Author: Atlanta Antifa

Repost from Joshua Hitson Information.

In May 2017, Atlanta Antifascists exposed Whitewater High School (Fayetteville, Georgia) teacher Joshua David Hitson as a Hitler-admiring, white power agitator. Since Whitewater High School currently lists Hitson as a staff member and seems unconcerned by this situation, we are releasing this dossier with 180 pages of documentation on Joshua Hitson and his racist allegiances. Read it online or download it here.

Please spread the word, especially to Whitewater High School students and parents. Feel free to contact Whitewater High School or Fayette County Public Schools with concerns.

On September 10, 2016, white nationalists of the Georgia “Alt-Right” had a gathering at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. Over a dozen white nationalists were recorded by a visitor to the Park, as they chanted “Alt-Right, Alt-Right!” and addressed her with sexist and antisemitic jeers (e.g. “Christ killer,” “Jews don’t wear panties.”) Two leaders of the “Alt-Right” group, Patrick Sharp and Casey Cooper, wore shirts for The Right Stuff, a far-Right racist website.

In the Metro Atlanta area, white nationalists associated with the “Alt-Right” have had a wave of activity in recent months, seemingly energized first by the Trump campaign and then by Trump’s presidential victory. Racist stickers and posters have appeared on Atlanta-area campuses; there have been several local networking events; and on January 28, 2017, “Alt-Right” white nationalists and Southern secessionists gathered for the larger “Atlanta Forum” regional gathering in Marietta.

Core activists of the energized local “Alt-Right” were caught in action at Stone Mountain on September 10 last year. While typically local “Alt-Right” racists meet in secrecy, this time they got recorded. Three of the white nationalists who appeared on Stone Mountain in September are discussed below. All three are Georgia State University students. (Patrick Sharp, one of the leaders of the “Alt-Right” group on the Mountain, was also until recently a GSU student — we have discussed Sharp extensively elsewhere.)

Charles (Chaz) Neugebauer

Charles Neugebauer is a Criminal Justice major at GSU and is the President of the University’s Boxing Club. On Twitter, Chaz Neugebauer uses the handle “Chud”/@chaz_nuke. This account follows local “Alt-Right” profiles plus better-known national ones such as TheRightStuff and Richard Spencer. On this Twitter account, Neugebauer portrays immigration in Europe as an “invading army” and further signals his far-Right worldview in comments such as: “Your ancestors didn’t fight and die for you to chose [sic] their adversaries over your own people.”

One string of Twitter comments complains about being “called a racist” in one of his current classes. We can only guess what led to that.

Chase Carroll

Chase Riggs Carroll is another GSU Criminal Justice student, friend of Chaz Neugebauer, and a participant in the GSU Boxing Club. At the September 2016 “Alt-Right” gathering in Stone Mountain Park, Carroll carried a Confederate Battle Flag. At the time, Carroll’s hair was long, but he has since shifted to a stricter, shorter style.

Chaz Neugebauer and Chase Carroll have been seen conferring with Spencer Madison, another far-Right militant attending GSU. [1]

McKinley Witzler

Finally, McKinley Witzler is listed as a Political Science student on GSU’s MeritPages site. Witzler has a Security job with Georgia State, and has been spotted working nights around campus.

Witzler’s radicalization towards the Right seems to have occurred last year. On June 15, 2016, Witzler attended a Trump campaign stop at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. Also in June, Witzler started his (now gone) “12thCenturyShitlord”/@USBarbarossa Twitter account, which he used to argue that BlackLivesMatter protests should be “crushed,” that voting rights for women should be repealed, and that “jews run the media, finances, schools, governments, and blame everything on Whites.”

We believe that McKinley Witzler followed his “12thCenturyShitlord” Twitter account with one named “9thCenturyDeplorable”/@USCharlemagne which has recently been reactivated.

