On Sunday, July 10th, 2022, Protect Texas Kids, a hate group led by self-proclaimed Christian fascist Kelly Neidert from North Texas, attempted to disrupt an all-ages drag show brunch event at Hamburger Mary’s downtown Houston location. Having discovered their plans beforehand, local Houstonians rallied together in a counter-demonstration to defend the event. A crowd of about 100 local Anti-Fascists and members of Houston’s queer community mobilized around the venue to guard the entrance, dwarfing the roughly dozen bigots who yelled across the street from behind police and their barricades.
While the fascists’ tiny group stood around occasionally rambling into megaphones, queer Houstonians were drowning them out with our own chants, dancing to music, and staying cool with water, super soakers, and drinks provided by Hamburger Mary’s. The drag show was able to go on as planned, and the fascists were escorted out by police shortly after the drag brunch ended.
A crowd of over 100 Anti-Fascists guarding Hamburger Mary’s in Downtown Houston
Kelly’s attempt to disrupt this event with her group was the latest in a series of actions they have organized against trans and queer gatherings. In general, the group pushes age-old homophobic myths about pedophilia in the queer community as an excuse to show up to events and harass people. They are typically based in Dallas and North Texas, where other Anti-Fascist groups have mobilized against them before. This is one of their first notable appearances in Houston to date, aside from a small group of them trying to counter-protest this year’s Pride Parade last month. We hope after how poorly their rally went, that it will be their last. As far as we know, Kelly and others traveled here from North Texas specifically for this event, despite their turnout struggling to reach a dozen people. While planning the rally, Kelly claimed that “Antifa” in Houston “isn’t very active and it’s likely they won’t show up.” She continues on to say “If they do, I think we will outnumber them.”
Some of the same fascists who came to Hamburger Mary’s on Sunday also participated in a Houston White Lives Matter rally in December 2021, where they had a similarly low turnout despite bringing people in from across the state on both occasions. Among them was Ronald Murray Jr, a Neo-Nazi we recently exposed for his actions in the Houston area. Ronald gave an interview during the event and shouted slurs over the megaphone. Kelly and her crowd had no problem hanging out with these Neo-Nazis until the cameras started rolling at which point she made an effort to stand farther away from them. Regardless, it was clear they felt welcomed to Kelly’s event and knew they would be safe on her side.
Some of the more explicit Neo-Nazis from the crowd. One giving a Sieg Heil salute (right).
A Neo-Nazi sitting behind police lines with a Swastika necklace.
Ronald Murray Junior conducting an interview wearing a Swastika necklace and SS hat.
Kelly Neidert (left) being guarded by masked men. Proud Boys have been seen recently in Buccees masks.
Hawaiian shirts (left) are often worn by the far-right Boogaloo Boys.
At past events Protect Texas Kids have invited Proud Boys to attend, which we also witnessed this time around. Alongside the actual “Protect Texas Kids” membership, a few non-uniformed Proud Boys were seen in addition to the contingent of Neo-Nazis mentioned above. Neidert claimed our own call to action caused the Neo-Nazis to attend. This is a ridiculous claim for a self-proclaimed Christian fascist to make who has appeared on a holocaust denial podcast and who buddies up with Proud Boys. The only difference between Ronald Murray and Kelly Neidert is a swastika necklace and years of unpaid child support. Members from the fascists’ side attempted to walk towards the venue repeatedly, including three Proud Boys who were forced back to their sideand a “radical centrist” who immediately was booed away. Of course, the cops made no attempt to stop them from coming over, and the community had to defend themselves.
One of the Proud Boys (left) who attended the rally.
Attempts to Police the Counterprotest
There were many attempts to police the community defense of Hamburger Mary’s, from both the cops and from people within the protest. Cops forced us into an increasingly small area, keeping us off curbs, and eventually set up barricades to make a “pathway” that split up the protest in two. The police put up barricades on the fascist side as well, but laid out theirs on the street, giving their tiny group plenty of room.They placed our barricades on the sidewalk, which reduced the room we had even more. As mentioned earlier, the cops made no effort to protect anyone from the fascists. They only intervened when fascists who came over to our side were at threat of getting hurt by the much larger crowd they were harassing. Their role at the protest was clear– to pacify our crowd and keep the fascists safe throughout their demonstration.
