Canada

Last night, two groups of white supremacists were caught on camera putting up “It’s Okay To Be White” posters up around the University of Toronto campus.

When they realized they were being photographed, Winston Smith yelled at the photographer “Faggot!” and “Fucking commie scum.” The photographer tells Torontoist that most of the group quickly covered up their faces and that later they yelled “Bitch” and “Cunt” at another woman who was present.

The posters, reading “It’s okay to be white” in large, sans-serif font are part of a 4chan campaign to “expose the media’s anti-white bias through their reaction to a harmless flyer.” In the 4chan thread, one user posts that “the idea is to hide your fucking powerlevel and insist that it’s just an innocent ‘it’s okay to be white.’ If people start being Nazis and supporting the posters, then liberals can just dismiss it all with dogwhistles and moderates won’t be convinced.”

Here, the user is referring to a strategy the alt-right have adopted after the events of Charlottesville, when it became widely accepted that the alt-right is a racist and white supremacist movement.

‘Hiding your powerlevel’ refers to a strategy of publicly disavowing Nazis and “keep[ing] the long-term goals covert . . . Talking openly about a white ethnostate only leads to failure and the average public turning against you, so disavow anyone who reveals his power level. Leftists will recognize dog whistles and know we’re crypto, but normies won’t listen to them.”

In short, the purpose of these posters is to publish a message that’s hard to disagree with – that it’s okay to be white – and paint any opposition to the message as an example of media bias against white people.

Smith, Huxtable, and their crew will say they aren’t Nazis. Huxtable says that white supremacists and neo-Nazis don’t exist. He identifies himself as an “ethno-nationalist” and a “race realist.” Earlier this month, Huxtable posted “(((you))) [Jews] will. Not. replace. Us.!!!!!!!!” in the Students for Free Discourse Facebook page. That’s what the white supremacists chanted in Charlottesville, marching past a synagogue, carrying tiki torches. In one post, Smith says: “Generation Zyklon will save us do not worry.” Zyklon B is a pesticide that was used in gas chambers during the Holocaust.