered, “I’m going to go ahead on the record and say I condemn white supremacist groups.”
The Proud Boys were founded in 2016 by comedian and political commentator Gavin McInnes, who described the group as a politically incorrect men’s club with a firm belief in “Western chauvinism,” which is basically the idea that Western concepts such as freedom of speech, limited government, and capitalism are far superior to ideologies such as communism and socialism.
The group first came to prominence after an altercation with Antifa outside New York’s Manhattan Republican Club in 2018. Last week, the group staged an event in Portland, which has seen Antifa and Black Lives Matter rioting for most of the summer. No arrests or violent incidents were reported.
The Proud Boys have made all the right enemies. The scandal plagued, left-wing smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled them as a hate group with an ideology of “General Hate.”
According to the SPLC, “Their disavowals of bigotry are belied by their actions.”
McInnes, who has left the organization, has sued the SPLC for defamation. That case is ongoing.
The Proud Boys are definitely a controversial lot, prone to fist fights with Antifa and politically incorrect to the extreme in some of their rhetoric. Like any organization, they cannot control the actions of all of their members. But are they really white supremacists? The simple fact that one of their chairmen is a black-Hispanic man should lay rest to that claim once and for all.