On November 13, 2016 — the day after white nationalist posters and stickers were placed on Atlanta-area campuses as part of a coordinated propaganda campaign — USCharlemagne Tweeted “There’s some naughty goyim in Atlanta.” This suggests the user’s approval of and possibly involvement with the white power action, which was coordinated nationally by TheRightStuff and which hit GSU as well as other campuses in Georgia.

The “9thCenturyDeplorable”/USCharlemagne account was relaunched on March 22 of this year. The first post of the reborn account was a Holocaust reference: “Rev up those ovens, I’m back!” The profile currently lists its “dislikes” as “Saracens” — a term for Muslims from the time of the Crusades — as well as “Jews.”

While McKinley Witzler was photographed on Stone Mountain with long hair, Witzler has now adopted the undercut short hairstyle favored by the Alt-Right — perhaps an attempt to fit in with his militant racist pals.

Conclusion

“Alt-Right” racists are slowly moving from internet posting to concrete activity on campuses and in communities. We highlighted three participants in the local “Alt-Right” scene who were filmed at a 2016 white power gathering. At Georgia State, one of them could be your classmate, the security person in your building, or the person instructing how to throw an efficient punch. We believe that white power activists such as Neugebauer, Carroll and Witzler should be taken seriously. Any attempts they may make to organize against people of color, Muslims, Jewish people, sexual minorities, or other targets must be opposed. It is essential that anti-racists build active networks and broader coalitions that are up for the task.

As always, if you have information about white power and fascist organizing in Atlanta, please contact us.

NOTE

[1] Memo from Georgia State University student, in records of Atlanta Antifascists.

Summary

Casey Jordan Cooper, a student at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, is the white power organizer behind the “Alt-Right” Twitter account @BigButternutJoe. Over the last year, Cooper participated in white nationalist events in the metro Atlanta area and posted racist propaganda on local campuses.  Until recently, Casey Cooper’s Twitter account issued a stream of racist and homophobic slurs, some of them about his fellow students at John Marshall. He was recorded as part of a white nationalist group jeering a Stone Mountain Park visitor with sexist and antisemitic remarks. Cooper is responsible for a death threat against a prominent Black activist in Atlanta.

The Death Threat

In July 2016, a series of large protests raged in Atlanta after police shot and killed Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota. While protests disrupted business-as-usual in response to these high-profile police killings of Black men, Georgia white supremacists tried to counter-mobilize.

The Atlanta-area Twitter user @BigButternutJoe wrote on July 12 that “Whites […] are arming ourselves to the teeth” and that the Black Lives Matter movement will lead to a “massive wave of anti-black action in it’s [sic] wake.” This Twitter user earlier sent a private message to a local Black activist, which simply contained a picture of a noose. (The activist was also tagged in the “arming […] to the teeth” post by BigButternutJoe.)

When this Black activist publicly drew attention to the Twitter death threat, BigButternutJoe retweeted the post speaking out about the threat. BigButternutJoe followed with another statement, suggesting that the activist was exaggerating the death threat problem to “rent seek” (i.e. profit).  BigButternutJoe clarified: “This is why you hang.”

The person responsible for this online death threat has had a busy year, participating in Atlanta-area Alt-Right organizing, placing white power propaganda, and harassing enemies. For much of the same time, “BigButternutJoe” AKA Atlanta resident Casey Jordan Cooper has also been working towards a law degree at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School, where he began as a 1L in August 2016. Atlanta’s John Marshall, a private law school in midtown Atlanta, states that almost 70% of its student body are of a “minority” population; more women than men also attend. Unsurprisingly, Cooper/”BigButternutJoe” doesn’t have pleasant things to say about fellow AJMLS students.

Online Presence and Offline Identity

The @BigButternutJoe Twitter account was opened in early May 2016. It used the names “Phoenix on the Right” and then later “Phoenix Reich.” One of the very first posts to the page was a “selfie” photograph of the account owner, wearing sunglasses and only revealing part of his face.

