FRINGE 2018: What it’s like to be a Jewish comedian at a white nationalist meeting

Alex Edelman

So here’s the challenge. I have to tell you about attending a meeting of white nationalists.

But I’m also doing a stand-up comedy show about that. So to avoid giving away too much of the show, I’m going to tell you some things that I’ve learned about anti-semitism from that meeting without ruining my hour of comedy – which is on in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival.

Just so you know, some of the language that follows is pretty challenging, but we’re all adults, so we should be able to handle it, no? Also: some stuff has been changed to protect folks. Mainly myself.

Also, it should go without saying, but I am a Jew.

Shorts in December

At this meeting of White Nationalists in New York City – which has millions of people who reside and visit every day – there were only about twenty people. Which I guess is kind of heartening? Most of them were dressed normally. There was one guy who was wearing shorts, which I found pretty suspect given that it was December, but whatevs.

Shadow-banning

The social media account that broadcast the time and location of the meeting – which is how I found out about it – was purged from Twitter in May 2017. Twitter occasionally cleans its rolls of bots that spout hate speech or white identity politics. Ironically, many real racists are caught up in bot purges and it’s a common source of complaint. They also spend a lot of time being upset by something called ‘shadow-banning‘.

Old-school racists

The most referenced site at this meeting is called 4chan, but not all people on 4chan are Nazis, obviously. Not all Nazis are on 4chan, and some old-school racists apparently find the movement of racism into online platforms to be frustrating given a distrust of technology old racists seem to have.

There was mention of an old-school website that seems like the true homepage for White Nationalists but I’ll not advertise it here, obviously.

Beyond the pale

I remember thinking, improbably, that it was weird to be in a room with exclusively white people. That rarely happens in New York City except in, like, certain frozen yogurt places.

A friend in Yeezus

They spent a lot of time chatting about celebrity gossip. Including Kanye West. Some people identified as fans of Kanye West with no apparent irony.

White (collar) power

Most of the anti-Semites I encountered were middle-class and thought they were just being rational. Which I found interesting.

Code of dishonour

Jews are commonly referred to as ‘Skypes’. It’s an online code that’s meant to evade censoring authorities and many White Nationalists and racists are uncomfortable with its usage. When it was actually said by one of the folks in this meeting, people snickered. I don’t know if that’s because it’s tacky or something.

The usage of three parentheses around a name – the example for me would be ‘(((Alex Edelman)))’ – is seen as common knowledge even outside their community. There is some other disturbing code-stuff. My least favourites are numerical.

’88’ corresponds to Hell Hitler – with ‘H’ being the eighth letter of the alphabet – and there was a number that corresponds to the amount of countries that Jews have been kicked out of – 113, I think? – that is used as a weird shorthand.

Sympathy with the devil

White Nationalists are very concerned about white identity being erased and when they argued about that, I actually felt some sympathy for them. A lot of who I am can be traced back to my Judaism. Without that, I think I’d feel a real deficit in terms of my personality.

KKK-pop

There are some racist music groups that are popular. They don’t always stay together but someone told me they sell a pretty good amount of tune-age when they’re making white nationalist stuff. They played some stuff during one of the two breaks in the meeting.

White noise

You hear stuff out loud that you’re not accustomed to hearing in real-life.

Allied forces

One of the folks from the meeting kept after me, called me a “kike” a bunch online and was sort of shouted into silence by Deborah Frances-White – a UK comedian – after she caught wind of it. Even though I try not to engage with them too much, I really found that massively satisfying.