WTW101: Prof. Josh Fernandez Started an Anti-Fascist Club. Then He Was Investigated for Over a Year.
Professor Josh Fernandez was accused of soliciting students for violent activities because of an antiracist club he helped start on his community college campus, and his administration investigated him for a year and a half. The Hands That Crafted the Bomb: The Making of a Lifelong Antifascist **If you enjoy our work, please consider leaving a 5-star review! You can always email questions, comments, and leads to lydia@seriouspod.com.**
What's so scary about the woke mob, how often you just don't see them coming?
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic can sound.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, everything, everything, everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green Eminem will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
I'm Thomas.
That over there is Lydia.
I'll say co-host.
I don't say that often enough.
Co-host, Lydia Smith.
How are you doing?
Finally, the recognition I deserve.
We made it, everybody.
I feel like I've said it before.
Yeah, I know.
I can't say it enough.
I'm just giving you a hard time.
We have a really cool and special episode today for you.
Yeah.
I say today.
It's the end of the month, so we have like 40 and they're coming within minutes.
They're all special, but you know, now currently special.
It is really special.
And why is it so special?
Why don't you tell me?
It is so special because we are going to be talking to someone that we actually know in real life.
This is the dad to one of Phoebe's friends growing up, like since they were infants.
Oh, at their little daycare.
Yeah.
So we're going to.
I want to just talk about that.
Yeah.
It's a real roll of the dice.
Any parents listening know that your kids' friends real roll the dice.
I'm like, who's this going to be?
You know, is it going to be a person who sucks?
Is it going to be a Trumper?
We have a few of those where it's like, the kids' friends, there's kind of a Trumper.
I don't really want them to go over to that house.
This was something where coincidentally it's like, oh, holy shit.
Phoebe's little friend's dad has this amazing story that we didn't know at first, but then over time, and then I was like, we got it.
We got to talk to him on the show.
It's so cool to be able to talk to somebody we know who has an incredible story that is exactly what we talked about on the show, which is being labeled a certain way, whether it's woke or whether it's in this case, like anti-fascist, maybe anti-racist, you know, whatever the kind of the label they want to put on him was.
And that's subjecting you to investigation.
A literal investigation.
Actual investigation that lasted forever and like how stressful that is, how horrible that is.
It's stuff we've talked about before.
And Josh is just so cool.
And it's so interesting to learn more about him and his life and what led him here and a lot of his thoughts on anti-fascism and incorporating that in parenting too.
I think that that was like a really valuable insight that I got from this conversation.
But yeah, no, I just, I love this episode and I'm excited for everybody to hear it.
We plug it at the end, but I'm just going to say it up front to the hands that crafted the bomb, the making of a lifelong anti-fascist is his book and you should all check it out through PM Press.
Absolutely.
Well, let's take our break.
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So we'll take that break and then we'll be on with Josh Fernandez.
Can't wait.
Today we are joined by Josh Fernandez.
I feel like full disclosure, I need to say we know, like in actual life, our daughters met when they were like three months old in daycare.
And we've gotten to know Josh over the years.
But today we're not going to talk about our kids as much as I might want to.
Yeah, I like that disclosure.
We're all a part of the big anti-fascism industry.
Yes, we are.
Big anti-fascism box.
Yeah.
And the way that we all get together is we have our kids meet in daycare.
That's how that's how the big organization of Antifa works.
Just like how on the right, it's like, yeah, they don't disclose it and they're all paid by the same four like oil billionaires, but all coke money.
The Soros daycare.
Yeah, exactly.
George Soros.
Yep.
He's the director.
But today we have Josh here to talk about something that he went through that he details in his book called The Hands That Crafted the Bomb.
I think we'll probably talk about some other things from this book.
I read it and I just could hear your voice like through the whole, through all of it, through every page.
I'm sure he's heard your voice.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
But today, I think I wanted to really focus in on this investigation that you experienced as a professor.
Something we talk about a lot on this show with Where There's Woke.