From May 2016 to near the end of January 2017, BigButternutJoe logged over 3,000 posts on Twitter. However, on January 30, 2017 the user began rapidly deleting his posts, until only three were visible on his Twitter account’s front page. The user name was changed from “Phoenix Reich” to “Phoenix Thiccness” and the account’s imagery was also completely altered. This rapid series of changes to the Twitter account may have been because BigButternutJoe realizedthat  anti-fascists were taking an interest in his online boasts, for example about placing racist propaganda on campuses. Atlanta Antifascists archived a large portion of BigButternutJoe’s online posts before they were deleted, keeping a record of the account’s numerous rants against “k[***]s,” “n[****]rs,” and “f[****]ts.”

For most of the Twitter account’s existence, it used the name “Phoenix Reich,” which combines a reference to the “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney” video game with one to the Third Reich. The main profile picture at the time incorporated an image of Arno Breker’s statue Die Partei, which represents the spirit of Nazism.

Several other online accounts – a couple of Facebook pages for “Phoenix Right” (not available at time of writing), as well as accounts under the name “Phoenix” on Gab.ai; the racist/antisemitic TheRightStuff forums; and the fascist IronMarch site – all match the imagery and biographical information on the BigButternutJoe Twitter.

On TheRightStuff forums, “Phoenix” gives his location as “Apelanta, Georgia” and describes his life:

Working in the legal field, attempting to be a comedian in a liberal infested shithole of a city. Trying my goddamn hardest not to go crazy while being surrounded by the most pozzed f[****]ts and n[****]rs you’ll ever meet.

On IronMarch forums, the introductory post by “Phoenix” mentions living in the South, working in “the legal industry,” and having studied anthropology and psychology in college. The post also discussed the author’s political transformation, claiming that he “almost cried” when he heard a speech by American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell for the first time. The March 2016 introductory post remarked: “The only reason I don’t call myself a fascist or a national socialist is because I don’t have a strong grasp on economics.” Within months, BigButternutJoe would feel comfortable stating “I’m a national socialist” on Twitter and would have a profile picture incorporating Nazi iconography.

It is apparent that Casey Jordan Cooper is behind these online accounts, for several reasons:

•         The selfie posted by BigButternutJoe on Twitter looks just like Casey J. Cooper, as seen for example in Casey Cooper’s 2014 Dekalb County mugshots.
•         In May 2016, BigButternutJoe posted photos of a potted plant outside his apartment’s door. This photo exactly matches the colors and brickwork of Casey Cooper’s current residence. (Note 3/25/2017: not current any more.)
•         Some of the “Phoenix” profiles refer to employment in the legal field. In addition to his current legal studies, Casey Cooper worked as a paralegal for his father Gary Cooper in Duluth, Georgia.
•         Casey Cooper has a University of Georgia bachelor’s degree in Psychology, consistent with claims by “Phoenix” about having studied this subject and Anthropology in college.
•         On both his TheRightStuff profile and on Twitter, “Phoenix” mentioned being involved in the comedy scene. “Casey J. Cooper” performed in Atlanta-area comedy events. [1]
•         Racist statements by BigButternutJoe about law school coincide with Casey Jordan Cooper beginning at John Marshall in Atlanta.

Alt-Right and Racist Organizing

According to one of his Twitter posts, “BigButternutJoe”/Cooper attended the “Rock Stone Mountain” white power rally at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta on April 23, 2016. The rally was organized by white supremacists and Klansmen, but was met with a large and determined anti-racist mobilization that vastly outnumbered the racists and largely ruined their event. BigButternutJoe claimed that he had encountered antifascist forces at Stone Mountain and found them “Not intimadting [sic].” We have not identified Cooper in photo galleries of the “Rock Stone Mountain” event – if he was in the area, he may have either avoided photographers or never made it through the anti-racist protests to join the small white power rally.

