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By the following Monday, NYPD announced it had enough evidence to charge nine of them.

Even a few seconds of footage of the attack makes it clear why. In one video, an assailant in a group of at least 15 people kicks a person curled in the fetal position, yelling 鈥淔-----!鈥�

In another, a man exults, 鈥淒ude, I had one of their f------ heads, and I was just f------ smashing it in the pavement! 鈥� That son of a b----! He was a f------ foreigner!鈥澛�

These are not the words of a 鈥渕ovement [of] normal people trying to live their lives.鈥� But that鈥檚 exactly how Proud Boys鈥� leader Gavin McInnes has described the hate group he founded in 2016.

McInnes has denied that his group has any connection to the racist 鈥渁lt-right,鈥� even as its members marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, alongside Richard Spencer, the most prominent alt-right leader.

贬别鈥檚 denied that the group is any different from other fraternal orders, like the Shriners or the Elks. But the Proud Boys calls its members 鈥�Western chauvinists,鈥� and they initiate prospective members by beating them up while requiring them to name five breakfast cereals.

McInnes has also denied that the hate group seeks out violence,聽even as his thugs march alongside neo-Nazis and white supremacist hate groups. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 start fights, but we will finish them,鈥� he wrote last year.

鈥淲e will kill you. That鈥檚 the Proud Boys in a nutshell. We will kill you,鈥� he said on his Compound Media show in mid-2016.聽

Groups like the Proud Boys represent a new face of the radical right. They relish street-fighting, simultaneously disavow the term 鈥渨hite nationalism鈥� and embrace its central tenets, and they insist on calling their agenda simply one of 鈥渁nti-political correctness鈥� 鈥� a wild understatement that signals how far we seem to have wandered, in this political moment, from the facts.

Indeed, perhaps the most distressing thing about this hate group is that it was formed during the 2016 election. Members of the Proud Boys are no less energized today by Trump鈥檚 white nationalist politics and pugilistic style; even in videos from last weekend鈥檚 attack in New York City, more than one assailant can be seen sporting a red MAGA hat.

And, of course, the attack itself took place just after McInnes finished giving a speech at none other than the Metropolitan Republican Club.

Why was he allowed to speak there? The club鈥檚 president, Deborah Coughlin, told Alan Feuer for The New York Times that she had given McInnes permission because the

The club is not the first to provide a platform for McInnes鈥� extremism. , too, where he has appeared as a political commentator, as the founder of an anti-racist organization called the One People Project, Daryle Lamont Jenkins, told Feuer.

鈥淭hey鈥檝e utilized subterfuge and lies to keep that hate group tag from being applied to them,鈥� Jenkins said. 鈥淓very time their members are seen doing things they鈥檙e not supposed to be doing, like showing up at Unite the Right, they claim that person left the Proud Boys.鈥�

Our Intelligence Project has been tracking the activities of the Proud Boys and other elements of the radical right. We know they鈥檙e a hate group, and we鈥檙e monitoring their recruitment efforts on platforms as mainstream as Facebook.

鈥淭he war against whites, and Europeans and Western society is very real,鈥� Proud Boys member Kyle Chapman told participants in an extremist rally in 2017. 鈥淚t鈥檚 time we all started talking about it and stopped worrying about political correctness and optics.鈥�

When it comes to the Proud Boys, it鈥檚 violence 鈥斅爊ot 鈥渙ptics鈥� 鈥斅爐hat we鈥檙e worried about.

The Editors.

P.S. Here are some other pieces we think are valuable this week:

• by Sarah Stillman for The New Yorker
• by Reginald Dwayne Betts for The New York Times
• by Melissa del Bosque for Texas Observer
• Report: Alabama鈥檚 failed war on marijuana by Southern Poverty Law Center

人兽性交's Weekend Reads are a weekly summary of the most important reporting and commentary from around the country on civil rights, economic and racial inequity, and hate and extremism.聽Sign up to receive Weekend Reads every Saturday morning.

Photo credit REUTERS/Andrew Kelly