Most oftentimes when it's a professor saying they're being investigated and it's stupid and it's, you know, for something that's completely reasonable.
But I think your story is very different.
And so I'm excited to kind of get into what happened there and where you are now.
Absolutely.
But yeah, we should definitely get some background.
Do you want to give us maybe a brief bio for the listeners so they know who we're talking to?
Yeah.
So my name is Josh Fernandez.
I'm a college professor at a community college in Northern California.
I've been there for about 10 years.
Before that, I was a journalist, a music journalist.
So I worked at some publications like Spin Magazine, Sacramento Bee, and things like that.
You know, that book is based upon this year-long investigation that I went through right before I was tenured.
So that was a huge part of my life.
That was traumatic and horrible.
And I thought I would document it right after I got tenured.
Good timing.
Gosh, yeah.
Yeah.
Totally.
The claim of this investigation is that you were soliciting students.
I'm going to say this in quotes, soliciting students for potentially dangerous activities.
What were those dangerous activities that you were, you know, getting everybody riled up about?
One of the most dangerous ones was sitting around making posters.
Pretty much what we, that's pretty much what we did, this art.
I mean, paper cuts are no joke.
It's true, especially for the community college students.
And that's really what we did was just kind of sat around, talked about politics, talked about, you know, current affairs.
It was, you know, during Trump's first administration.
So the students in that club were majority black and brown and queer students.
They were just scared.
They were, they didn't know what was happening.
They didn't, you know, they were getting harassed on campus.
The campus I work at is majority white, well-to-do neighborhood.
Students would come to school with Trump flags and try to intimidate people.
So the students, yeah, really wanted to have a place where they could, you know, get together and just, you know, be in the same room with each other, which I was more than willing to provide.
And we did that with the network, the campus anti-fascist network.
And really the word anti-fascist was the sticking point for a lot of the administrators.
They saw that and they said, Antifa.
And then they just got the, you know, the thing in their mind, which I don't quite blame them because the news at the time was really showing pictures of people clad in black, throwing Molotov cocktails.
It was almost like that B-roll that kept playing on Fox News that people were just like, oh my God, they're going to come to our city and burn everything down.
Do you know what I mean?
Meanwhile, we're literally in a room making arts and crafts.
I'll never not hear the Trump Antifa!
Whatever it was.
Yeah, Antifa.
Yeah, I know.
This really should be your battle cry.
Like you should play.
It really should.
Like you're walking out.
Walking out music or whatever.
I don't know.
It's true.
Whenever I walk into a room, that actually closes.
And then Trump is such a narcissist that once he hears that you're using like his voice, like, yeah, he might be kind of into it.
Yeah, exactly.
During one of the meetings with the human resources guy, I was trying to explain to him what we were doing with the arts and crafts.
And he's like, well, what if you brought these students out to a protest, gave them a knife, and they stabbed someone?
And I was, and I was, I literally said, like, well, what if you did that?
It would be the same exact thing because neither of those things happened.
That is incredible.
That's real.
Jesus.
That is totally real.
And like, he said that more than once.
He said it more than once.
That is so funny.
I know.
It was so odd.
So like at that point, while it was outrageous and kind of crazy to hear, I was almost relieved because I'm like, oh, this is based upon nothing at all.
This is like a speculation upon speculation.
So it's like, I felt a little relieved, but the fact that they were going so hard against me, I was like, okay, well, it's sort of hard to see yourself as an individual going against an institution.
Yeah.
Because they have a lot of resources behind them.
And I didn't have too many resources behind me.
So it was a little scary still.
Yeah, I bet.
Could you tell that something was coming or was it sort of out of the blue when you got that first, you know, notice that they would be investigating these potential dangerous activities that you were soliciting students for?
I kind of knew because my dean brought me out to lunch before anything took place.
Like we were just having our club.
Our club was successful.
It was probably one of the more successful clubs on campus in that we'd have like 30 or 40 students coming in to meet for this, these meetings, which was really cool.
I got a message from my dean.
