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kuiperoid · 7 months ago

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Optical Illusion: Perceptions of Race and Sexuality with Right-Wing Internet Personality Nick Fuentes, Part 1

[originally posted here]

Introduction

Nick Fuentes has been a voice for online far right youth since 2017. In that time, he has been on the receiving end of many criticisms from both right and left-wing voices, not purely for his claimed ideologies, but his very identity. On one side, he is attacked as a racist, homophobic, reactionary white supremacist, while the other derides him as an anti-white, anti-family gay Mexican. Despite the initial assumption that these are contradictory claims, some of these may not be as much in opposition as one might think. While not all of these claims can be entirely verified, what is clear is that Fuentes’s consistent focus on the importance of optics plays the greatest role, as how he is perceived by others may be more important than whatever the truth is.

Who is Nick Fuentes?

Nick Fuentes on during an episode of America First

Nicholas Joseph Fuentes was born August 18, 1998 to William “Bill” Fuentes and Lauren Chicco-Fuentes in a suburb outside of Chicago, Illinois, along with his twin sister, Melissa. He says that he was baptized Catholic, but that his parents were not overly religious. His father worked for a technological manufacturing company, providing his wife and two children with a comfortable upbringing. An indication of the ideologies he grew up with can be illustrated in Bill Fuentes’s take on restaurants, insisting that they never go to Applebee’s or Red Lobster, saying in one episode of his show because they were associated with black people, though in another stream, the reason was was because they were associated with poor people. Whichever was the case, these were two groups Fuentes was raised to not associate himself with. His high school classmates described him as a fairly normal guy who played the euphonium in marching band and was part of the school’s award-winning speech and Model UN teams, eventually serving as president of the student council. He began broadcasting conservative politics through high school radio, though his views were still typically within what were considered normal views among elected Republicans of the early 2010s.

Fuentes, center, with his fellow high school Model UN team members in 2013

Things began to change during Fuentes’s freshman year at Boston University. He has cited a variety of factors leading to this transition, namely the election of Donald Trump as president. He bought his first personal Bible and reconnected with his Catholic faith, taking a particularly traditionalist and literalist interpretation. During February 2017, he started broadcasting his show, America First with Nicholas J. Fuentes, on the Right Side Broadcasting Network. On this show, he criticized immigration, multiculturalism, and the influence of “globalists.” His increasingly extreme views were allowed to continue to be broadcasted until that August when he attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. On campus, he received pushback from the students and decided to leave Boston University. Initially, he planned to transfer to Auburn University in Alabama, but ultimately decided to leave college in favor of returning home to be a full-time streamer out of his parents’ basement.

Fuentes seen advocating for Donald Trump in 2017

Fuentes continued streaming his show, now with much less to lose. His platform would change over the years as he would be banned from YouTube, Twitch, and DLive, eventually setting up his own site, Cozy.tv, for himself as his political allies. In his view, the mainstream Republican party was too lenient. He intended to push the overton window further right until his ideals became reflective of what electable politicians could say. Across his platforms, Fuentes would espouse bigoted views against immigrants, non-white people generally, Jews, Protestants, feminists, women generally, the LGBT community, and anyone who did not fit into his narrow white Catholic nationalist view of who should represent the United States, his monologues peppered with slurs for the groups in question. He often pushed conspiracy theories, such as Holocaust denial and claiming that the media and politics were run by Jewish overlords for whom he blamed for the rampant “degeneracy” of modern society. He would often refer to himself in grandiose terms, calling himself a genius and comparing himself to Jesus and various historical dictators. Over the next few years, Fuentes would build his following, which he would refer to as the “groypers” after a Pepe the Frog meme. America First would evolve from simply the name of his show to a full-blown organization.

