Understanding the Importance of Antifa

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“Are you a communist?”

“No I am an anti-fascist”

“For a long time?”

“Since I have understood fascism.”

— Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

Antifa, while widely demonized by many, is a group of organizations fighting for the freedoms of everyday people through opposing fascism. Let me explain why this matters.

There are two keys to understand the history of fascism. The first key to fascism is colonialism which is a belief system that allows political, economic, and social control over another country or territory to exploit resources and labor.  The second key to understanding fascism is eugenics, one faction seeing itself as superior over an inferior “other.”  

American colonialism saw people of color and different cultures and ethnic groups as inferior. This viewpoint allowed colonialists to degenerate, enslave, and disenfranchise the freedoms and liberties of Africans and indigenous Americans.   However, colonial suppression does not limit itself to skin color.

When slavery was supposed to have been abolished in America, the damage to targeted groups continued through media stereotypes and the demonization of African American men.  African American women's anger became a part of a stereotype which basically was a smear campaign against the targeted groups.

Colonialism can be seen in the American justice system   which targets African American men and women unfairly. African Americans are imprisoned more and for longer sentences for drug use while Wall Street is freely able to take the same recreational drugs without consequence. This is especially egregious in how the neurodivergent African American population are treated in our systems.

Our educational system also bears the mark of colonialism in linking education to economic status. How can a part of society rise economically when education is systemically limited or denied like it has been for our Black brothers and sisters?

Another remnant of early colonialism is colorism which favors lighter skin. During slavery, lighter skin was equated with in-house jobs while darker skin was more likely to have less favorable jobs and treatment.

We see this in early television where the lighter-skinned singers and actors were favored over the darker-skinned performers. Ed Sullivan stood up against this prejudice at his own risk. He saw the injustice and refused to go along.

Writers and directors like Spike Lee are inspired by Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Malcolm X.  Spike uses his films as corrective promotion to show African Americans and other people of color in a positive light to counter colonial stereotypes. Shonda Rhimes is hugely successful in this endeavor.

Black Panther filmmaker and producer Ryan Coogler ‘s 2025 film, Sinners, uses vampires to show the trauma to people of color in the deep south. He also uses the film to disclose the trauma bond that African Americans and the Irish share. European colonialism targeted the Irish through slavery and forced religious conversion. When the Irish and Italians first immigrated to America, they were not seen as “white” and suffered discrimination.

Native Americans suffered unspeakable treatment from early colonialism. The surviving indigenous people had their children kidnapped and taken to residential schools which were run by religious groups. The Mormon Church ran many residential schools to “civilize” and convert the children to white Christian society.

Extreme tactics were used including punishment for speaking their language and maintaining their traditional culture.  It has taken many residential school survivors years to heal. Many people who ran the schools and now realize it was wrong are asking for and receiving forgiveness.  Now there a resurgence of Native American language, culture and traditions. The elders are teaching the young so these traditions and languages can be preserved and passed on.

European and Middle Eastern colonialism targeted Jewish people. Jewish people are still experiencing colonialism and discrimination. One shocking way is through the idea of blood libel which was an early anti-Semitic idea that was spread by medieval Christians.

Blood libel believes Jewish people kidnapped and murdered Christian children for their blood. This then led to demonization and persecution of Jewish people in Europe.   This demonization of Jewish people led to having to hide their identity throughout history. This was also the idea behind the Crusades when Jewish people were imprisoned and were forced to convert to Catholicism or fear death. Jewish people who did not convert had to hide their Judaism or they would be killed.

In the Biblical story of Esther, who was a Jewish woman and whose real name was Hadassah, she had to hide her Jewish identity because Jewish people were being persecuted at that time and if anyone found out about her true heritage she would be killed. That was why it was a big deal when the king who married her, having no idea she was Jewish, accepted her for who she was when she told him the truth. This was an early example of the coming together of Jewish and non-Jewish people.

      This is why Neo-Nazi groups, who are generally antisemitic, freak out when they are told that Jesus was of Jewish heritage along with many disciples. When Hitler came to power his lust for domination and elimination increased. Now, more people were considered undesirable including neurodivergent and LGBTQ+ communities.

Propaganda and misinformation were big tools for these fascist regimes.  They looked to American colonialism and eugenics as fascist formulas.  Jewish communities started to heal from the colonial trauma by educating people about real Jewish history and culture.

In the 1960s the Second Vatican Council said that all people have an inherent right to religious freedom based on human dignity. It opposed government coercion in matters of faith.

Other known groups who were victims of colonialism were the Romani people. Many people thought Romani people were from Egypt which is where the racial slur “gypsy” originates. Romani people migrated from India to Europe. This discovery is a relatively recent finding to many outside of the Romani communities.  

Even before Hitler came to power in Germany, Romani people were already experiencing colonialism and racism from Europeans, which included forced sterilization of Romani women. Romani were being discriminated against in housing and were not allowed to go to public schools.  In many hospitals Romani people were segregated from other patients.  When Hitler came to power the racism that Romani people experienced became even worse.

 Romani people are healing from this trauma and many Romani content creators on YouTube are sharing true Romani history with their subscribers and the world.  Romani people can now embrace their culture and are proud of their Indian roots. Romani women are earning their    income by creating their own fashion lines that they sell to both Romani and non-Romani people.

   The other tenant that defines colonialism and fascism is eugenics. Eugenics is the practice and belief of superiors and inferiors. The followers of a eugenic belief system purposely encourage the reproduction of who they believe is the superior group. Keeping who they see as the inferior from reproducing can be accomplished through forced     sterilization. The eugenics belief also discourages interracial marriage.

The Kingston Clan, also known as The Latter Day Church of Christ, is a Utah-based sect that practices a form of home-grown eugenics. They have a strict obsession with blood line purity, white supremacy, and incestuous marriage practice designed to maintain their status as the “chosen” group.

Race science is the false idea that some groups are scientifically superior to others. The modern rebranding of race science as race realism is used by neo-Nazis to justify colonialism and eugenics. Neo-Nazis use race realism to try and make their views seem more mainstream.

Anti-fascism, often shortened to Antifa, is a grass-roots political movement dedicated to opposing fascism, far-right extremism, white supremacy, and authoritarianism.

Anti-fascist groups in Italy and Germany used peaceful protests to fight Hitler and Mussolini. There was a well-known anti-fascist group in England called the Anti-Nazi League of which many people in the punk rock movement were a part. They participated in protests, distributed flyers, and held and hosted concerts that promoted anti-racism through punk music.

 Anti-fascist groups today protest by storming and disrupting Neo-Nazi and white supremacist events. They also expose prominent and publicly identify individuals and racist leaders on the Internet.  Anti-fascist actions include peaceful protest, publicizing information about far-right groups (doxing), music and art, and providing mutual community services such as food distribution and disaster relief.

Author and professor Mark Bray, a scholar of anti-fascism, specializes in teaching the history of fascism and anti-fascism to his students. He wrote Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.

He wrote the book as a “call to arms that aims to equip a new generation of anti-fascists with the history and theory necessary to defeat the resurgent far-right.”

We must remember the reason we all have the rights we enjoy today is because of the anti-fascist movements that came before us. Even though everyone in the free world benefits from the anti-fascist movements, people of color, LGBTQ+, and neurodivergent populations are especially targeted in the far-right ideologies.

It is necessary for us to envision a better way to live together and to participate anyway we can in thwarting fascism and not allowing it to become normalized in society.