It's like, hey, let's go out to lunch and talk about this club.
That's when I knew something was awry because deans don't really do that.
You're not interested in my club.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So I was like, weird.
And so he brought me out to Thai food.
And like, he started saying some things like, you know, like, maybe you should change the name or like blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, oh, man, this is going to turn into a thing.
Wow.
That's when I kind of knew that, yeah, some something was going to go down.
But I was still pretty naive because I thought that I was working for this progressive institution that would ultimately have my back.
Were you guys doing like, I mean, was there anything that was more visible than that?
Were you doing, you know, protest?
I don't know, March is gathering something or was it really, truly just, you're just hanging out?
The majority was making signs and then we'd go to protest and hold the signs up.
So like the first protest we went to was protesting against the Westboro Baptist Church.
Oh, nice.
Which is, yeah, which is that hate church, which is exactly.
Yeah.
I know.
They're the most hatable people in the world.
Like, I don't think anybody's so hatable.
And they, yeah, they were going to protest like there was a trans teacher in Rockland, I think.
Oh, I know.
And so they were going to do their whole, their whole thing.
So we went and held up signs and the proud boys came and were like talking shit, but we really just held up our signs and that was it.
And it was all over the news too.
And that's one of the things that saved, saved my ass ultimately was that, you know, these, these things were highly publicized and they saw us there just holding our signs, getting yelled at by proud boys.
And in the end, I, I didn't want any students to get hurt or harassed or anything.
So like, you know, I was very protective of these students and they could see that.
The investigator in the end could see that.
What was that process like?
Just the full investigation?
I know it took over a year, right?
Just the constant meetings.
Like, what was that?
It took over a year.
It was constant meetings.
It was horrible.
Luckily, my union was so good.
And right when they got wind of the case, they're basically like, look, we're going to blow our entire budget on this.
Really?
Yeah, that's amazing.
That's really cool.
You're part of a real union and not the Ryan Walters fake union overnight long.
I know.
And so like, that was the moment of truth where I was like, because I was thinking, you know, people are giving me a lot of legal advice.
They're like, hey, I have this lawyer that you can talk to.
And my union was really like, you can really just count on us to do what we're going to do.
Wow.
And so I was like, okay.
And then when people say that, you're like, I don't know if they're just saying that because they have to.
But right when they said that, I kind of knew that they were in it for the long haul and they weren't going to let me get fired so easily.
I wasn't even interviewed first.
It was like, it was at the end of the year that I was interviewed.
It was really this them pulling students out of classes, pulling other faculty out of classes.
They talked to the proud boys.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah.
They really did everything they could to just like interview everyone around me at the time.
Yeah.
They interviewed what like something like 10 students or maybe more than that.
But like, what's so what's the underlying basis?
Did somebody like make something up?
Was it like, you know, they were, they were actually going based off someone saying you were doing something or was it truly just fear over like the name and the concept?
From what I know, it's, it was basically like someone in upper management had a problem with it.
Someone is more on the pha side.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And there's, there's kind of what I realized through this investigation is that there's a lot of the fa in education.
Very least.
Neutral pha.
Exactly.
It's like the progressive language that they've learned to get a job, but they still maintain their ideology throughout their entire career in education, just so they can be in education and get a paycheck.
But really, none of the ideals are practiced when it comes down to it.
And I know in your book, like that was kind of, it seemed like it was a big shock to you kind of witnessing that.
It was like almost like a betrayal.
And it wasn't just from like administrators.
It was from like your colleagues too, people that, you know, that you would normally talk to that just all of a sudden didn't want to associate with you, didn't want to like knowingly associate with you, didn't want other people to see them associating with you while you were going through this.
Right.
What was that like?
It was a wake-up call.
And like, really, when I went into education, I was super naive.
And I just, I just thought I was with my people.
Yeah.
As I've been teaching for longer and longer, I've realized that like, that's not really the case.
There's not really a lot of dedication toward progressive ideology.