Later in the year, Cooper turned his attention to white nationalism of the “Alt-Right” variety. In mid-August 2016, he Tweeted about “using my student loans to fund my trip to NPI” – the “Alt-Right” National Policy Institute conference that November. Half a dozen other Twitter posts also referenced his attendance at the NPI conference. Two more Atlanta Alt-Right militants known to have attended NPI 2016 are racist organizer Patrick Sharp, as well as Jared Huggins (who posed in a group photo of white nationalist Identity Evropa leaders attending the conference.) Cooper was photographed with Huggins, Sharp, and others at a September 2016 “Alt-Right” trip to Stone Mountain Park, discussed separately below.

By 2017, Casey Cooper was playing a central role in local “Alt-Right” racist organizing. The day before the “Atlanta Forum” white nationalist gathering this January, Cooper/BigButternutJoe stressed the effort which had gone into organizing the event: “After a lot of hard work from a lot of good southern goys, this weekend is going to be a fun one.”

•         Stone Mountain, September 2016

Casey Cooper – wearing sunglasses as in his Twitter “selfie” – was recorded at an “Alt-Right” gathering at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta on September 10, 2016. At this gathering, Casey Cooper and white nationalist leader Patrick Sharp both wore sleeveless shirts promoting the far-Right racist TheRightStuff.

The “I Am the Mountain” website contains a full account of the site editor’s encounter with the Alt-Right group at the mountain. The incident began after the website editor asked why one of the all-male group was carrying a Confederate battle flag – the response quickly degenerated into chants of “Alt-Right! Alt-Right!” plus sexist and antisemitic abuse (e.g. “Christ killer,” “Jews don’t wear panties”). Footage of the incident reveals Patrick Sharp and Casey Cooper as two leaders of the Alt-Right group, with Cooper exclaiming, “It’s 2016 — no one cares if you call me a racist anymore!”

•         Propaganda Campaigns

We believe Casey J. Cooper helped place much of the “Alt-Right” and white power propaganda that appeared on campuses and in Atlanta neighborhoods over the past year. On his BigButternutJoe Twitter account, Casey Cooper celebrated and seemingly took responsibility for three incidents of racist/fascist propaganda:

1.       On September 25, 2016, the BigButternutJoe account posted images of a sticker for the (now-cancelled) white power podcast “Fash the Nation” placed on the exterior of King of Pops in the Inman Park neighborhood. BigButternutJoe commented: “Atlanta’s favorite snack got a whole lot more fashy [i.e. fascist] today, and before the rush!”

2. BigButternutJoe also bragged about racist posters and stickers placed around Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, and Kennesaw State University campuses on the weekend of November 12-13, 2016. This coordinated propaganda effort was part of a TheRightStuff/“Daily Shoah” nationally-coordinated action targeting campuses. Over a dozen posters plus “Alt-Right” stickers appeared on each campus that received a visit. We have already discussed this coordinated propaganda action in detail, since white nationalist leader Patrick Sharp is responsible for the “Alt-Right” cityscape sticker design placed around the three campuses; Sharp may have participated in the fascist propaganda night out; and Sharp certainly celebrated it via Twitter. In addition to posters and stickers left on the campuses, as part of the same propaganda effort someone left graffiti threatening violence against “anti-whites” on a KSU fraternity landmark. BigButternutJoe/Casey Cooper was explicit about his involvement in the multi-campus propaganda effort, although he may not have been present on every campus (if coordinated teams were involved.) Afterward, BigButternutJoe/Cooper made seventeen posts to his Twitter with pictures from the various campuses hit in the propaganda mission, each post including multiple images of posters, stickers, or graffiti. BigButternutJoe/Cooper then added:

Learned quite a lot from this weekend. Our next campaign is going to be smooth, efficient, and with even better designs. Keep a look out.

