If You Don’t They Will / no. NOT EVER.

Kate Boyd and Cristien Storm are members of If You Don’t They Will, a Seattle-based collective working to counter white nationalist organizing in the Pacific Northwest. A key component to their repertoire of organizing is the traveling multimedia exhibition no. NOT EVER., which archives legacies of grassroots organizing against the white supremacist Northwest Territorial Imperative, a late-1970s and 1980s call to (re)create a white homeland in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. no. NOT EVER. presents a selection of interviews that Boyd and Storm undertook with activists and organizers who disrupted this and many other attempts at white nationalist mobilization. By centering research and cultural work, no. NOT EVER. operates as a type of mobile resource center and intergenerational bridge for antifascist work. Our interview with Boyd and Storm explores the history of white nationalism in the Pacific Northwest, strategies for antifascist organizing, and the contradictory intersections of race and gender in white nationalist ascendance. Our discussion is also punctuated by photos of the exhibit space, cards of the text that accompanied the interactive elements, and links to clips of interviews with activists that Boyd and Storm also showcase in their exhibit. Together, they highlight the participatory, imaginative, and collaborative possibilities of antifascist organizing in our contemporary moment.

Simón Ventura Trujillo and Alyosha Goldstein: What brought you to your organizing work? In what ways do you conceive of collaborative and coalitional work in the process of organizing?

Cristien Storm and Kate Boyd: In the early 2000s, we were introduced to, mentored by, and supporting a network of rural and suburban organizers who were fighting white nationalism in the six Northwest states. During our visits, we would drive for hours between states, our turquoise Ford Escort racking up miles as we reflected on the scope, shape, and style of coalitional organizing these activists were a part of, which was, for both of us, educational, inspiring, and politically foundational. We thought about one day documenting and celebrating this network of activists, so often invisible, underrecognized, or minimized in the PNW [Pacific Northwest] as well as in antifascist histories, more broadly. Their organizing strategies and political imaginaries powerfully shaped our antifascist sensibilities as well as our commitments to building broad-based coalitions that we believe are fundamental to countering the white nationalist movement and fascism, more generally speaking. Fundamental and difficult as all hell.

In 2015, we circled back to collecting the histories of this 1980/90s coalition of PNW activists as the white nationalist movement continued to gain power in all levels of government, a range of institutions, and mainstream political culture. In our workshops and organizing work, we witnessed a great deal of folks in urban PNW spaces (particularly in some white liberal antiracist groups) either ignore and/or dismiss white nationalism or organize against it using strategies that indicated they didn’t fully understand who they were organizing against (dedicated, networked activists). They did not yet recognize white nationalism as a well-organized and well-funded social movement that had been building its base for decades. For instance, many groups wanted to heal or dedicate time, resources, and energy into saving white nationalist activists. Some wanted to invite white nationalists to join them, convinced that they could talk them through why they should be antiracist instead. Other groups assumed they could outdebate white nationalists and that the “truth” would rise to the surface in the free marketplace of ideas, à la free speech. Despite so many instances of violence and terror, at times, many folks struggled to connect the organizing and movement links between various white nationalist attacks on synagogues, mosques, Black churches, Native sovereignty, queer bars, immigrant communities, and abortion providers (just to name a few), escalating all over the country.

The more we grappled with how to get workshop participants to understand white nationalism as a social movement—a broad-based coalition of activists—and also key into the urgent need to grow and strengthen antifascist coalitions, the more imperative it became for us to share and transmit the stories, histories, and sensibilities of these activists. Our hope was to underscore current antifascist and antiracist organizing, support those already engaged in antifascist work, and cultivate robust and disparate coalitional networks.

We mused on ways to pass along these coalitional histories without flattening them or unifying them in a singular linear progressive narrative or “hero” story. We wanted to hold the various tensions and contradictions in their coalitional work, which all clearly and proactively said no to white nationalism but also had very different strategies, styles, and aesthetics that weren’t always in agreement. We started reaching out to and interviewing the generation of activists we had learned from (and coalesced with) back in 2000. We also began collaborating with video artist and art educator Molly Mac, whose aesthetic practices, political sensibilities, and curating skills created the bones for no. NOT EVER. Molly helped us think about how to record and represent activist histories in ways that activate the bodies of viewers, invites participation in current antifascist organizing, and grows antifascist imaginaries. We wanted to shape an immersive space that would help people feel that they could join the movement to say no. NOT EVER. to white nationalism in their own way, in their own contexts. We wanted people to feel there are so many ways to fight fascism and we desperately need all of them.