There's really just like, I'm going to come to this place and do my thing and then leave, which now, unfortunately, is what I do at work.
Like, do you know what I mean?
I've like, after that investigation, I became a rep with the union because I was like, oh, this is great.
Like this union is really good.
Pay it forward.
Yeah.
And I want to pay it forward to someone.
Yeah.
So, so like, that's what I did.
But then I just became very familiar with the contract and I'm like, I'm doing all this extra stuff that I don't need to be doing for this institution that doesn't care about me ultimately.
So I'm just going to do the bare bones minimum and just wait it out till I retire.
That's so sad.
I count myself as having been naive enough to think that people actually meant what they were saying with stuff.
Like, it's really been sad.
Like in Trump 2.0, it really.
Yeah.
I just can't believe how disappointed I could still be with the world.
You know, like it's just all these people and corporations and law firms and whoever that like were just all obviously just saying the right words and not really believing it at all.
And at the first opportunity, just kind of abandoned it.
And yeah, I can't imagine, you know, for us, it's, you know, it's not like it's anyone in our actual like work or personal lives.
It must have been really hard to be people that you were maybe close to that you thought had your back.
Yeah, your world gets a lot smaller once something like that happens.
I think it's really interesting thinking about, you know, like the Trump 1.0 experience that you had.
And I think when we're not involved in education, and I think, I think a lot of people were naive to this during Trump 1.0, where you thought institutions could meet that moment.
And Trump 2.0, I feel like nobody feels that way.
Like, we're all a lot smarter now and like a lot more cynical.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How do you think that movement has been?
Because like you, you essentially saw through that during the first Trump administration that a lot of times institutions cannot meet these moments.
In fact, they'll capitulate and they'll end up upholding the things that they are supposed to be against.
And then now that we're in the second Trump administration, how do you maintain any sort of, I don't know, is there a way to maintain any hope there?
Or is it just kind of like, yeah, these people are useless?
Like the institutions are useless.
I think there's a little hope left just because I'm a hopeful, hopeful person.
But, you know, during the first administration, I think institutions could keep up this facade of giving a shit because, you know, they could say the words.
Like our institution, after George Floyd was murdered at the hands of police, like changed their Instagram profile picture to like a black screen.
Do you know what I mean?
How people were doing that or like, you know, that's what they did.
And like, ooh, controversial.
And like, they could do that kind of stuff.
Right.
But now this time, this administration is actually like punishing institutions.
And so now they're scared.
Yeah.
They're like having to capitulate.
They're having to like bow down to the Trump administration.
And you can see them folding in real time.
And like no longer are their buzzwords going to save them.
And now is the time they could put up a fight.
And a lot of them are not.
But I have to say, our institution and a lot of institutions are sort of taking a stand against ICE.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Yeah, which is really interesting to see.
It's almost like this is the line in the sand.
Talk about pho.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
I know.
So it's like, I was getting really down on institutions until we're going to increase our undocumented programs.
We're going to continue supporting, sending out messages.
If you see ICE on campus, they're pretty stupid instructions.
They're like, call the police.
But at least they're doing something.
Call ICES family.
Yeah.
If you see a Nazi, call the Gestapo.
Yeah, call ICE.
I mean, it's a little misguided, but I think their heart is in the right place.
And I think they're actually putting funding towards the right things in some cases where it's like, okay, it gives me a little bit of hope.
Is that part of like the full community college district initiative or specifically at, you know, your upper middle class, pretty white community college?
I mean, it seems like most, at least in California, like we're in our own little area.
So I'm not sure what's happening in other places, but it seems like California community colleges are all on the same page.
Yeah.
And maybe we feel extra protected because we are here in California.
Yeah.
And the state administration will at least have their back kind of thing.
If anything were to happen.
Yeah.
You mentioned sort of the demographic makeup of the community college that you work at.
Were you there before Trump was elected?
Yeah, I was.
What has been like that transition over the years about like the climate of the campus?
And, you know, I know you mentioned a story in the book of some students that feel very emboldened after he's elected and them kind of approaching and harassing a student that's just trying to be peaceful on campus.
