Right wing group Proud Boys are gaining Asian American support in response to BLM and Antifa fear.
Recent fundraising campaigns for the Proud Boys saw 80% of donations coming from Chinese surnames according to a new investigation.
Data suggested that the group gained “significant support” from the Chinese American community as well as expats in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Rebecca Kwan, who donated $500 to the group, said she was supporting the Proud Boys for “fighting Antifa.”
“And can you see anything good that Antifa did except destroy department stores and small businesses?”
“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,” she said.
In a fundraiser for a Proud Boys member who was stabbed in a protest in December 2020, almost 1,000 people with Chinese surnames donated $86,000, which is over 80% of the $106,107 raised in total.
Joohn Choe of the Intuitive Threat Assessment said support came from “real people – real estate agents, scientists. Just Chinese American boomers.”
“This isn’t a surprise for us,” said Kaiser Kuo, host and co-founder of the Sinica Podcast, which discusses current affairs in China.
“Even this recent wave of anti-Asian hate crime … actually only reinforced their beliefs.”
The Proud Boys’ chairman, Enrique Tarrio, thanked the Asian community for its support.
“I am happy that Asians support the ProudBoys because of the continuous hate and the relentless assault they get from BLM supporters,” he said.
“For large parts of the world, there is a context and implication and history to communism and how it has affected several countries,” said Jared Holt, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab who studies extremism.
“So there are some communities of immigrants and descendants of immigrants for which the Proud Boys’ projection as a group combating communism in the United States resonates favorably.”
There has been a recent rise in attacks against Asians including an Asian “anti-masker” who was stabbed and killed in Washington.
In another incident, a man who racially abused an Asian American detective is now facing a lawsuit.
A suspect was also arrested for robbing and stabbing an Asian man in San Francisco.
Another a suspect was arrested for stomping on a 61-year-old man’s head in Harlem.
Meanwhile, charges against the man who spat at and punched an 83-year-old Korean grandmother have been dropped.
Elsewhere, the president of the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce was racially abused and physically attacked.
Additionally, three people were arrested for a burglary spree targeting 26 Asian business owners in Colorado and Wyoming in 2019.
An Asian father was also attacked in San Francisco whilst walking his 1-year-old child and an Asian American teen was left concussed after being punched at a basketball game in Oakland.
Most recently, a man has been arrested after attacking two Korean American women with a cement block.
