Blue Lives Matter and the U.S. Counter-Subversive Tradition: A Q&A with authors Jarrod Shanahan and Tyler Wall

By Olivia Lawrence-Weilmann, Cloee Cooper | January 4, 2022

On the anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, PRA is taking a moment to examine the history of law enforcement’s relationship with the Far Right. In 2021, academic activists Jarrod Shanahan and Tyler Wall published a scholarly article, “‘Fight the reds, support the blue’: Blue Lives Matter and the US counter-subversive tradition.” Shanahan, a criminal justice professor at Governors State University, and Wall, a sociologist at the University of Tennessee, explore an important historical parallel to contemporary forms of backlash against racial justice organizing. Half-a-century before many members of today’s Blue Lives Matter and MAGA movements found themselves facing Capitol police on January 6, the John Birch Society (JBS) built a grassroots network of far-right citizens and rank-and-file cops around the country to mobilize around the slogan, “Support Your Local Police, and Keep Them Independent!”—independent, that is, from federal oversight.

The Racist History of U.S. Law Enforcement

By Cloee Cooper | February 22, 2021

The storming of the U.S. Capitol by rightwing insurgents on January 6 highlighted the imminent threat of an emboldened and coordinated far right. This has led many people and institutions to call for a doubling down on more policing and federal funding to address domestic terrorism.

But the insurrection also laid bare the complicity of elected officials and law enforcement within this far-right movement. Underestimating the alignment between law enforcement and the far right reinforces a color blindness that led us here. It can also endorse state violence against people of color and poor people. 

So far, we’ve ignored the key lesson from the summer 2020 racial justice reckoning. Law enforcement continues to act in defense of white supremacy, and most often with impunity. What if we stop turning to a carceral system so ill-equipped to solve the rise of racist violence, and instead, fight for racial justice by investing in communities and social services?

Anti-Abortion Abolitionists Go to City Hall

By Cloee Cooper, Tina Vasquez | November 9, 2020

In the spring of 2019, a steady stream of young, White men began appearing at Raleigh, North Carolina City Council meetings to speak on behalf of the “pre-born.” Sometimes the men appeared with their elementary school-aged children, who read pre-written speeches comparing abortion to slavery. In the months that followed, a 39-year-old man named Zachary Braddy would emerge as their ringleader. In one of his earliest city council appearances, on April 2, 2019, Braddy used the public comments portion of the meeting to warn of a “great evil occurring in the city of Raleigh, that there are citizens in our very midst that are being led away to death.”

That is,” Braddy continued, “the pre-born, children in the wombs of their mothers.” 

Braddy is an open-air preacher with Gospel of God Ministries, an evangelical Christian group that relies heavily on social media and street preaching to recruit new members and share the gospel.

Culture and Belonging in the USA: Multiracial Organizing on the Contemporary Far Right

By Cloee Cooper, Daryle Lamont Jenkins | September 3, 2019

August 4, 2018, the day of the “Gibson for Senate Freedom March,” was a balmy day in Portland, Oregon. Patriot Prayer, a group loosely associated with the Alt Right, had organized the march, calling on like-minded people to “make history today” and fight for free speech in the face of Portland’s “intolerant hateful culture.” Joey Gibson, the founding leader of Patriot Prayer, was running for U.S. Senate in Washington state in the Republican primary—a platform he used to promote and coalesce local far-right forces in the Pacific Northwest. It was one of dozens of rallies the group had organized in the region since April 2017; after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, Patriot Prayer’s presence in the streets had only grown. A year later, the Southern Poverty Law Center warned that the Patriot Prayer rally could be Charlottesville 2.0, drawing Alt Right groups from all along the West Coast to flex their muscles.

How a Right-Wing Network Mobilized Sheriffs’ Departments

By Cloee Cooper | June 10, 2019

Sheriffs are elected at the county level, and in most cases operate without any direct oversight. This presents an opportunity for White nationalists and other right-wing movements, particularly the Patriot movement and the anti-immigrant movement, to build power and influence. The 3081 elected sheriffs nationwide are responsible for running county jails, which house a third of the country’s incarcerated population, and enforcing laws within their county that are passed at the state and federal level.

The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), a network of local law enforcement founded in 2011 by former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, garnered participation by more than 550 sheriffs nationwide since 2013, according to Political Research Associates. Of those sheriffs, 267 are currently in office, with a significant presence in the leadership of state sheriffs’ associations and the National Sheriffs’ Association, an association founded in 1940 which represents thousands of sheriffs, deputies and other law enforcement and public safety professionals nationwide.

New Mexico’s Constitutional Sheriffs Pave the Way for Militias Patrolling the Border

By Cloee Cooper | April 29, 2019

On April 20, the FBI arrested Larry Hopkins, the leader of a New Mexico-based militia group, on charges of being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition. His group, the United Constitutional Patriots, drew international attention for illegally detaining hundreds of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border in Sunland Park, New Mexico on April 16. The hundreds of parents and children seeking asylum were held at gunpoint by militia members until Border Patrol arrived.

Anti-Muslim Sentiment Binds National Security and White Nationalist Forces Under Trump

By Cloee Cooper | August 21, 2018

Since the Trump administration came into office, anti-Muslim sentiment has become a glue that binds this administration’s national security leadership with anti-Muslim organizations, White nationalist organizations, and anti-government militia. This cross alliance has correlated with a steady spike in anti-Muslim denial of religious accommodation in jails, detention facilities and places of employment, FBI inappropriately targeting Muslim individuals, as well as an increase in harassment and hate crimes against those perceived to be Muslim.

How Pilsen’s Founding Mothers Built a High School

By Cloee Cooper | Oct. 15, 2017

It is a sunny Thursday afternoon. “Go Eagles!” chants fill the air as cheerleaders practice cartwheels across the lawn of Benito Juarez Community Academy in Chicago’s  Pilsen neighborhood. Nearby, students dash back and forth across a field during soccer practice.

Michelle Sandoval, a 16-year-old junior, intently watches a co-ed football team practice drills. Class was over more than an hour ago, but the grounds are buzzing with student activity. Sandoval is a sports manager for the Juarez football team, the girls’ basketball team, and the girls’ softball team.

“I want to be a doctor – a surgeon or a pediatrician,” Sandoval says with a confident smile, her long, dark brown hair lifted by the afternoon breeze. Her goal is to study medicine at Harvard University, and although neither of her parents attended college, she feels ready for the challenge.