What are some things that you saw, like the pre-Trump era, the Trump 1.0, the post-Trump, the Trump 2.0?
What did that look like?
Pre-Trump was like the golden age of my teaching career because not only was it pre-COVID, it was pre-Trump and students were like, students were wild.
Like I used to want to teach because I would watch, you know, movies about college where students were insane and like crazy and they'd come to class with bongs and stuff.
And like that's kind of what it was like when I first started teaching.
And it was like students were just wild and they were like finding relationships in the middle of the semester with other students in the class.
And they were, you know, they wouldn't listen to me and they were wild.
They wouldn't, it was really fun to teach.
And then once Trump came into office, it was like something flipped.
And like all of the conservative students were just like, now is my time to shine.
And it made a lot of students scared.
That whole division was super evident.
Students just didn't want to talk anymore for fear of like upsetting the other, the other person.
It was just a very paranoid sort of teaching experience.
And then it kind of flipped back after George Floyd.
There was that whole period where everyone was canceling each other.
Cancel culture started to really like turn into this big thing that was happening.
And then everyone was just super scared of that.
Like the right-wingers were just really scared of that happening to them.
And so they kind of shut up a little bit.
And then now it's kind of swung back the other way where it's like, okay, now the right-wingers are having more of a say.
And I've noticed it in my classes.
Like I have a student right now who just sent me a message who was like, I'm not doing this assignment because it's indoctrination.
Oh my God.
It was reading a story about queerness.
What?
You teach algebra by acknowledgement.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
And so like, and it's a critical thinking class.
So I'm like, well, if you can't engage critically with this, like if you can't, you know what I mean?
That's the entire point of the class is to, you don't have to agree with it.
You can disagree with it, but critically think your way out of it.
I imagine as a teacher that, yeah, like you probably have no problem with a student if they're putting in the effort to like disagree and make an argument, even if it's, you know, an argument you don't love.
Like, I'm sure that's got to be exactly.
And it's, it's actually incredible.
And I love it.
And I say that to my students all the time.
Like, if you're conservative, I want you to argue the living shit out of your conservative views.
I just don't want you.
Yeah, exactly.
And the thing is, I say, I'm like, if, if you have any of your argument based in hateful ideology, then fine, go ahead and argue it, but you have to find peer-reviewed sources to back you up.
And they're like, cool, bit.
And then they try it.
And then they're like, there's nothing here in this database.
Yeah.
And I'm like.
The computer's broken.
Yeah, exactly.
The data.
Yeah.
The internet does not work anymore.
So like then they come back and they're like, well, this whole thing is like a leftist brainwashing program.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's what they have to do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's that cognitive dissonance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so like sometimes it works.
Sometimes it actually works.
They're like, okay, I have to just change my whole thing.
But, but rarely does that work.
Usually it's like it kind of further alienates them because they're like, oh, this whole thing is a conspiracy against my ideology.
It was so dramatic.
I know in the book, I mean, you go into a lot of your background.
I wonder if we should talk about like kind of where your, you know, your motivation, where, where the Antifa comes from.
Sure.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was in my heart all along.
Yeah.
It's a, you know, weird childhood that I'm not going to like dwell upon, but it's like, you know, broken home, divorce, weird dad with schizophrenia, lots of like fighting and some violence and things like that.
But there's always a sense of justice or underdog or always looking out for the underdog.
And I think, you know, at times I've been the underdog, but I see it a lot in my students.
I've seen it a lot with just people growing up.
So like all of that together, just I think growing up in Boston was part of it.
Moving across country to California when I was a teen was part of it.
I think the subculture of punk rock was a lot of it.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Just growing up in the punk scene and sort of dealing with that.
And then finding out that there were like neo-Nazi skinheads right next to me.
I think that was a lot of it.
Yeah.
What's with that?
I don't know this world.
Tell me about it.
I know.
It's so foreign to me too.
It's such, yeah, it was such a weird thing.
