"Anti-Racist Rednecks with Guns: An Interview With Dave Strano "

"The John Brown Gun Club focused on two main program points. We worked to provide skillshares and trainings in the tactical use of firearms within the radical community and also to distribute free anti-racist literature at gun shows in Kansas and Missouri. We managed to table at over 30 different gun shows in a three year period, and distribute hundreds of copies of anti-racist and anti-Minutemen literature during that time period. We even managed to make some close allies with several other gun show vendors, one of which quit the Minutemen...

In 1921, the term became synonymous with armed insurrection against capitalists and the state, as members of the United Mine Workers of America tied red bandanas around their necks during the Battle of Blair Mountain, a two week long armed labor uprising in the coalfields of West Virginia.

Today, the term redneck has taken on a demeaning connotation, primarily among upper class urban liberals who have gone out of their way to dehumanize white working class and poor people. Terms like "white trash" have come to signify the view among these same upper class liberals of poor and rural whites.

To us, the term redneck is a term that signifies a pride in our class as well as a pride in resistance to bosses, politicians, and all those that protect domination and tyranny...

The call ourselves rednecks then, to celebrate the history of treason to whiteness and allegiance to the working class that this term once embodied...

The reactions in Colorado, where the Minutemen have had a stronger foothold have been definitely more on the negative side. Unlike Kansas, where we had some direct confrontations, but never from actual members of the Minutemen, we've had Minutemen members threaten to break our arms or mob up on our table threatening to have us kicked out of the show. Despite these reactions, Colorado has a higher percentage of non-white gun show attendees, and the reactions from these gun owning black and brown folks has been amazingly positive...

However, there isn't a whole lot of radical anti-racist literature out there that is specifically written towards the experiences of white working class people...

as radical and progressive movements are also quick to push anyone away who doesn't use the right words or does use the wrong words, or anyone that we're suspicious of being tainted by oppressive behaviors or thoughts. Of course, this means that 90% of the working class is automatically an enemy, and the ranks of the Left are instead filled with upper middle class educated  academics that know what words are acceptable and anti-oppressive and have the time and resources to have attended a never ending series of anti-oppression workshops and classes."

http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/anti-racist-rednecks-with-guns.html#.VetEYr0o7qC

Amazing. Amazing. I think this is a fuller realization of what a lot of people sort of think Bernie Sanders is doing. Like, actually pairing class inequality with racism and generating solidarity.

FB: this interview! I love this
"The term "redneck" started to become part of our political identity. We produced literature specifically targeted toward white working class people, urging them to abandon their kneejerk racism and allegiance to whiteness and to instead build alliances with working class brown and black folks."