As often seen at Houston protests, policing of the crowd also came from self–proclaimed “organizers”, who had not organized this event but still attempted to co-opt it. These peace police scolded people for dressing in masks so they don’t get doxxed by fascists, told people to stop militant chants that the rest of the crowd was fine with, and tried to get people to stop waving any signs they didn’t like. These “organizers” made no effort to get in contact with us to help organize or coordinate the event, and instead tried to position themselves as leaders of a crowd that largely came out because of our call to action. Their justifications were that they wanted the event to be a safe place for the community–even while ordering around the trans and queer people who actually organized the event– and that they wanted to present queer people in a positive light to the children in the fascists’ crowd who are being indoctrinated(there were about 2 or 3 kids in their crowd total). Despite their concerns for “safety”, they were nowhere to be seen when cops were boxing us in or when fascists tried entering the crowd. Outside of this small group, however, nobody else seemed to have an issue with the more militant members of the crowd. Instead, people in bloc and those who directly confronted fascists were often thanked, the crowd joined in on militant, anti-cop chants, and people asked to take photos of signs with slogans like “these queers bash back”. Ultimately, the peace police gave up on their efforts to control the counterprotest when the threat of nazis and cops became too clear to ignore.
The ‘sacrificial’ role that march-and-vote peace police continue to sloganeer about illustrates the fundamental logic and limitations of liberal ‘bodies and spaces’ politics. Peace policing directly contradicts and undermines our own capacity to truly take up community self-defense is fundamentally repressive and serves as willing counterinsurgency which directly benefits the fascists, cops, and the capitalists they protect.
Only a burgeoning revolutionary subjectivity and practice can hold its own against the surge of present and rising fascism. As the class is recomposed into a fighting force capable of liberating itself and smashing capitalism, such a revolutionary subjectivity & practice must be upheld.
Conclusion
The counterprotest stretched far beyond our own membership and relied on the other organizations and individuals that belong to no group to succeed.We want to thank the nearly 100 people who came out to defend our community and Hamburger Mary’s for keeping the drag brunch running despite the pressure. We also want to thank the numerous groups and organizations that came out, including (but not limited to):
Sunday showed that Houstonians are strong, resilient, and do not accept hate towards our neighbors. The counterprotest ended up being a celebration of queerness as we kept each other safe from fascists and pigs, and a reminder that our queer community is rooted in protest and rebellion. From Stonewall to Houston’s protests against Anita Bryant that started Houston Pride, to Sunday at Hamburger Mary’s, queers will always bash back and will look beautiful while doing so.
Pre-Event Press Release:
You can view the press release we posted prior to the event here:
In the past few months we’ve seen an uptick of attempts to attack Jewish establishments by white supremacists in Texas. Recently, a synagogue was burned down in Austin after a series of anti-Semitic actions by the Goyim Defense League. There has also been an increase in the distribution of antisemitic propaganda throughout the U.S. by various groups. This week, we’ve seen another attempt to threaten the Jewish community in Houston.
On Saturday, December 18, Neo-Nazis and white supremacists affiliated with White Lives Matter (WLM) organized a demonstration outside of the local offices for the Anti Defamation League. After weeks of planning, they managed to get a dozen Neo-Nazis to show upand stand in the rain with antisemitic signs. The Screwston Anti-Fascist Committee was informed of the event by another Anti-Fascist group, and within a day managed to organize twice as many people to protest against them. We were proud to stand in solidarity with everyonewho showed up to fight white supremacy, both those in formal political organizations and those who went alone. The Houstonians who came out showed white supremacists that they are not welcome in our city, and that we will not tolerate bigotry against our neighbors. White Lives Matter was late to show up, and it was already raining by the time they had come. After a brief clash between the two sides, cops came to separate us and protect the fascists. The police were clear in their intentions, having openly stated that they were there to protect the Nazi’s right to “free speech”. WLM even admits to this, as can be seen in their gab post about the event:
It’s clear that the police don’t protect the people of Houston,butinstead aim to make sure Neo-Nazis can safely organize events and spread their genocidal message.
