Misogynist, White Nationalist-Defending, Anti-Muslim Bigot Milo Yiannopoulos is Coming to a College Campus Near You.
The recent presidential election has raised many concerns about the coming four years. Donald Trump amplified these worries by elevating Steve Bannon to a top advisory position in his incoming administration. Bannon’s step into the White House flags another issue to track – the culture of racism and misogyny that Breitbart News fostered under his leadership and its contribution to ongoing mobilizations outside the halls government.
This bigotry in motion is currently on display in a national tour of college campuses by Milo Yiannopoulos, a Breitbart Senior Editor who declared that Steve Bannon “Made Me Into a Star.”
Yiannopoulos is in the early stages of a ten state campus excursion dubbed “The Dangerous Faggot Tour,” a title calling attention to the far-right figure’s vitriolic rhetoric and use of his sexual identity as platform to attack Muslims and women. Under Steve Bannon’s tutelage, Yiannopoulos also became Breitbart’s most ardent defender of white nationalism under the rebranded moniker “alt-right.”[1]
On the Islamophobic front, Yiannopoulos writes that, “America has a Muslim problem. Notice my wording carefully here. It isn’t a radical Muslim problem.” He defames that the June massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida was “an expression of mainstream Muslim values,” continuing that “Islamophobia, the irrational fear of Muslims, is a nonsense term. Fear of Islam is entirely rational. I can tell you specifically that for gay people, ‘Allahu Ackbar’ is the scariest words we could ever hear.”[2] Yiannopoulos builds on this stereotype by calling Islam “inherently hilarious,” and continuing that,
“Their outfits are hilarious. Ridiculous. Is there anything more comically sinister than the sight of a herd of women swathed in black bedsheets? Anything more unintentionally ironic about a religion that hates gays that gets its men in a room together 5 times a day to stick their asses in the air?”[3]
Yiannopoulos’s misogyny is equally crass. T-shirts sold on his website declare “Feminism = Cancer,” while the Steve Bannon protégé has written Breitbart articles titled “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy,” and “Does Feminism Make Women Ugly?”
Yiannopoulos was notoriously photographed in Los Angeles with a sign declaring, “Rape Culture and Harry Potter: Both Fantasy.”
In a July 2016 Breitbart about the online harassment of women, Milo wrote,
“Here’s my suggestion to fix the gender wars online: Women should just log off. Given that men built the internet, along with the rest of modern civilization, I think it’s only fair that they get to keep it…They [women] could go back to bridge tournaments, or wellness workshops, or swapping apple crumble recipes, or whatever it is women do in their spare time. I, Donald Trump, and the rest of the alpha males will continue to dominate the internet without feminist whining…[Y]es, we will certainly let women onto the men’s internet a few times a year, as long as you follow a few basic rules… your vagina is not a qualification for a job, for political office or for special treatment…Secondly, Tits or GTFO [Get the F— Out] is the second commandment of the male internet.”[4]
Unsurprisingly, Yiannopoulos preceded his time at Breitbart by playing a role in “Gamergate,” a campaign harassing women attempting to address sexism in the gaming community. He would later be suspended from Twitter for his role in a racist and misogynist online campaign against Leslie Jones, the African-American actress cast in the female-led remake of the movie Ghostbusters.
Yiannopoulos’s defense of the “alt-right” at Breitbart has been his biggest service to the politics of organized white supremacy – in particular, white nationalism. In a now infamous March 2016 Breitbart article, Yiannopoulos answered commentators describing the “alt-right” as a vehicle for “anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set” by declaring, “They’re wrong.” Stormfront is the online forum started by neo-Nazi Don Black. Yiannopoulos accuses conservatives of having “thrown these young readers and voters to the wolves.” Of white nationalist groups such as VDARE, American Renaissance, and Richard Spencer’s AlternativeRight.com (see below), he blithely states, “All of these websites have been accused of racism.”
In an interview by British Channel 4 host Cathy Newman, Yiannopoulos said of the alt-right, “It’s a very young, vibrant, exciting new movement of conservatives in America. They are populists, they’re nationalists…They care about immigration, they care about trade, and they really hate political correctness.” The exchange continued,
Newman: “But they’re [alt-right] too extreme even for you, then.”
Yiannopoulos: “No, I wouldn’t say that…We’re fellow travelers on some issues, but you know, I’m very pro-Iraq, very pro-Israel. There are all sorts of points of difference, I think.”[5]
What, then, is the nature of these “fellow travelers” who are not “too extreme” for Milo, at least as understood by he and Breitbart?
In two words, they are white nationalists.
