Photo by TapTheForwardAssist via Wikimedia Commons
Nearly 1,000 people using Chinese surnames donated to the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, in the month leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol, USA Today reports.
On December 17, the donations came streaming in. That night someone named Li Zhang gave a $100. A person named Jun Li gave another $100. In total, people using Chinese surnames donated about $86,000 to a fundraiser for the Proud Boys on a crowdfunding platform called GiveSendGo, according to USA Today.
Chinese-American writers and academics say that some Chinese ex-pats may identify with the Proud Boys because they present themselves as a group fighting communism.
“There are some communities of immigrants… for which the Proud Boys’ projection as a group combating communism in the United States resonates favorably,” Kaiser Kuo, host of Sinica podcast, said according to The Daily Beast.
“Even this recent wave of anti-Asian hate crime, which you would think might have shaken them out of their admiration for these racists and crypto-fascists like the Proud Boys—it’s actually only reinforced their beliefs,” Kuo added.
One donator told USA Today that they wanted to support a group that condemned communist China and groups like Antifa.
“You have to understand how we feel – we came from communist China and we managed to come here and we appreciate it here so much,” said Rebecca Kwan. “The Proud Boys are for Trump and they are fighting antifa, and can you see anything good that antifa did except destroy department stores and small businesses?”
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