For six months, the three of us spent our weekends talking with folks (now) living in Bellingham, Spokane, Coeur D’Alene, Sandpoint, Portland, Bainbridge Island, Everett, Whidbey Island, and Seattle. These interviews are the foundation for our traveling interactive and immersive “living archive” art exhibition, no. NOT EVER.:

no. NOT EVER. is an installation that combines video footage from archival interviews, interactive research stations, and a community resource guide. This dynamic “living archive” functions as a participatory teaching tool and as an intergenerational bridge to support ongoing efforts to say no. NOT EVER. to white nationalism in a wide range of communities and contexts.

no. NOT EVER. is our attempt to represent the coalitional histories of this network of activists, in their complexities, their productive tensions, inherent contradictions, and diverse commitments. We call it a living archive because we created an ongoing, evolving coalitional antifascist entity. As it travels it will accumulate more interviews, activities, and stories, and every time a different community or institution hosts the show, its shape transforms to respond to the needs and political contexts of the host community. The forty-plus hours of video footage are edited in a nonlinear fashion and constellated around “organizing nodes,” such as “free speech,” “cultural organizing,” and “research.”

SVT and AG: Do you find fascism a useful framework for analysis and action? What might fascism as an activist analytic bring to the table of antiracist politics? Are there things that you think this analytic might obscure in this regard?

CS and KB: For us, an antifascist framework offers a critical both-and approach to movement work, encouraging antiracist activists to continue to always fight white supremacy and structural racism and also develop capacity to identify and interrupt white nationalists that are seeking to create white ethnostate(s). It makes the case that we are not just talking about individual fascists but individuals who understand themselves as part of a social movement comprised of various and, at times, disparate groups who are all connected by the goal of creating a white nation-state. As a social movement, white nationalists have many strategies for actualizing their genocidal vision, including (but not limited to) electoral organizing, cultural organizing, policy development, research think tanks, taking over local and national institutions, and a range of youth recruitment efforts. Further, as Soya Jung, senior partner of ChangeLab, recently argued in Highlander Research and Education Center’s Elephant in the Room series on whiteness and white nationalism, “white supremacy has always tried to capture some portion of the population that will work in service to its project. White nationalism is a different beast. White nationalism is about elimination.” White nationalism is one of many rising authoritarian and fascist movements ascending around the globe and is mostly but not exclusively white (think Proud Boys).1 White nationalism, with deep roots in antisemitic conspiracy theories, believes (and argues) that the existing government systems and structures do not represent them or their interests and that they are unfairly targeted and disempowered. They understand themselves as superior victims. Antifascism helps us fight white nationalism and white supremacy because we are resisting both historic and systemic systems of oppression as well as a social movement, and sometimes we need different tools or strategies depending on the particularities and intersections of what we are fighting. Tarso Ramos, executive director of Political Research Associates, describes in Highlander’s Elephant in the Room series a “call-and-response” relationship between white supremacy and white nationalism: “We live in a white supremacist country and white nationalist movements can change the governing strategies and agenda of structural white supremacy and that’s part of what we are experiencing now.” We understand antifascism as a commitment to study and counter the call-and-response relationships in our research approaches, organizing strategies, and political sensibilities.

To be clear, an antifascist framework does not suggest we should only be fighting white nationalism. It’s more like it offers us another lens and a different set of strategies in addition to the antioppression and structural antiracist work folks are already doing. We draw on the visionary work of Ramos and Scot Nakagawa, senior partner at ChangeLab, who articulate three fundamental both-and principles/strategies necessary to effectively counter white nationalism: disrupt, defuse, compete. The interview footage highlights examples of these principles/strategies, and the wall cards included in the show talk about these three fundamentals.

SVT and AG: What are some antifascist strategies or themes that emerged in your interviews?

CS and KB: The show centers several antifascist themes and strategies: cultural organizing, free speech, interviewees’ introductions to this particular tradition of organizing, research, relationships with law enforcement, institutionalization as a 501(c)3 nonprofit (or not), rural/urban divides, and gender/sexuality, race, and class dynamics within rural and suburban PNW organizing spaces. Viewers are introduced to diverse coalitional strategies, divergent mobilizing approaches, and a cacophony of nos through different modalities, including wall cards (with definitions, scenarios, and “quizzes”), interview video footage, and interactive activities.

SVT and AG: How have you seen the politics of fascism or white nationalism change over the course of your organizing? What do you think are the most significant differences or continuities evident during the current moment?

CS and KB: Well, to be blunt, back when we were introduced to this work in the late 1990s / early 2000s by our mentors, part of our work was warning people about the impact and implications of white nationalist base-building, grassroots-organizing, and mainstreaming strategies. We were worried about the present reality that we have today. We emphasized that this is a social movement we should be taking very seriously with an eye, always, to the frightening future white nationalists were seeking to build.

Also, broad-based coalition work is really hard, and we don’t think it is any easier today. The difficulties of building, nurturing, and maintaining coalitions are a huge reason why we are continually inspired by the activists featured in no. NOT EVER. This is why we are committed to interviewing (more) people and to share these histories and their badass coalitional responses. Further, the strategies and analysis shared by activists in the interviews are still very helpful for understanding and organizing in the now.

