Joined Antifa?

Billy Prusinowski, born 9/28/84, joined Antifa 9/28/02.

That (my 18th birthday) was the date of my first mass demonstration, dressed all in black, marching toward the White House to protest the WTO (World Trade Organization).

How did we get here?

It all started with Blink 182, and I will try to keep this prelude concise. Once my neighbor Sean Miskell played Blink for me, I fell in love and continued to discover similar bands such as Pennywise and NOFX, who were punk, and then Bad Religion, who was political punk, and then Propagandhi who was VERY political (helped mold my current day thoughts) and then I heard about live punk shows in my own town. I began going when I was in 10th grade, watching Sean's ska punk band, along with others who had political messages of their own. Some went to high schools where they had a Gay/Straight Alliance called Acceptance Coalition (AXCO) so I co-founded an AXCO at my school, and began on my lifelong path of reading radical literature about police brutality, prisons, fascism, animal abuse, and environmental degradation. This was pre-internet, so this literature was in the form of pamphlets, which, once I read, I was compelled to pass on to the next person. Along with compatriots in groups like Syracuse Animal Rights Organization, we set up tables at shows and at schools to pass out loads of pamphlets about all kinds of social justice issues. Activism in Upstate New York at the time had an amazing surge then, and I was lucky to be a part of it.

After graduating high school, I went to Syracuse University in 2002, and my first month on campus, I noticed DIY sidewalk chalking talking about protesting world trade on September 28th, which was my birthday. I figured, since I was straight edge, I wouldn't be buying cigarettes or anything to celebrate turning 18, so I'd go and protest the WTO and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in D.C. during their upcoming summit.

The group organizing the trip from SU to DC was called SEAC (Student Environmental Action Coalition). After a few meetings, we were on our way to the nation's capital, and had all of our gear ready. We were educated, most of us undergraduate students, and wanting to demonstrate our new knowledge about our country's imperialism by marching in the streets! The thing was, this summit did not want to hear it. Our research and communication with other activist contingents en route to DC indicated that militarized police presence was imminent, and we needed to be prepared for the worst. What did that mean? Well, here's your lesson on Antifa.

Nobody seems to know this. It's ridiculous, but Antifa is not an organization. It is a tactic. It is how we were planning to effectively protest against an organization that wanted to physically restrict our freedom to assemble. Barricades, fully-armored police forces, and even tanks lined public streets to prevent anyone coming near the capitol buildings where the world order was being decided by 8 superpower countries.
We knew to wear all black, because when police fish out individuals to beat or unlawfully arrest, they point and say "the kid with the red hat". Well, 500 of us wearing the same thing makes that impossible. That's part of the strategy. Next, bandanas soaked in apple cider vinegar over our faces. This one is scary to the public, but done in order to protect our eyes, nose, and mouth from tear gas, which is a weapon of war shot at us with cannons and we don't want to end up blind. To clear up more misconceptions- not one of us carried weapons. I ended up with a "stick" when my protest sign got ripped off it when someone yanked it away from me. Did I use it for violence? No, I helped hold someone's huge banner with it so they could rest their arms.

So, Billy, why did you dramatically say you joined Antifa if that's all you did? Well, because we marched together against fascism. News footage showed all of us super crammed together, but only when police tried to squish us by walking into us from all sides holding interlocked metal barricades. I do a combination laugh/cry when people see protestors throwing smoking objects towards police and they're like, "See, they've got weapons!!" BRUH where do you think college students get military tear gas canisters? Home Depot? Cops shoot them at us. We wear black gloves so we can pick these extremely hot objects up and throw them far away so they don't burn our hands. If we don't throw them, they burn our lungs.

I didn't come here to get killed.

Did we go to fight cops? Dude, no. We made up a chant to be sang with 100,000 of our comrades so the people in the WTO could hear our collective voices cry out against the mechanisms that intentionally keep countries poor. In 1999, this "Antifa" (which was called something different then) SHUT DOWN the Seattle WTO summit. Unfortunately this time, no luck shutting it down, but a victory in that thousands of first time demonstrators like me were forever moved to continue in this fight until the day we die.

Don't call me Antifa. I wear all black to the doctor's office too. Call me anti-fascist though, because I certainly am. And you need to be too. But I don't represent this inanimate object any more than the next person who denounces fascists like Hitler, Mussolini, and Trump.

This story probably wasn't as dramatic as you thought it was going to be. At least you can go to bed knowing that this is all just a scare tactic. I will continue to teach a social studies curriculum to my 8th graders based on accurate information, and you will see our movement against imperialism, fascism, and police brutality grow and grow and grow. You're welcome.


Also, you know Trump exploited the word "Antifa" to let these killer cops off the hook for pushing this old man down. I'll forever be sick to my stomach thinking about that fact, thinking that anyone in the world believes he was "Antifa", and thinking that that would make it ok to try and kill him like these unhinged cops did.