The “groyper” meme for which Fuentes’s followers are named

In 2019, Fuentes would lead his followers in what came to be known as the “Groyper Wars,” where he instructed his followers to disrupt events thrown by Turning Point USA. To those unfamiliar, Turning Point USA is an organization dedicated to organizing conservative college students and resisting progressive sentiment on college campuses. Fuentes took umbrage with them for their support of Israel and acceptance of non-white and LGBT conservatives. Guests at the Turning Point events included Donald Trump Jr, Ben Shapiro, and others deemed not far enough right for the groypers where they would take over Q&A sections and heckle the speakers. One incident that stands out in the memory of many is an event in which Turning Point president and founder Charlie Kirk was speaking with his guest, a gay black veteran, and the many groypers attacked the appeal to identity politics, one asking “how does anal sex help us win the culture war?” Another incident that caught the ire of mainstream conservatives everywhere is when Fuentes and several of his followers accosted Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator whom Fuentes often clashed with on account of his being Jewish and staunchly pro-Israel, while he was with his family in public. This incident was disavowed by Meghan McCain, Nikki Haley, and many other mainstream conservatives in the media.

Fuentes and fellow groypers as they confronted Ben Shapiro with his wife and children

With the Groyper Wars came Fuentes’s concern with optics. He told his followers in his posts leading up the events that they should be sure to be dressed in a suit and tie to look presentable. When he would later be one of the focus points of the episode of documentarian Louis Theroux’s series Forbidden America that focused on far-right online personalities, he mentioned that something he found off-putting about many of the attendees at the Unite the Right rally at Charlottesville was how “un-optical” many of them presented, making Roman salutes and whatnot. This may surprise some given his documented use of fascist talking points and slurs on his own show. However, he often presented with a veneer of irony that allowed a shadow of a doubt of his full authenticity about anything he said.

The highpoint of America First would come when Fuentes held the first AFPAC (America First Political Action Conference). Fuentes and his associates were banned from CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) due to his clashes with various members. He decided to throw his own event to rival CPAC. The first was held in Washington DC while the later AFPACs were held in Florida. The first was held in February of 2020. Speakers included then-Identity Evropa leader Patrick Casey, Daily Caller editor Scott Greer, political commentator and often-declared groyper mother - despite being Filipino-American - Michelle Malkin, and Fuentes himself. The 2021 AFPAC was briefly thought to be in limbo due to both COVID restrictions and January 6th antics, but it went on with Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar appearing as the surprise keynote speaker, despite curiously also appearing at rival event CPAC later that day. A big surprise came in 2022 when right wing political activist and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, with whom Fuentes had been in contact for the past few years to help coach his public appearance and served as a speaker at that year’s AFPAC, got him in contact with Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene who gave a speech opening the event. Greene was heavily criticized for appearing at a “white supremacist event,” leading her to disavow Fuentes, saying she was not aware of who he was or the nature of the event when she agreed to speak there. This disavowal was the start of a feud between Greene and Fuentes that has carried on ever since. The keynote speaker for that year was former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for being tough on immigrants. Arizona Republican governor candidate Kari Lake had intended to speak, but ultimately withdrew on account of Fuentes’ support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The 2023 AFPAC had a decided change in tone with Internet personality Nicolas “Sneako” Kenn De Balinthazy serving as the guest speaker, reflecting the near total change in the nature of the associations America First currently hold.

Fuentes with Marjorie Taylor Greene before her speech at AFPAC III in 2022

More dramatic shifts began in 2021. Fuentes and select followers attended many leadup rallies prior to the storming of the US Capitol on January 6 and were even present outside, though neither Fuentes nor any of his direct associates breached the entrance. His involvement in the event led Patrick Casey to disassociate from him and for his channel to be excised from DLive, the primary factor leading him to found Cozy.tv. The beginning of the year did not go as horribly as one may have thought. AFPAC II was still held in February as planned. He claims his assets were seized and he was put on the no-fly list, which would be the main discussion of his 2022 America First-produced documentary, The Most Canceled Man in America. Not being able to travel by plane, Fuentes was prompted to travel by car, which led him to go on the White Boy Summer road trip of 2021 where he held meet-ups and speaking engagements.

Fuentes and close associates at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021

