What is Community Defense?

Community Defense is the strategy of countering forces who threaten and attack the working class and otherwise marginalized. These forces include the capitalist class of bosses, financiers, landlords, as they threaten the violence of poverty upon all of us, as well as the cops, ICE, fascists, fascist groups, etc. who do the dirty work for them.

What This Guide Covers

This guide is framed in terms of countering a threat to a specific event. So it’s put together in three parts:

BEFORE THE EVENT, DURING THE EVENT, and AFTER THE EVENT

In each case, we’ve highlighted points we would suggest prioritizing. We recognize that not everyone will be able to participate in the on-the-ground action on the day of the event, so we have taken care to include points that folks can participate in from home too.

While this guide specifically refers to the defense of a community, the information can be used to prepare you for many kinds of defenses or counters. These would include evictions, ICE raids, raids on a picket line of striking workers, at abortion clinics, and more.

This guide does not cover the basics of organizing to build a base of support and participants for community defense. Details like that can be found in the basics of organizing for assemblies. Community defense should be understood as something that participants in assemblies do together.

BEFORE THE EVENT

Research the Opposition
Identify any local fascist groups, groups that might have members who are fascists, any more notable public figure who is a fascist, any known active online trolls, and people like that.

Disseminate the information you find to your group. Also consider adding any or all of this information to your public awareness pamphlets, so that people in the vicinity of the community defense action can better understand what is going on.

Pay particular attention to any mention of the event you are planning to defend. In your research, in addition to making note of who will likely be showing up, pay attention to what kinds of goals they might have and who among them may be physically violent.

Research the Vicinity and Venue
Having a good understanding of the location(s) of the community gathering can help you prepare the best defense possible. One of the most important parts of a good defense is making sure people are able to arrive at and leave the event as safely as possible.

Is the event a parade? Consider the following:

• Where does it start and end?
• What is the route?
• Are there any hazards on the route?

Is the event at a single location? Consider the following:

• Is it closed in by a fence?
• Where are the entry and exit points?
  • Entry and exit points are a prime location for hateful protesters to set up because it means that anyone accessing the event has to encounter them. Knowing the entry and exit points ahead of time allows you to get there first and set up a proactive defense.

For any type of event, consider the following:

• What’s the neighborhood like?
  • Plan to flier or leaflet the area at least once to attract locals to attend, otherwise support, or participate in the defense of the event. Building relationships is important.
  • Consider talking to local businesses and any known community leaders ahead of time to see if they would be open to making themselves visibly welcoming to event attendees.
• What are the nearby roads like?
  • Are there safer and less safe roads for people to arrive and leave on? There are lots of factors that can impact the safety of a roadway being used to come to and leave a community event – think about things like speed of traffic, pedestrian intersections, dead ends, and enclosed alleys

Strategize
Now that you know who your opposition is, and have taken a look at the physical location, it’s time to decide on some strategies. Here are some common goals of fascists, and some suggestions for how you can thwart them:

• Their Goal: Intimidating people so that they don’t attend the event
• Your Strategies:
  • promoting your community defense – knowing that there is a plan in place from the community to protect the event may help some people feel more confident attending
  • providing advice on how people can keep themselves safe from doxxing (when a fascist finds and shares your personal information with the goal of harassing and scaring you and your loved ones)
  • exploring the history protest, resistance and revolution – encourage people to locate their experiences in this history, as a way of as a way of making meaning out of a challenging situation

• Their Goal: Preventing or disrupting participants’ access to the event
• Your Strategies:
  • Arrive early – long before the protesters plan to – and take up space in the location the protesters plan to set up
  • Assign defenders to offer friendly escort past hateful protesters (think abortion clinic escorts)

• Their Goal: Spreading hateful messages (especially to a “captive” audience)
• Your Strategies:
  • Arrive early at the location where hateful protesters are planning their disruption (much of their organizing will occur on social media, so you should have some idea ahead of time where they plan to be) and prepare to “hold the line” against their attempts to move closer to the event
  • Use large banners and flags to create a visual barrier and claim space
  • Use loud music and whistles (safety concerns addressed below) to disrupt the hateful protesters’ verbal harassment

• Their Goal: Goading counter-protesters into confrontations
• Your Strategies:
  • Commit to collectively refusing to engage in debates or back and forth yelling matches with the hateful protesters – these verbal exchanges can be triggering for even the most seasoned defender, and can lead to folks making choices they didn’t intend to make.
  • A lot of physical altercations at protests start with one side purposefully instigating by encroaching on the “personal bubble” of the other, even to the point of stepping on toes or brushing shoulders.
  • In a heated environment, this is often the only spark needed to ignite a physical altercation. It is especially effective because even though one side is purposefully instigating it, they are doing so in a way that leans into plausible deniability, or frames the other side as easily triggered and unreasonable. Resist by refusing to react aggressively.
  • Think ahead of time about whether or not you feel confident in your ability to withstand this manipulation, when you’re deciding what kind of role you should be playing during the defense. There are many reasons why holding a line and being face to face with hateful protesters is not something you have the capacity for, and all of them are valid.
  • Do whatever is necessary, reasonable, and proportional to defend yourselves if they escalate to more serious physical violence.