Yiannopoulos begins his March 2016 Breitbart article by attempting to draw a distinction between “old-school racist skinheads” and the alt-right, the former consisting of “low information, low IQ thugs driven by the thrill of violence and tribal hatred;” conversely, the alt-right represents “a much smarter group of people…They’re dangerously bright.” In typical absurd and offensive Yiannopoulos fashion, he declares these “low IQ thugs” as “the equivalent of the Black Lives Matter supporters” and feminists.
Of importance, Yiannopoulos draws no real distinction between the core ideas of the racist skinheads and the alt-right. In fact, he does little more than confirm the difference between armed vanguardists and mainstreamers discussed by IREHR President Leonard Zeskind in Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. As Zeskind describes in detail, vanguardists strive for a dedicated elite to violently overthrow the U.S. government and institute some variety of white nation; mainstreamers, meanwhile, seek to garner a mass constituency and vie for control of the state – for instance, the way Steve Bannon carved a place for defending white nationalism at Breitbart News.
Yiannopoulos’s description of the founders and current make-up of the “alt-right” makes beyond clear that he is talking about white nationalism. For instance, in a section of the article titled “Intellectuals,” he casts as precursors to the movement Sam Francis and “the paleo-conservative movement that rallied around the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan.”
The “media empire of the modern-day alternative right,” he continues, “coalesced around Richard Spencer during his editorship of Taki’s Magazine” and later Spencer’s AlternativeRight.com. Other members in this “eclectic mix of renegades” includes Steve Sailer, VDARE and American Renaissance. As the examples below demonstrate, these “intellectuals” have given voice to the white nationalist ideological triumvirate – proclaiming whites the core of American society, calling for a change in governing institutions to match this idea, and espousing biological determinism – the long-discredited idea that genetics determines racial differences in IQ scores, socio-economic achievement, criminal behavior, and other characteristics:
- Sam Francis was a leader in the paleoconservative movement that emerged in the 1980s, a coterie of racist “intellectuals” that paved the way for today’s white nationalists. In a 1995 article written for the white nationalist American Renaissance (see below), Francis wrote, “[R]ace is necessary, because no other race or people seems able to replicate or adopt the concepts on which white civilization is based… If whites wanted to do so, they could dictate a solution to the racial problem tomorrow — by curtailing immigration and sealing the border, by imposing adequate fertility controls on nonwhites and encouraging a higher white birth rate, by refusing to be bullied into enduring ‘multiculturalism,’ affirmative action, civil rights laws and policies”[6]
- American Renaissance is an Oakton, Virginia-based organization headed by veteran racist Jared Taylor. The group unabashedly promotes white nationalism and biological determinism. The “Our Issues” section of the group’s website reads in part, “If whites permit themselves to become a minority population, they will lose their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people…It is widely accepted that genes account for much of the difference in intelligence between individuals, but many people still refuse to believe genes explain group differences in average intelligence. This blindness leads to futile attempts to eliminate ‘achievement gaps’ between the races…The legal framework of the United States has changed considerably with regard to race. School integration, “civil rights,” racial preferences, the franchise—all have evolved in ways that undermine the ability of whites to lead their lives as they wish.”[7]
- Richard Spencer, who heads the Whitefish, Montana-based National Policy Institute (NPI), coined the term alt-right in an effort to rebrand white nationalism. The NPI was founded in 2005 by Sam Francis (see above) and William Regnery. The NPI recently made national headlines when Spencer shouted “Hail Trump” and conference attendees threw up Nazi salutes at the group’s November 19 conference in Washington D.C. In a 2016 article, Spencer wrote, “Some people perceive [genetic racial] differences in intelligence and the ability to achieve economic success as unfair. It would be more accurate to say they are neither fair nor unfair… they are a natural product of different evolutionary histories…If it were generally understood that Whites are not responsible for the inability of most Blacks to match average White levels of academic and professional achievement, racial tensions in America might be greatly eased.”[8] (For more on Spencer and NPI, see Who is Richard Spencer?).
- VDARE is a white nationalist group with a nativist bent that has published articles by white nationalists Sam Francis, Jared Taylor and Richard Spencer, among others. In 2010 VDARE’s Peter Brimelow helped white nationalist Richard Spencer launch the website AlternativeRight.com. In response to an IREHR article on white nationalism at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference, Brimelow wrote, “My question: don’t whites a.ka.[sic] people known until the 1965 Immigration Act as ‘Americans’ have rights too?” (See IREHR Part of “Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy”).