However, as the year went on, questions arose. While several groypers did participate in the storming of the capital and faced legal action, Fuentes himself appeared to be let off completely free for being a supposed leader of a far-right political movement. This led to speculations that Fuentes was acting as a federal informant. Some past associates claimed his assets were not seized as long as he claimed and, specifically, former associate Jaden McNeil would later say his being banned from flying was not because of January 6th antics or being unvaccinated, but because he had previously harassed a flight attendant. One by one, various prominent members of America First would disassociate from him. Many felt that he flip-flopped on various issues. For being the leader of a movement so heavily defined by its opposition to Jewish people and Israel, it was odd for him to support proud Jewish Zionist Laura Loomer’s congressional bid in Florida. Another area was the support he held for former President Donald Trump, the basis of the identity for much of the US far-right movement, when he briefly worked for rapper Kanye West’s short-lived presidential bid, a black man who, for all of his talk about disliking the Jews, something Fuentes was now back on after Laura Loomer’s run for congress fell through, supported reparations and open borders and who dated, married, and reproduced interracially. Shortly after that came to an end for reasons that are not known for certain, it was revealed that an associate of Fuentes’s, far-right activist and Stop the Steal founder Ali Alexander (née Ali Akhbar) had solicited sex and lewd photos and videos from teenage boys, often using his connection to Fuentes as leverage. Fuentes has attempted to publicly distance himself from Alexander, but various past associates kept it alive in the discussion, in addition to claims that he was aware of Alexander’s proclivities and attempted to silence his victims. Since then, Fuentes has mainly associated with Internet personalities over more politically active types, such as Calvin Lee “LeafyIsHere” Vail Marquez, Brandt “BasedBrandt” Wiggins, the aforementioned Sneako, and, most recently, Hannah Pearl “JustPearlyThings” Davis, the last being a rare female member of the Fuentes crew.

The Utter Latinidad of Fuentes’s Perceptions of Race and Class

Fuentes’s 23andMe results, which he broadcasted on an episode of America First in 2021

When US residents first learn about Nick Fuentes, especially in the context of him being referred to as a “white supremacist” or something similar, questions often arise about his ethnic identity, given his decidedly non-Anglo sounding surname. His ethnic makeup is fairly common knowledge: his father is half-Mexican-American and half-Irish-American while his mother is Italian-American, the part of his heritage that he typically describes himself as most closely identifying with. Fuentes did take a 23andMe test in 2021 where he published the results, disappointed to find himself at “only” seventy-nine-point-one percent European, with indigenous American and North African following as the next highest ethnic groups found in his DNA, though his fans assured him that 23andMe gave inaccurate results to “troll Nazis.” It is important to note that these ethnic DNA tests are famously unreliable of true measures and only recognize what the testee has inherited genes from, regardless of who one is related to, meaning anyone can have more or less of any given heritage from a technical standpoint and it certainly has no method of measuring the cultures one actually grew up the most affiliated with.

The approach to Fuentes’s heritage itself differs by culture. In the US, someone who has up to a quarter of heritage from anywhere is typically still considered a member of that community, a policy going back to slavery, but has been maintained to this day. Say, if Fuentes had decided to apply for a Mexican-American scholarship when he was applying to college, he would have been considered eligible for most, with the exception of “child-of-immigrants” ones. Multiple studies have shown that job applicants in the US with names perceived as “ethnic” are often passed over for job considerations, and, even at a quarter Mexican, it is possible that this could have impacted Fuentes or his older relatives in the past on account of his surname. In Latin America, someone born in the US, even to Latin American-born parents, is typically seen as a “gringo,” let alone someone with only one set of great-grandparents born in Latin America, so Fuentes would certainly not be seen as Latino or Mexican in Mexico; he would simply be seen as someone from the United States. Obviously, having a Spanish last name is not seen as inherently “ethnic” in Latin America; Fuentes is certainly a Spanish last name over, say, an indigenous one. There is also the idea of whiteness, which his right wing detractors who find him to not be white enough or his left wing detractors trying to appeal to possible hypocrisy often make a point about. To Latinos, especially ones from Latin America, the idea that someone with Latin American heritage could not possibly be seen as white is often confusing. There are plenty of people with entirely European heritage throughout Latin America, including Mexico, where Fuentes’s paternal grandfather’s parentage derives from. In an interview with Brittany Venti (legal surname Dier), a fellow traditionalist Internet personality herself of both black and white heritage, Fuentes said that his Mexican family was “half Spanish.” It is noteworthy that most Latin American countries do not have “one quarter and it counts” approaches to race; in fact, many who would not be considered white in the US are essentially seen as white in these countries. Never mind Fuentes’s green eyes and pale skin; there are those with black hair, brown eyes, and in fact brown skin who are essentially seen as white for having simply not been raised indigenous. While colorism and other approaches to feature certainly do play a role in Latin America, in many ways, upbringing is more important than one’s specific identity, why even a child of purely indigenous Oaxacan parents born and raised in the US and engulfed in US culture is seen as more of a “gringo” in Latin America than a Mexican-born blonde and blue-eyed child of Ukrainian immigrants, a population many from the US are surprised to discover is not insignificant when they visit Mexico.