• Their Goal: Creating propaganda by filming themselves protesting, and filming interactions with antifascist counter-protesters
• Your Strategies:
  • Delivering polemics at these events is one way hate movements leverage the energy and environment of the event to create more compelling propaganda.
  • Creating enough of a ruckus with amplified music, drum lines, and whistles is a great way to drown out even the loudest hate protester, and deny them the opportunity to
    weaponize your community event for their hateful ends.
  • Prevent yourself becoming an active part of their propaganda by refusing to engage in debates and yelling matches, and by refusing to be goaded into a physical altercation. Don’t let yourself become willing content.
  • Take safety precautions to conceal your identity – if they are filming or livestreaming, and you are involved in a community defense (especially near the “front line”), there’s a very good chance you’ll be captured on camera. You want to make it as difficult as possible for the footage to be used to identify, dox, and harass you.

Buy/Borrow Supplies
Some protests include whistles, horns, megaphones, speakers, and other loud noisemakers. Bring earplugs for protection. If you bring noisemakers, bring earplugs to hand out to other attendees.

Banners can block signs carried by protesters from the view of community attendees, as well as cameras, preventing protesters and other disruptive parties from filming community attendees and defenders. Umbrellas are also useful for blocking hate protesters and easily maneuvered.

Masks help keep us and our communities safer from COVID and other viral infections, and they also protect us from being identified by the fascists.

Create Signs, Banners, and Pamphlets
Colorful banners and signs communicate your message clearly and help differentiate you from those who are seeking to disrupt community. Take advantage of some nice weather and have a banner painting and sign making party in an outdoor park. Not everyone is able or willing to participate in the direct action of a community defense on the day of, and having an outdoors gathering to prepare can accommodate all members of a community, including immune-compromised or disabled persons, share in the experience.

Coordinate Timing and Logistics
Coordinating your timing is more than just syncing your watches like in an action movie. It means making sure that no one will accidentally find themselves alone with hateful protesters. It also means that the core organizers of your action have planned ahead of time when and how they will be arriving and when and how they will be leaving.

It means knowing who is responsible for bringing what, and doing research ahead of time to estimate when the hateful protesters plan to arrive, in order to beat them to it. You must have a plan.

Plan for Wellness and First Aid
In the warmer months, have at least one person in your group bring a cooler with water bottles, ice packs, and supplies to treat heat illness. Electrolyte drinks are great, but can take up a lot of space. You can pick up electrolyte gels at sports and outdoor stores. Chilled, damp cloths in a cooler can also help with heat-related conditions. In the colder months, have some hot beverages like tea on hand, extra coats perhaps, some hand warmers, things like that.

Make sure you bring a first aid kit which includes wound care supplies. It’s also a good idea to have one or more people in your group trained as a medic in case something happens. Outside of attire worn to mitigate security concerns, everyone should be dressed and prepared for the expected weather that day.

Practice!
If you are bringing large banners, you’ll want to practice holding and moving around with them ahead of time – you might be surprised at how unwieldy they can be. If you have the time, you may want to consider physical strength training for this kind of action.

DURING THE EVENT

Stick Together
Try to not go alone. Using a buddy system allows you to stay safer, check in with each other and have a support system if needed. Show up together, stay together and leave together. You don’t need to be joined at the hip, but you should be aware of where the other person is at all times.

Know Your Role and Be Intentional
Some folks choose to be at the front, carrying banners or flags, while some prefer to be present, but in the background. These environments can be heated, and potentially triggering. Knowing your limits will help you make safe, intentional choices.

Stay Masked/Covered Up if Needs Be
It’s not uncommon to see people who attend counter-protests or demonstrations who aren’t masked be identified on social media by the fascists. This can often be avoided by actively protecting your identity. On the other hand, some folks may want to be an identifiable presence, and that’s another valid choice, but it should be made consciously and with intention.

Below you will find a scale of coverage options. This scale is meant to be cumulative. This means that wearing a medical mask or respirator is the least amount of coverage you should practice, and if you choose to add more coverage, you should do so in addition to wearing a medical mask or respirator.

Less covered options include covering your nose, mouth and chin with a medical mask or respirator.

More covered options include covering your face with a bandana, ski mask or t-shirt, covering tattoos, piercings, scars, birthmarks with clothes or makeup, covering eyes with sunglasses (ideally wraparound sunglasses).

Most covered options include covering logos with electrical tape or permanent marker, covering hair and ears with ski mask, beanie, or a sports hijab

Keep An Eye On Disruptive Media
Many fascist and fascist-adjacent outlets often attend progressive social justice events and interview participants in order to generate sensationalist content.

You can foil their attempts to get sensationalist content by informing others at the event in regards to who these reporters are and what they are trying to do!

• Try to identify “reporters” from these outlets early in the day (you might even find them online promoting their intention to show up in the days before).
• Find/assign someone who is comfortable being filmed to monitor these disruptive “reporters” throughout the event. As these reporters try to interview people, defenders might inform them of who they are, what outlet they represent, and that they’re there with an agenda.
• This monitor should not engage with these “reporters” at all, but they should be aware that they will likely be captured in a great deal of footage.
• This is a good role for someone who can keep a cool head while they’re being provoked.