One specific challenge of broad-based coalition work that continues in this moment is sharing and handing off research on white nationalist groups in a manner that is timely, usable for grassroots organizers, and strengthens relationships. Research is vital to understanding the different shapes and strategies of white nationalists in our various communities and is necessary to make our counterorganizing strategies more powerful and effective. But the information gathered has to be accessible and shareable, and it has to be created and handed off in a way that supports other/multiple modes of organizing. Research, too, needs to be thought of in terms of cultivating relational power. How might research not only hand off information that is vital to grassroots organizing but also grow relationships and strengthen connections across silos? Research and how we think about and activate research is also key to broad-based coalition and relationship building.

In addition to connecting with histories of antifascist activism, there are so many inspiring (new and long-term) antifascist and antiracist mobilizations working tirelessly to respond to, refuse, and extinguish various waves of white nationalist organizing in the present moment. Part of what is cool about our living and traveling archive is that we get to learn from, support, and amplify other people’s work. We always track what we learn from our interviews and reflect on how the project should be shifted or transformed based on what we’ve learned or what has changed in the contemporary moment—we coalesce with the interviewees. The show is designed with the hope of breaking down silos and isolation, encouraging broad-based coalition building, and animating an embodied and felt sense of being part of antifascist movements.

SVT and AG: How do the politics of whiteness matter for coalitional organizing against white nationalism and white supremacist movements in the Pacific Northwest and beyond?

CS and KB: As white antiracist, antifascist cultural organizers, we are always, to the best of our abilities, tracking and interrupting white supremacy culture as well as reflecting on our own complicity. Our whiteness is always there, always a problem, and there is no escaping it or pretending otherwise. In no. NOT EVER. we attempt to do the ongoing work of decentering the white-women savior narrative so often intrinsic in representations of white antiracist and antifascist activism. We know we will fail at this, and we also know we have to keep fighting; this is an inherent tension in everything we do.

There is nothing purporting to be neutral or unbiased about this project or the archive of interviews and immersive activities we created. From who we prioritize in our interviews (and the amount of “air time” they differently receive) to the politics of the curation and the editing process itself, our organizing intentions are to amplify and center the leadership of people of color. Antifascist activists of color, especially women of color, are often invisibilized in antifascist organizing (as in so many organizing spaces) and in the work of this network of activists in the PNW, too. While we most certainly want to celebrate and share the important work being done by these groups and activists, we are not in any way celebrating organizers equally or obscuring the social significance of race and gender.

That said, there are a lot of white people in the PNW and many of the groups were predominantly white and/or working in very white communities. We interviewed around eighteen rural- and suburban-based activists, mostly women identified, mostly over fifty years old, and around three-quarters were white. We don’t have consistent demographic information about class, sexuality, (dis)ability, and religion/faith/spirituality. Of the activists we interviewed, some were previously (and currently) involved in antiwar and anti-imperialist organizing; some were involved in countering domestic violence, queer- and gender-based violence in schools; and some were also fighting anti-immigrant groups or attacks on Native sovereignty. There were also some who were not making connections between fighting the Aryan Nations (for instance) and other kinds of movements’ struggles. We observed that groups from the ’80s and ’90s that did not link their organizing against white nationalism to other movement struggles were more likely to dissolve after the urgency of white nationalists’ publicly organizing in their community was abated. Some of the groups that did make these connections and commitments, cultivating the both-and approach to the call-and-response relationships between white supremacy and white nationalism, are still active today.

We think these activist histories are important for people who are organizing to counter white nationalism today, and especially for white people to connect to and hopefully realize they can/should/must say no to white nationalism and white supremacy every day and in every way; they do not need to (and do not have to) “reinvent the wheel” and should not believe (as white people often do) that they invented “the wheel” in the first place, that people of color have always been resisting and refusing white supremacy and white nationalism. We try to hold these tensions and also (critically) celebrate these important organizing histories. We do this while continually attempting to decenter whiteness in both how we historicize and in the show itself, while also knowing that as white people we will repeatedly fail at this (even as we must continue to do this work).

SVT and AG: How has your collective addressed the intersections of gender and sexuality with white dominance? How do you see questions of gender and sexuality as part of, or perhaps even central to, antiracist and antifascist organizing?

CS and KB: Since we started collaborating about two decades ago, we have been working to thread the intersections of gender and sexuality into our analysis and strategy. We are always thinking about how sexism, heteropatriarchy, capitalism, and racist/white feminism inform both our understandings of white nationalism as well as our counterstrategies.

