I did tell you to listen to right-wing podcasts. Via an episode of Red Ice Radio I learned of Evalion (not Neon Genesis Evangelion), an 18-year-old Nazi and anti-Semite who, by her own admission, lives in “Southern Ontario.”
With her parents, actually. (Or parent; see below.) “Your parents know that you’re in the next room, possibly talking about Hitler?” asks amusing hostess Lena Lokteff. “Yes, and they support me 1488%,” the little Nazi replied in code. “They didn’t always support me, but now they do…. They just kind of caught on [to what I was reading].” This little Christer is the kind of girl who, no doubt due to Internet contagion, actually utters the acronym “SJW.” Evalion responds to every lobbed criticism by stagily interjecting “Oy vey!”
She also wants Jews removed. (“Do you despise the Jews as much as I do?” she asks.) Then there’s her offhand mentions of “lazy niggers” and “faggots.” “I see myself more like Joseph Goebbels,” she told Lokteff.
I return to Irshad Manji’s formulation: “Great issue. Where’s the story?” The issue is Canada’s littlest Nazi. The story is her parents. Even if Evalion is a legal adult, she states she lives at her parents’ house (her side of the interview was recorded in the basement, where it’s cooler, she told us). What exactly happened with Evalion’s parents such that “they just kind of caught on”?
Are we talking about both parents or just her mom? (From a separate video: “I’m not sure about my dad; I haven’t talked to him in eight years. But my mom, she shares my views now.” And, proving that Google makes money off infringement, an ad for Google Play Music [!] interposed itself during viewing.)
If Anti-Racist Canada were a viable progressive activist group instead of bloggers who seek to dismantle white supremacy by screencapping Facebook comments, here’s what they’d do.
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They would put not very much effort into finding her home address. A private dick can do that for not much money.
Armed solely with an audio recorder, they would knock on that house’s door when the parents are likely to be home and demand an interview. When the parents refuse, as they surely will, activists would hand the parents a written request for interview with all sorts of methods of contact. That won’t result in an interview either, but it will discharge all ethically and legally necessary prerequisites for a responsible-communication defence should the little Nazi and/or her parents try to sue the activists.
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Next, activists would pay attention to Evalion’s supporters. Her YouTube videos keep getting taken down, then reposted by fellow-travellers. But one or more supporters run a fan page that solicits donations via PayPal, in clear violation of PayPal’s terms of service. It is colossally difficult to file a terms-of-service complaint with PayPal, and its sole help page on the topic implies that it will take action only in countries with legal bans in place. Nonetheless, that is an avenue to be pursued.
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Then, last but not least, activists should carry out a decidedly limited form of doxxing. By definition the activists would know where Evalion and her presumed enablers live. It would lead to potentially irreparable harm to publish that information, even implicitly. It is grievously irresponsible to publish home addresses even of people you hate; you then become complicit in anything that happens. Here, a single photograph of a house would be enough to identify its location, as we learned in the Rob Ford case, so no such photographs should be taken. (Turn geotagging off.)
Since I am accusing Anti-Racist Canada of being glorified keyboard warriors, barely discernible from the mythic Angry Pyjamas who post comments that hurt leftist feelings, I propose the alternative of holding a small demonstration on the public sidewalk outside that house (or the roadway if it’s in a subdivision without sidewalks). Take photos and videos only of yourselves, with no architecture whatsoever, and no landscaping other than lawns or edges thereof, in the background. An easy way to accomplish this is to bring your own backdrop, which could double as a surface on which to scribble slogans with the lousy type that leftists are prone to using. (Right-wing assholes use different lousy type – lots of Arial cap’s with misplaced apostrophe’s.) You can record audio no problem.
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Last but not least, take on the hardest task of all – a criminal prosecution for hate speech. That always requires signoff from the attorney general, a high bar that is in place for good reason. But it’s not impossible. From the interview:
— So what are the laws in Canada? Could you get in trouble?
— Only if I’m making actual, like, flyers? and books? It’s the distribution of material, and, uh, I don’t think making videos is considered that. I would be in jail already.
Let’s put that to the test.
I do think Nazism, anti-Semitism, and, yes, racism are worse when espoused by the very young. Such a case warrants the exact opposite of the principles underpinning young-offender provisions or aboriginal healing circles. Evalion is the kind of Nazi one makes an example of.
And, while I have ridden the asses of Anti-Racist Canada here, I could have done the same with any number of keyboard-warrior downtown-progressive journalists, and not merely that Trigglypuff manqué with a Toronto City Hall beat. This would certainly be well within Vice’s wheelhouse; if Justin Ling could just take some time out of a workday filled with decrying transphobia and (foreign) Islamophobia, wonders could be done.
Last: Evalion claims to be a vegan. So’s her boyfriend, apparently, and I guess his would be another story to follow. So would her estranged dad and her stepsister. Important stories to investigate… if we had hacks with balls and activists who took action.
I do question if those hacks would refuse to investigate Evalion because I’m the one suggesting it.