The fascists in WLM forgot to bring umbrellas, so their signs ended up getting washed out by the rain. After about an hour of trying to show off their faded and nearly incoherent ramblings to the few cars passing by and getting their shouts drowned out by our significantly larger crowd, the WLM members scurried away within the police escort. The event was a clear success for the Anti-Fascists, and Houstonians who showed up in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors. Not only did we significantly outnumber the WLM members and take their signs, but we got them to leave and drowned out their message, reminding them that antisemitism and fascism wont be tolerated in Houston.
About White Lives Matter
White Lives Matter is a decentralized network of white supremacists. They mainly organize in various regional telegram groups divided on the state level, and country level for groups outside the so-called U.S. After a few years of dormancy since they first appeared in 2016, the group got off to a rocky re-start in April after they attempted to coordinate rallies across the so called U.S.Their rallies failed to attract more then a handful of people at each location in the instances where they weren’t cancelled completely.Anti-Fascists infiltrated local telegram groups and vastly outnumbered the few fascist protestors who did show up. Now, their protests struggle to attract more then a dozen participants, and they mainly distribute white supremacist and white genocide conspiracy content in an attempt to indoctrinate white Americans and to terrorize marginalized communities. Most members of White Lives matter are explicit fascists, using usernames with references to the third reich and, in the case of many of the WLM members on the 18th, wearing swastikas, SS bolts, or other symbols of Nazism. They’ll sometimes try to obscure this fact to seem more respectable for the sake of “optics”, but as this event shows, they still have a hard time keeping hate symbols out sight.
Statement on the ADL and Zionism
The Anti-Defamation League was likely chosen as a target by “White Lives Matter” for multiple reasons. For one, it’s one of the most prominent Jewish organizations in the country and is featured prominently in many conspiracy theories about white genocide, so they intend to terrorize and intimidate all Jews by targeting it. They also likely chose it as a target in order to sow divison among the left —WLM seeks to bait their enemies into supposed hypocrisy so they can accuse us of being zionists, but there is no hypocrisy in our position. The ADL is a firmly right-wing zionist organization with a history of surveilling and maligning social justice movements and support of law enforcement, including sponsoring israeli trainings for NYPD. Loyal to the israeli settler-state, the ADL silences criticism of israel’s apartheid, ethnic cleaning and war crimes by targeting and smearing Palestinians and their Jewish anti-zionist allies as anti-Semites. While their purported mission as a civil rights organization is to combat antisemitism, they are unabashed in their public support of anti-Semites and right wingers in the US and elsewhere.
The Screwston Anti-fascist Committee stands in solidarity with all oppressed people worldwide. We stand in solidarity with Jewish people in the US and elsewhere who are among the most frequent victims of hate crimes and whose communities are constantly under attack. We stand in solidarity with the millions of Palestinian refugees in exile who are barred from returning to their homeland by the israeli settler-state and those who are resisting occupation and apartheid in Palestine. We do not support the ADL in any way and did not call this rally to defend the ADL specificaly.
Conclusion
The counter-protest on December 18th may have been a victory, but it’s just one battle in the war against fascism. We must continue to organize against white supremacy and fight it wherever it rears its head. We ask the readers to cover up and deface any fascist propaganda they might see, inform Screwston Anti-fascist Committee or otherAnti-Fascist groups, and to otherwise do everything you can to fight to keep your community safe from fascism, white supremacy, antisemitism, and bigotry in all forms. It’s only by working together and practicing care and solidarity towards those around us that all of us will be able to defeat fascism.