3.       On January 24, 2017, Cooper’s Twitter account posted thirteen images (in four different posts) of new “Alt-Right” stickers placed around Georgia Tech campus. Designs included “Join the Alt-Right,” “White America: Who Protects You & Your Family?” and “Diversity is a False God.” Seeking media attention, Cooper/BigButternutJoe tagged news stations in these posts and even followed up with a post providing the locations on the stickers on campus. (Twitter user @largeguyUUUU posted an image of the same propaganda at Georgia Tech, suggesting that he may also have been involved in this action.)

These three incidents may not be the extent of Cooper’s street/campus propaganda efforts, though. The stickers that first surfaced around Georgia Tech in January have now popped up on other campuses. There is significant circumstantial evidence that Cooper also placed racist propaganda in a couple of Atlanta areas.

We already discussed the “Fash the Nation” sticker at King of Pops in Inman Park, which BigButternutJoe/Casey Cooper took responsibility for online. From November 2016 to February 2017, the Inman Park neighborhood was repeatedly hit with racist and fascist propaganda, with up to three dozen stickers appearing at a time. Some of the stickers that appeared in this neighborhood were the Patrick Sharp-produced “Alt-Right” cityscape design, stickers produced by Tightrope (a business which circulates Klan and neo-Nazi materials), and finally the newer “Alt-Right” designs which premiered on Georgia Tech campus in January 2017 (a campus action claimed by Cooper). Starting November 2016, anti-fascists removed well over 150 far-Right and racist stickers posted around Inman Park, the nearby Historic Fourth Ward skate-park, and the Atlanta Beltline. Cooper’s apartment is less than a 20-minute stroll from the epicenter of the Inman Park propaganda campaign.

Finally, approximately ten stickers from Tightrope — the Klan/neo-Nazi business – were found in Midtown Atlanta by antifascists in December 2016. These stickers were placed on Spring Street between 17th and 18th, as well as on 17th between Spring Street and West Peachtree Street. In other words: they all appeared within a block of Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School. (The stickers were also a block away from the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, which is near John Marshall.)

Conclusion

Between white nationalist organizing, racist propaganda campaigns, instigating abuse and making threats, Casey Jordan Cooper has had a busy year. We hope that this documentation is shared widely, so that that Cooper’s identity as a militant racist is known to those who must deal with him daily, and to whom he may pose a threat. To collectively oppose racist organizing in our communities, it is important to know who is responsible.

Cooper’s recent white power agitation provides a clear case study of how small circles of Alt-Right racists are attempting to move from internet posting to street-level propaganda runs, networking events, and infrastructure-building for their movement. If anti-racists are strategic, we can counteract and undermine many of these fledgling efforts.

As always, we encourage anyone with information on racist and fascist organizing in our region to get in contact and share what you know.

NOTES

[1] Three comedy events featuring “Casey J. Cooper” were: “Dottie Drops Trou” at 368 Ponce in Atlanta on 8/31/2015, “Out of Ideas: A Sketch Show We Made” at 7 Stages in Atlanta on 10/16/2015, and “BattleActs! Marches On!” at Academy Theatre in Hapeville on 3/19/2016.

A Georgia State University (GSU) student who has been requesting information about leftist and anti-racist organizing may not be who he appears. In many conversations, especially as he hangs around the Library Courtyard, GSU student Spencer Madison provides the name “Lukas.” When talking with people who he thinks may be left-leaning, “Lukas” has attempted to steer the conversation towards leftist organizing projects and especially anti-fascist work. According to one source, “Lukas” was “probing for information” particularly intensely during late February of this year [1]. We suspect that “Lukas” is not motivated by genuine curiosity, but is trying to gather intelligence for use against political opponents.

