Proud Boys

The **Proud Boys** are a twenty-first century alt-right organization.  Most of their movements are done in the United States.  A Canadian-British man named Gavin McInnes started the group because he hoped Donald Trump would win the 2016 United States presidential election.  The Proud Boys only allow men to join, so there are no women. They call themselves "western chauvinists," meaning they think western civilization is the best. They claim that they are not racist, not alt-right and do not support white supremacy, fascism or violence.  Experts disagree with these claims, saying that they are racist, alt-right and supportive of white supremacy and violence.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Proud Boys hate women, Muslims, transmen and transwomen, and immigrants.  The United States FBI list them as an extremist group.  The Southern Poverty Law Center says they are a hate group.

The Proud Boys have been banned from  Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. They have also been banned as a terrorist organisation in Canada and formerly in New Zealand.

## Activities
The Proud Boys like to show up to places where liberal organizations are protesting to counter-protest and fight.  

In 2017, Proud Boy Jason Kessler helped organize the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.  There, the Proud Boys joined Neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan to say they did not want a statue of Robert E. Lee taken down.  A woman named Heather Heyer was killed when a right-winger drove his car into a crowd. 

Joan Donovan of Harvard University's Technology and Social Change Research Project said the Proud Boys don't want to be called a hate group because then they cannot use Paypal, Chase or most other programs that let people sell things or collect money that people give them through the Internet.  Most online payment collection services, for example PayPal, say  in their terms of service that they will not work with hate groups.  In 2019, McInnes sued the SPLC for calling the Proud Boys a hate group.

## Presidential debate
The Proud Boys became more famous on September 29, 2020 because the candidates talked about them in the first debate of the 2020 United States presidential election.  Presidential debates are when the two or more people who want to be president stand on a stage.  Another person called a moderator asks them questions and lets them argue with each other.  People watch in person or on television or the Internet.

Then-President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden debated each other that night. The host running the debate, Chris Wallace, asked Trump if he would say white supremacist and militia groups were bad and tell them to stop hurting people and breaking property. Donald Trump asked Wallace to say the name of a specific group.  Biden said "The Proud Boys." Then Donald Trump said "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by, but you know what? Someone's got to do something about Antifa."

According to Elon University professor Megan Squire, this made the Proud Boys "extremely happy." "They reacted exactly as I thought they would," Squire told *USA Today*. "They were extremely excited by what he said. They felt validated. They took it the same way everybody listening took it — that he was giving them a shout-out, basically."

### #ProudBoys hashtag on Twitter
A few days later, gay men started to use the #ProudBoys Twitter hashtag. Officially, Twitter does not allow Proud Boys to post, but some do anyway. Gay men posted pictures of themselves with their husbands or other partners and tagged the posts #ProudBoys, because they are boys and they are proud.  Englishman Matt Dechaine started the idea.  He said he did it to "spread joy" and work for "movement for positive change [...] rooted in respect and love for each other."

## Colors and logos
Proud Boys like to wear red MAGA hats because they support United States President Donald Trump.  They also like to wear black-and-yellow Fred Perry polo shirts.  Fred Perry stopped selling the shirts in the United States because they do not like the Proud Boys.

After Donald Trump told them "stand back and stand by," Proud Boys started wearing clothes saying "Standing back and standing by."

## Related pages
*Alt-right
*Neo-Nazi
*Gavin McInnes
*Antifa (United States)
*Black Lives Matter

## References