And I think a lot of people have questions about this because I just took it for granted.
And then people who didn't grow up in that little subculture are like, what is happening?
I remember when I was a kid and I made this poster.
It was like a crossed out swastika.
And my mom came into the room and she's like, what are you doing?
There's no Nazis anymore.
Do you know what I mean?
And I was like, at the time, I'm like, what do you mean?
They're everywhere.
But obviously, like, she just didn't see it, obviously, because she didn't go to punk shows every, you know, Thursday through Sunday night.
Right.
And that's all I did when I was a kid is I would go to punk shows from when I was, you know, 13 and well, till now.
We're going to one next weekend.
But back in the early 90s, we would go to shows and there would be the regular punk crowd.
But always there's a little subsection of skinheads, of neo-Nazi skinheads.
And we called them boneheads at the time.
And they would just be in a group and they would pick on people and anyone who was brown or black or queer, they would just beat up.
How is this allowed to happen?
Like, did they like who could the say in it?
You know, or they started come in and like close it down.
Yeah, it was just a crazy thing that was like part of the scene.
It was just part of the scene.
It was like, you know, going to school and there's students, there's teachers, there's jocks that, you know what I mean?
And like everyone's together.
And it was the same thing.
And it's just like, that was part of the scene.
You're like, uh-oh, this is scary.
But no one knew what to do or like how to deal with it until one of the older kids in, I was living in Davis at the time.
And one of the older kids in Sacramento had read a little magazine.
I was watching Indiana Jones over the weekend.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
If only we learned from that.
Anyone have a tank?
Yeah.
And a whip.
He read this magazine that was like these little zines that were, you know, photocopied and distributed through the punk scene about this group in Minnesota who banded together and just pushed neo-Nazis out of their scene.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it was really cool.
And it was like, it was amazing because it was all these little kids.
Like, you know, I was a tiny little kid going to these punk shows with my friends who are also little kids.
And we, we decided that we would get together.
We would go to these shows.
We'd hide little weapons in the bushes.
And the next time the Nazis would show up, we would whistle to each other and we'd all gather, grab our weapons and chase them away.
Wow.
And that was something that actually worked.
Holy shit.
When they make the movie, you have to do the two things together with that.
And then the blowing the whistles at ICE in Chicago, you know, like that's got to be like one of the things that we're doing.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Totally.
That's incredible.
Yeah.
It sounds scary and dangerous, though.
Like I just super dangerous.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
It still makes me afraid, to be honest.
And yeah, but it worked because there were so many of us, right?
And it's like, you know, we were all tiny little kids who couldn't fight.
But if you have enough, it's like children of the corn.
If you have enough children who are scary looking, you can chase people over.
It's like a bug's life, Lydia.
That's just translating for her.
A bug's life is the majority of her.
She doesn't watch horror.
So just translating.
Sorry.
When the ants realize that they can all, yeah, there's more of them than the grassroots.
That might even be a better, better one.
Let me use that.
Oh, great.
No, I'll never hear the end of this.
And yeah, we chased them away and they stopped coming to shows, basically.
And it was like a bunch of kids from different scenes would end up doing this.
It happened in Berkeley.
It happened in Oakland, San Francisco.
And they just stopped coming to shows and they went away and most of them moved to like the hills and were never heard from again until they started driving 16, 20.
Yeah, and then just drive their trucks around the Capitol like with their Trump flags for hours.
That's exactly what happened.
You know, it's weird because maybe 20 years later, after all of that happened, they decided to hold a rally at the Capitol about anti-white violence for some sort of farmers in some other country.
I don't know what it was.
Exactly.
That's what it was.
So they had this.
Yeah.
And so it was all of these people from the old days, all these old guys who were still skinheads, who were just living in other places, who decided that this was their new cause.
And yeah, but the same, same ideologies and everything.
It's like a microcosm of Antifa as a philosophy, right?