Take Breaks Away From the Action
A community defense can be a long day. If you have the numbers for it, try to take breaks away from the core of the action. However, be aware of how many people you reasonably need to hold your defense line, and do your best not to let your numbers fall below that. If you’re really strapped for numbers, a hydration pack worn on your back can help you stay hydrated and cool throughout the action.

Prioritize First Aid
Defending a community event from aggressive hateful protesters, no matter the weather, brings with it a host of health and safety risks, so you should prioritize first aid and quickly responding to injuries and illness. It’s a good idea to have at least one person dedicated to attending to these issues – this will allow those involved in the most frontline defensive roles to remain focused and present.

Make a list of symptoms for common conditions, like heat-related or cold-related. Also make a list of symptoms of common health conditions, like what happens if a person with diabetes experiences extremely low blood sugar. Be on the lookout for signs. An on-site medic for the event may be able to help with this.

We hope your community defense does not become violent, but if it does, take any injuries seriously. Respect people’s autonomy regarding medical care, and at the same time, strongly encourage anyone who gets injured, especially if they received a blow to the head, to get checked out by the medic.

Arrive Together, Leave Together
It’s important to make sure no one is left on their own at the event site before or after the action. Consider having a meet up spot on a transit route. People who are driving should think about parking further away and meeting up with transit users for part of the trip.

Monitor Social Media
This is a task for folks who are not able to participate in the on-the-ground defense the day of the event. Keeping an eye on social media platforms and relaying important information to community defenders on the ground is an incredibly helpful way of supporting the defense.

• Keep an eye out for:
  People who are livestreaming – both allies and antagonists. Folks on the ground may not be able to do anything to stop antagonists from streaming, but a friendly chat with a well intentioned ally can put a stop to at least one livestream.
  • Filming to document the fascists behavior is encouraged, but livestreaming/filming community defenders can put them at risk. Any footage taken should be carefully reviewed and identities protected before it ends up online.
• People who are talking about going to disrupt the community event. Use the SALUTE model to provide details about disrupters to community defenders on the ground.

The SALUTE model is a helpful way to remember what details to use in order to assess information about an event.

S – Size – How many are present?
A – Actions – What are they doing?
L – Location – Where are they, as specifically as possible? What direction are they headed and where did they come from?
U – Unit – Based on badges, clothing, insignia, what kind of group is this?
T – Time and Date – When exactly was this information observed?
E – Equipment – Are they carrying weapons? Flags? Banners? Be specific and try not to speculate. If you don’t know what a piece of equipment is, describe it rather than guessing.

Using the SALUTE model helps your team know what they are walking into, and prevents unhelpful panic from arising out of vagueness or misunderstanding. If you don’t have an answer to any of the SALUTE questions (for example, you might not know what kind of group they are), that’s okay—it’s better to just leave out than make something up.

AFTER THE EVENT

Seek and Provide Emotional Support
Two things are true at the same time – participating in a protest for a cause we believe in can have positive impacts on our mental health and also participating in a community defense can be both physically and mentally exhausting, as well as potentially traumatizing.

Remember that big feelings about the situation might take several days to arise. Be compassionate with yourself and others as you recover from the stress of the day. Make a plan to check in with others in your group a few days and a few weeks after the event.

Pay special attention to the needs of folks – especially youth – who come from non-affirming/anti-LGBTQIA+ or anti-leftist homes, families, or backgrounds. Prioritize their ability to participate in debrief meetings and check-ins (see below for practical suggestions).

Seek and Provide Practice Support
Oftentimes, practical circumstances can get in the way of people being able to fully participate in and show up for their community. Here are some suggestions for how to address these:

• Provide childcare at/during debrief meetings, court support, doctor’s appointments.
• Help people get to and from debriefs and other events and actions.
• Open your home (your dinner table, your couch) to folks—especially youth—who may be struggling with their families or living situation.

Seek and Provide Legal Support
Unfortunately, there is a history of antifascists and community defenders being criminalized. We’re not in the position to provide legal advice, but we do want to acknowledge that that may be something you need leading up to, during, and following a community defense.

These are some very basic principles for dealing with repression:

• Know your rights and obligations when it comes to what information you are legally required to give the police.
• Know who to call for help if you are arrested or detained (ideally a friendly lawyer).
• Respect people’s autonomy and privacy—some people may want their story of repression publicized to seek wider community support. Others may not want their names and stories shared publicly, for a variety of reasons, including potential professional fallout or familial risks.
• Show up for each other according to the wishes of the people most directly impacted by the repression. Be especially mindful when making public callouts for actions like jail support or court support.

If you don’t know who the friendly lawyers or legal services are in your region, anti-racist, labor, and other activists in your area may have some suggestions.

Debrief at the Next Assembly

Debriefing the community defense at the next assembly will be crucial. Debriefing at the assembly allows you to be more candid, and offers a space to discuss what worked and what didn’t, strategically speaking. It can be as simple as providing a brief reportback and setting aside some time for questions and answers. It can also be a more elaborate discussion about building the capacity for community defense in the future.