Amazon and other online retailers are reportedly banning sales of shirts with the phrases “stand back” and “stand by” on them, although as of this writing, the shirts are still for sale on eBay.
Who Are the Proud Boys?
The Proud Boys was started in 2016 by a man named Gavin McInnes, a U.K.-born Canadian who also co-founded Vice Media. The name “Proud Boys” comes from “Proud of Your Boy,” a song from the musical version of the film “Aladdin.” The group seems to be a reaction against what McInnes has called the “politically correct culture.” After its inception, McInnes said, it “soon became a bona fide men’s club with rituals, traditions, and even its own in-house court called ‘The Sharia.’” “Women are not allowed,” and to join the group, said McInnes, a man has to publicly affiliate himself with the Proud Boys and then submit to a ritual of being punched by five members until he can name five breakfast cereals.
“All that is required to become a Proud Boy is that a man declare he is ‘a Western chauvinist who refuses to apologize for creating the modern world,’” says the Proud Boys website. “We do not discriminate based upon race or sexual orientation/preference. We are not an ‘ism,’ ‘ist,’ or ‘phobic’ that fits the Left’s narrative. We truly believe that the West Is The Best and welcome those who believe in the same tenets as us.”
The stated “core values” of the Proud Boys are:
-Maximum Freedom
-Anti-Political Correctness
-Anti-Drug War
-Closed Borders
-Anti-Racial Guilt
-Anti-Racism
-Pro-Free Speech (1st Amendment)
-Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment)
-Glorifying the Entrepreneur
-Venerating the Housewife
-Reinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism
While many understand the word “chauvinist” to mean someone who discriminates against women, the group says that when they use the word, they mean “a person displaying blatant or unapologetic patriotism.”
An article in the Proud Boys magazine titled, “What is a Western Chauvinist?” states, “When we Proud Boys say, ‘I am a proud Western Chauvinist,’ we are saying ‘I am a proud and unabashed proponent of Western Civilization.’ That is it. It has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, or even national origin.”
Group members sometimes wear “Make America Great Again” hats, as well as black and yellow Fred Perry polo shirts. Since the presidential debate, Fred Perry has distanced itself from the Proud Boys and the shirts are now becoming difficult to purchase in the U.S. and Canada. However, Proud Boys members in the U.K. are buying as many of the shirts as they can for their American and Canadian counterparts.
Gavin McInnes and His Claims About the Proud Boys
McInnes has said that the Proud Boys are not a white supremacist group, but his actions indicate otherwise. He created a video in 2017 initially called “Ten Things I Hate about Jews” that he then changed to “Ten Things I Hate About Israel.” According to the Gospel Coalition, in the video, McInnes says Israelis have a “whiny paranoid fear of Nazis that’s making them scared of Christians and Trumps [sic] who are their greatest allies.”
McInnes and other group members have been tied to violence, including violent rhetoric. In 2018, 10 members were arrested for fighting and rioting in New York City. In November 2018, The Guardian broke the story that the FBI had designated the Proud Boys as “extremist group with ties to white nationalism.” This information comes from an Internal Affairs investigation document that described concerns about Erin Willey, who was an employee of the Clark County Sheriff’s Office in Vancouver, Washington. The investigation concerned an allegation that Willey had “knowingly and willingly affiliated” with the Proud Boys. While the document was not an investigation into the Proud Boys specifically, it did make the following statement:
The FBI has warned local law enforcement agencies that the Proud Boys are actively recruiting in the Pacific Northwest and that some Proud Boys members have contributed to the recent escalation of violence at political rallies held on college campuses, and in cities like Charlottesville, Virginia, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.