- Steve Sailer is a leading “thinker” among advocates of so-called human biological diversity (HBD). HBD in Sailer’s hands is little more the a re-branding of biological determinism. Sailer compares race to familial relationships and argues that racial discrimination is natural: “[E]thnocentrism, nationalism, and racism are essentially the flip side of nepotism. If people discriminate in favor of their relatives, they are going to discriminate against their non-relatives.”[9]
In addition to placing white nationalists and biological determinists at the center of the alt-right, Milo drives home that he is talking about white nationalism in a description of the mass base he sees this movement coveting:
“Natural conservatives can broadly be described as the group that the intellectuals above were writing for. They are mostly white, mostly male middle-American radicals, who are unapologetically embracing a new identity politics that prioritises the interests of their own demographic…Their instinctive wariness of the foreign and unfamiliar is an instinct that we all share – an evolutionary safeguard against excessive, potentially perilous curiosity. They prefer familiar societies, familiar norms, and familiar institution.” [Italics added].
And, as if it has not been clear enough to this point, Milo continues that
“The alt-right’s intellectuals would also argue that culture is inseparable from race. The alt-right believe that some degree of separation between peoples is necessary for a culture to be preserved. A Mosque next to an English street full of houses bearing the flag of St. George, according to alt-righters, is neither an English street nor a Muslim street – separation is necessary for distinctiveness.”
The melding of culture and race, and their link to a movement with political aspirations is the very definition of racial nationalism – in this case, white nationalism.
In this context, Yiannopoulos declares that “the rise of Donald Trump, perhaps the first truly cultural candidate for President since [Pat] Buchanan, suggests grassroots (sic) appetite for a more robust protection of the western European and American way of life.”
As the above discussion shows, there is really no question that Yiannopoulos is defending the melding of white nationalism and crass misogyny behind the name “alt-right.” Steve Bannon’s ascent to the White House has left us with a struggle to defend our communities from the racist policies that will come from the Trump administration. It has also spawned new players in a movement that is mobilizing to attack communities of color and women.
Milo Yiannopoulos is one of these new players. North Dakota State University and Iowa State University have already withdrawn invitations for him to speak.
Milo Yiannopoulos’s National Tour Locations and Dates
| Date | City, State | College |
| December 1, 2016 | Morgantown, WV | West Virginia University |
| December 2, 2016 | Athens, OH | Ohio University |
| December 5, 2016 | Oxford, OH | Miami University |
| December 7, 2016 | East Lansing, MI | Michigan State University |
| December 13, 2016 | Milwaukee, WI | University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee |
| December 15, 2016 | Mankato, MN | Minnesota State University |
| January 13, 2017 | Davis, CA | University of California at Davis |
| January 16, 2017 | Santa Barbara, CA | University of California at Davis |
| January 19, 2017 | Pullman, WA | Washington State University |
| January 20, 2017 | Seattle, WA | University of Washington |
| January 25, 2017 | Boulder, CO | University of Colorado – Boulder |
| January 26, 2017 | Colorado Springs, CO | University of Colorado – Colorado Springs |
| January 27, 2017 | Albuquerque, NM | University of New Mexico |
| January 31, 2017 | San Luis Obispo, CA | California Polytechnic State University |
| February 1, 2017 | Berkeley, CA | University of California at Berkeley |
| February 3, 2017 | Los Angeles, CA | University of California at Los Angeles |
NOTES
[1] Nolan, Lucan. Milo on Channel 4: ‘I Am A Gay Jew And Steve Bannon Made Me Into A Star.’ Breitbart News. November 18, 2016. http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/11/18/milo-channel-4-gay-jew-steve-bannon-made-star/ .
[2] Yiannopoulos, Milo. Here’s Everything I Wanted to Say About Islam Yesterday, But Couldn’t. Breitbart News. June 16, 2016. http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/06/16/heres-everything-wanted-say-islam-yesterday-couldnt/.
[3] Yiannopoulos, Milo. Full Text: 10 Things Milo Hates About Islam. Breitbart News. September 27, 2016. http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/09/27/10-things-milo-hates-islam/.
[4] Yiannopoulos, Milo. The Solution to Online ‘Harassment’ is Simple: Women Should Log Off. Breitbart News. July 5, 2016. http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/07/05/solution-online-harassment-simple-women-log-off/ .
[5] Channel 4 News. Milo Yiannopoulos speaks to Cathy Newman. YouTube. November 18, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_vDke_nQvU.
[6] Francis, Sam. Prospects for Racial and Cultural Survival. American Renaissance. March 1995. http://www.amren.com/news/2011/06/prospects_for_r/ .
[7] American Renaissance. Our Issues. http://www.amren.com/about/issues/.
[8] Spencer, Richard and F. Roger Devlin. Race-Stalking the Wild Taboo. Radix. July 6, 2016. http://www.radixjournal.com/the-red-pill/2016/7/6/race.
[9] Sailer, Steve. Rushton on ethnic nepotism. Steve Sailer: iSteve. October 31, 2005. http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/10/rushton-on-ethnic-nepotism.html.