Fuentes being interviewed by Brittany Venti as she role plays as Dr. “MILFy,” an homage to Dr. Melfi from The Sopranos of which proudly Italian-American Fuentes claims to be a fan

It is worth noting that part of the embrace of white populations in Latin America despite them not originating there is not pure multiculturalism; in fact, some would say it is because those are the populations that the founding of many Latin American countries was determined to aspire towards. As a result, the fact that populations that are not entirely white are more likely to identify as that than indigenous or anything else speaks more of aspirational whiteness than anything else. The US census recognizes that Latinos come from different races and will often have a follow-up question for those who list themselves as Latino, asking which race they most closely identify with; the majority, even those with some amount of indigenous heritage, will list themselves as white more commonly than anything else. Curiously, many in the US who are just as Latino as Nick Fuentes but of different political leanings or simply have different goals have been known to pull out the “I’m not white, I’m Latino” when the topic of race arises. In a twist of fate, Fuentes’s identity as white and referring to the need for the country that he lives in to be majority white and run by white people makes him closer to historical Latinidad than traditional WASP whiteness of the US.

Fuentes is not the only modern example of someone with Latino heritage in the US to embrace white supremacist ideology, even some more decidedly non-white than him. One of the most recent examples is Mauricio Martinez Garcia, a thirty-three-year-old who committed a mass shooting against a mall in Allen, Texas on May 6, 2023. When the news of the shooting dropped, there was much confusion with regards to his identity. His name gave away his status as a Latino, which made his online presence, revealed shortly afterwards, disconcerting to some. He was found to be following many white supremacist and Neo-Nazi pages, in addition to incel and anti-semitic pages. Images of tattoos of swastikas and SS lightning bolts clashed against his melanated skin. This became more clear in reading his posts in which he discussed his conflicted identity as a Latino who he felt was called to help save the white race. Critics of Fuentes were quick to point out that many of his videos were found to be in Garcia’s history. Garcia did address Fuentes in a somewhat disparaging way when he discussed his conflict over reproducing. He specifically felt doing so would not be beneficial, as he would only want to do so with a white woman, but did not want “a bunch of little Nick Fuenteses running around.” Even as a sometimes follower of Fuentes’s work, Garcia viewed him as a worthless mutt.

A meme posted by Allen Mall shooter Mauricio Martinez Garcia

The accusations of anti-whiteness stand in stark contrast to some of Fuentes’s more renowned statements about keeping the US a white country and fighting off the great replacement. Examples that his conservative critics often use include his various rants complaining about white people at the airport, complaining about their obesity and lack of style. After his former associates Ethan Ralph and Jaden McNeil began to criticize him, he often referred to them, white men from working class backgrounds in the South and Midwest respectively, as “trailer trash,” which would stir up these accusations yet again. He lamented in one episode about how right-wing political figures lacked the class of their opponents, referencing the recent divorces of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert. He would stand in opposition to more mainstream conservatives during the summer of 2023 when Virginia-based singer Oliver Anthony’s song “Rich Men North of Richmond” went viral to be praised as the voice of working class white Americans, as he would mock Anthony for his ragged appearance and the defeated, whining nature of the song. Across these comments, however, there is a factor being overlooked: classism. In none of these comments did Fuentes ever criticize these people on the basis of their whiteness the way he often does with members of other groups. If anything, his complaints were that these particular white people seemed to stem not from their whiteness, even as he commented on them being white or “a type of white person we need to see less of,” but the fact that they presented the way they did in spite of their whiteness. If anything, there was an expectation that, being white, they should be capable of achieving more and presenting more elegantly, while members of other groups were simply expected to not achieve as much or present as well to begin with. Classism is an issue that political figures in the US, especially those on the right, avoid discussing to circumvent accusations of communist sympathies and because class supposedly does not exist in the US the way that it does in other countries. There is a definite confusing manner in which politicians in the US, particularly right-wing politicians, balance the attempt to appeal to working class people with the inherent aporophobia required to participate in these political institutions.