To be clear: white women are, and have always been, actively engaged in white nationalist organizing. In so many ways, the history of white feminism is also a history of white nationalism. Generally, white women’s presence, power, and agency is ignored in studies of far-right or fascist movements, and this goes for the white nationalist movement too. Their participation is minimized through tropes of innocence: weak, victimized, or manipulated wives and daughters. Sometimes they are assumed to be survivors of domestic violence who, then, enter the movement by following men and/or are unable to leave because of exploitation or economic dependence. Some of these things are absolutely true. The white nationalist movement is unabashedly sexist, and the women who are part of it most certainly experience sexism and misogynistic violence. We have to fight white nationalism and white supremacy in a way that also fights sexism, antisemitism, classism, xenophobia, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and Islamophobia at the same time. But also, all of these assumptions position white women as somehow less implicated (because of a perceived victim status), and this obscures the ways white women have (always) participated and accessed power in the white nationalist movement. We need nuanced analysis and practice that understands that the white nationalist movement can be sexist to the core but is also a site in which white women organize to get more proximate to the power white nationalism offers white men.

Moreover, while it is certainly true that domestic violence and economic vulnerability knows no political bounds, these tropes not only invisibilize women themselves; they invisibilize their critical contributions to a violent movement, past and present. Women’s participation in white nationalist and fascist movements expands well beyond these limited imaginations of women’s roles as wife, mother, and occasional activist. When our analysis minimizes or ignores white nationalist women’s activism, our counterresponses are less robust and effective.

We need an intersectional lens, of course, when fighting white nationalism too!

SVT and AG: As organizers, you both are also invested in the transformative potential of culture and cultural work. How do you frame and mobilize cultural production in your work? What does a project such as this exhibition offer differently as a political intervention than other forms of organizing, action, and communication?

CS and KB: From video listening stations to various activities and interactive scenarios, no. NOT EVER. offers participants multiple ways to cultivate antiracist and antifascist imaginations, cultures, and modes of belonging. It is designed to generate in viewers a sense of participation. We want people to feel like they can join (or are a part of) a broad-based coalition of no. NOT EVERs. The show is framed for a multiracial audience, and it offers explicit direction to white viewers in some of the cards, activities, scenarios, and interview footage. White nationalists are terrifyingly effective at mobilizing in white and (majority white) communities, and white people need to up our game (big time!) in engaging in antifascist struggles. As Alicia Garza, cofounder of Black Lives Matter, stated: “Sit with that for a second.… We are totally being outorganized by the other side.”2 Yet we consistently notice hesitancy on the white Left to take white nationalism seriously. Eric Ward, executive director of Western States Center, says in Highlander’s Elephant in the Room series, “Why would you leave an entire constituency open to the white nationalist movement?”

The aesthetics of the show, like the activists featured, intentionally work against romanticizing or sensationalizing antifascist organizing. We challenge how it is often portrayed in mainstream media today as more dangerous or more urgent than other forms of antiracist organizing. The materials are 1990s classroomesque (yellow sticky notes, pencils, plastic chairs, red pushpins, laminated red and white hanging cards); the font references 1990s community newspapers; and the video is not overly produced. The interviews were filmed in casual settings, such as in the activists’ homes, on the couch, with their dogs. There is intentionally nothing flashy; instead, the aesthetics produce a felt sense of everyday (and every way) modes of fighting white supremacy and white nationalism.

We thought a lot about how to provoke interactions in viewers that are simultaneously internal, embodied, and external/coalitional. We want viewers to feel because feelings are political and key to smashing white nationalism and to creating alternatives to the modes of belonging they are peddling. It matters little if viewers understand the white nationalist social movement on an intellectual level if they are not moved to feel part of a resistance movement or if they are not moved to join resistance efforts. It matters little if viewers have access to facts and statistics about white nationalism if that research does not also mobilize bodies to feel like they can be or are part of an antifascist movement that says hell no. NOT EVER to white nationalism.

SVT and AG: What makes you hopeful and excited to keep fighting white nationalism and white supremacy in our contemporary moment?

CS and KB: To keep learning from, interviewing, amplifying, and sharing the amazing work activists all over the country are doing. If you or anyone you know is interested in being interviewed, please contact us through our website: ifyoudonttheywill.com.

What Will Our Antifascist Futures Look Like?

Cristien Storm is an antifascist and antiracist cultural organizer, writer, and politicized healer.

Kate Boyd is an antifascist and antiracist cultural organizer, educator, and public humanities scholar.

In 2006, Cristien and Kate cofounded If You Don’t They Will, a Seattle-based collaboration that provides concrete and creative tools for countering white nationalism through a cultural lens. This includes creating spaces to generate visions, desires, incantations, actions, memes, and dreams for the kinds of worlds we want to live in.

For the no. NOT EVER. art installation, Cristien and Kate partnered with Molly Mac, a Seattle-based arts educator and video artist. Cristien and Kate describe Molly as someone who makes antifascist dreams come true.