On his Facebook page, Spencer Madison is upfront about his far-Right, anti-immigrant and Islamophobic beliefs. There have been no public posts on the page since mid-2016, but it is unlikely Madison’s political commitments have shifted radically since that time. Madison’s Facebook “likes” include three for the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands / National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), which is generally considered a neo-Nazi political party. Spencer Madison also follows “This is Europa,” a white nationalist project. He “likes” a couple of pages for Alternative für Deutschland / Alternative for Germany (AfD), a Right-wing political party which stresses hostility towards immigrants and Muslims. Madison also circulated AfD materials on his page. According to Facebook, Madison appreciates Identitäre Bewegung – Deutschland, the German branch of the “Identitarian” movement, a far-Right movement which couches its racism in language of “difference.” Finally, Madison “likes” the Right-wing “Anti-communist” page and reposted anti-socialist materials on multiple occasions. (Madison’s “likes” for the state-friendly anti-extremist Southern Poverty Law Center and deceased Cuban leader Fidel Castro are incongruous with the overall politics promoted on his Facebook page.)

In the aftermath of a July 2016 terror attack in Germany, Madison commented: “Just wondering how long it will take to domesticate these people [presumably Muslims and/or immigrants] into German civilization.” Not exactly subtle stuff.

Such words and endorsements would be enough to make us question the motives behind “Lukas’” newfound interest in anti-racist and leftist organizing. But there’s more.

While white nationalist organizer Patrick Sharp was completing his final semester at GSU (Fall 2016), Sharp met regularly with Spencer Madison in the Library Courtyard. (Sharp is best known for trying to form a “White Student Union” at GSU in 2013; Sharp’s more recent racist organizing has been extensively documented on this site.) In one conversation with Sharp, Madison claimed that European culture is especially advanced, and that this justifies conquest of Native American peoples. [2]

And there’s even more. White nationalist propaganda has appeared several times at Georgia State University (and other campuses) in 2017 despite Patrick Sharp’s graduation.

Here’s an account from someone who was approached by “Lukas”/Spencer Madison this February:

On the night of Monday, February 6th, I was out with some friends by GSU’s campus in Downtown Atlanta off Hurt Park. We were putting up some flyers for a club night we were promoting when a young man […] with blond hair approached us. He asked us “Hey, are you all from I.E.?” Not knowing what that group was, I responded “Sorry, don’t know what that is” and then he said, “Oh, never mind.” Five seconds later it dawned on me that he may have meant “Identity Evropa,” a fascist organization whose stickers have been springing up on campuses around the country over the past few years. [3]

We confirmed with the author of this statement that the person they talked with was Spencer Madison/“Lukas.” (Madison’s hair had a blond tint at the time – see February 2017 photo above.) The exchange does not prove that Madison has placed white nationalist materials at GSU. However, it seems likely that Madison was referring to Identity Evropa. On the same week as the brief conversation occurred, materials from Identity Evropa appeared at Georgia Tech campus plus GSU.

In a further development, on Wednesday March 8, “Lukas” showed up to GSU campus on crutches. When speaking with some students, he stated that he had been viciously attacked by knife-wielding antifascists. To others, he told the much more plausible story that he was simply attacked for his property [4]. We believe that “Lukas’” reason for spreading the first unlikely story was to harm the reputation of anti-racists.

Since Spencer Madison has been linked to far-Right organizations and bigoted politics, we do not think that “Lukas” should be provided any information about leftist or anti-racist organizing. Rather, students should know about Spencer Madison’s identity, actual commitments, and the far-Right agenda he serves on campus. We live in a time of heightened racist and far-Right militancy; students should organize to keep each other safe, especially because campus authorities have proven unreliable at best.

While students organize to resist the far-Right locally, Atlanta Antifascists will help with research, analysis, and other practical measures. If you have information on racist or fascist organizing on Atlanta campuses, please get in contact.

NOTES

[1] Report from GSU student, records of Atlanta Antifascists.

[2] Report from GSU student — early November 2016 conversation. (Different source than Note 1.)

[3] Eyewitness report with minor stylistic/copy edits. Original statement erroneously describes person as “in his early 20s” (phrase cut above). Spencer Madison is in fact slightly younger, although this matches his appearance.

[4] Documentation from multiple GSU students.