In that sense, Fuentes’s Latinidad is again emphasized in his perception of class. Class and classism definitely still exist in the US, but are ignored. Meanwhile, class is the basis for much of society in many Latin American countries to this day and its existence is not ignored the way it is in the United States. As a result, class is treated as something aspirational to associate with. While wealth is something seen as a good thing to achieve in the US, individuals typically want to be seen as having started at the bottom and earned it, rather than having been born into it. In this sense, it is also typical in the US for people to want to be seen as “down with the people '' and as disconnected from wealth as possible. This differs from the approach taken by many in Latin America, where, regardless of where one started in terms of class, it is important to not be associated with the lower class. People in the US generally want to appear that they started from a lower point, whereas people in Latin America often want to be seen as having started higher, with the assumption being that that is where they remained. Consider critiques of gender neutral language. At the end of the day, the prejudice against gender neutral language in any culture is typically based in homophobia and transphobia, but members of different cultures try to paint it as an appeal to class. In the US, doing so is called “elitist” and a sign of being overeducated, whereas critics in Latin America write off gender neutral language as appearing “lower class” and “uneducated.” Both of these emphasize what is seen as important in the respective cultures. For being “America First,” the America in question being the United States of America, Fuentes has clearly retained some cultural influence from his Latin American heritage. It is important to note that his father, the one he received his Mexican heritage from, was the one who instilled in him the importance of not going to restaurants like Applebees and Olive Garden. Several of Fuentes’s conservative critics have mocked him for proudly talking about how he does not work out and has never done any sort of physical labor, but to him, this is a sign of class rather than unrelatability. It is this that makes him a leader, in his mind.

A caricature of Fuentes often shared by his conservative critics, mocking his “brownness” and perceived effeminacy

The contradictions in perceptions of race exist among the groypers themselves. The movement claims to be explicitly pro-white American, yet peering among the usernames in any America First chat, it is not uncommon to see examples such as “Based Guatemalan” and “Indian Groyper.” In the discussions they have among themselves, some will occasionally admit to being “half black” or some other race seens as inferior in these circles. One commenter notably made reference to being “castizo, like Nick,” but insisted he intended to marry a white woman and “breed out” his “inferior” non-white genes. This aspirational concept of “marrying up” is common among Fuentes’s followers, even as his own statements on the subject remain indecisive. Fuentes has formally said that racially mixed individuals should just “go with their phenotype” when choosing a spouse. He has specifically stated that, for his future wife and mother of his son, he would like for her to not only be white, and preferably Italian-American at that, but have blue or green eyes to assure that they do not have brown-eyed children. The racial makeup of the groypers is often something brought up by right-wing critics as a sign that the movement is not as it seems, that white men are too smart and that America First ultimately attracts young men and boys of color because they are the only ones who could fall for Fuentes’s antics. It is true that the proportion of nonwhite groypers cannot be ignored, but it is clear that what draws most of them in is an aspirational mindset common among immigrant populations, one that these boys have taken to the extent of believing that they need to align themselves with the image white supremacy to ultimately achieve whiteness.

At the end of the day, perception is the greatest factor once again. It is easier for critics to emphasize Fuentes’s non-whiteness than to acknowledge the reality that, on a day to day basis, he is more commonly perceived as a white man. It is not uncommon to see his critics refer to him with racialized terms such as “the Mexican child,” “Spicolas,” and “chupacabra,” or spelling his surname with a Z at the end rather than an S to make it read as more ethnic. Derisive artwork made of Fuentes also typically makes him appear more “ethnic,” in addition to mocking the perceived homosexuality and effeminacy they have projected onto him, which will be discussed later. Unsurprisingly, these critics, mostly white American men without much connection to immigrant communities, are unfamiliar with the nuances of the perceptions of race and class outside of the US. They would be correct in recognizing that his Mexicanness plays a role in his perceptions of those he criticizes, but not aware of how his criticisms are more based in classism than any sort of anti-white racism.

Comments by critics of Fuentes using racially charged language

Part 2, Part 3

#Nick Fuentes #America First #groypers #racism #sexism #classism #antisemitism #latinidad #Marjorie Taylor Greene #Ali Alexander #January 6 #Charlottesville #Boston University #The Sopranos

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