I mean, I'm not, I'm not that well versed, but when I've spoken to people about it on the shows before, I mean, I think this was something that I had, I took me a while to wrap my head around in like 20, you know, 13, 14, because I truly was kind of like, I think it was your mom in that scenario where I was like, there's no Nazis.
What are you talking about?
Like, I wasn't at punk shows.
I wasn't, you know, I just like grew up in this era in an age where it just felt like all that stuff was worked out, you know, like it was just very, you know, ignorant and sheltered in retrospect, but it's hard.
Obama was really know.
Well, no, I'm talking about like just growing up all through the 90s and the post-history feeling.
And it's like, it's hard to know your own ignorance.
Obviously, that's why it's your own ignorance.
Like you don't really know.
And so anyway, the point is, there would be, we'd have conversations like in the 2010s about like, oh, you know, is it right to punch a Nazi?
You know, is it right and all that kind of stuff?
And I, I definitely was naive about it then.
But I think, I think what I hear in what you're describing is what I've come to recognize is absolutely the moral imperative, which is you just give them no quarter.
Like it's just, you cannot let them at all establish any sort of foothold whatsoever.
And is that, is that a kind of the understanding of the Antifa philosophy, maybe?
100%.
And I think people focus a lot on the violence because that's the interesting part.
But really, it's just giving them no room to breathe.
And a lot of that has to do with like constant pressure and shame and humiliation.
A lot of it is online, you know, doxing campaigns.
Just, hey, if you, if you're going to be racist in public, well, then you're going to have a whole campaign against you.
Yeah.
We're going to talk to your work.
We're going to talk to your family.
We're going to poster your neighborhood so that people are aware you live there.
There was this one Nazi who ended up running for some sort of Rockland school government board.
Maybe it was school board.
Yeah.
And he was a proud boy and he ended up figuring out that he was selling Nazi merchandise.
Oh my God.
Wow.
People ended up finding all his information and pressuring him so bad that he now lives in Ohio.
Oh, good.
Wow.
Right.
So sorry to Ohio that they have to deal with his ass right now.
But like, that's what it is.
And so people in Ohio will do the same thing.
Right.
Until he's just like, and this has happened so many times where it happens and people are like, you know what?
I'm sick of this shit.
They either go underground and don't do all their public stuff anymore or they're just like, you know, they soften their ideology and they're like, it's just not, it's not worth it.
It's not worth it.
And so like the violence never comes into play because it's really just this pressure campaign.
It works both ways for sure.
I'm now on a turning point.
You're on the professor watch list.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So Charlie Kirk's watch list.
You're officially.
Wait, is this official?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's officially on the professor watch list.
That's awesome.
I hope we can make it someday.
I doubt it.
You know, honorable mention or something.
I read through their posts and I'm like, you know, it's not even that bad.
Like one of the poll quotes they use for my thing is like me saying, I don't want to use my power over people.
Yeah.
Or something like that.
I'm like, oh, that's actually a pretty good quote.
Yeah.
What's wrong with that?
Yeah.
I have it up actually because, you know, getting ready for the interview and stuff.
And I was like, oh my gosh, Josh is on the professor watch list.
Yeah.
And they lead it off by kind of insinuating that you like tricked your way into the college or something because they do like a side-by-side picture of like, here's him before.
Here's him now.
Where did all these tattoos come from?
Yeah.
Seriously?
Exactly.
I mean, it's flattering that they put in the work, I guess.
But it is, all jokes aside, I mean, it is scary.
Like we've been, we've been covering, who do we talk to, hon?
I'm bad with names, but, you know, Isaac Kamala?
Kamala, yeah.
Like, like teachers, professors being targeted by these groups is a serious thing.
And it's like, it's equal parts ridiculous and horrifying and scary, you know?
And it's like, how do you deal with that?
Like, were there times during this whole investigation, which we can get back to, where it's like hard to even take seriously and yet it is so serious?
Yeah.
I think I live in a constant state of watching my back, basically.
And I think that's, and really that's not a healthy way to live.
No, yeah.
It's scary and it's, and, you know, I have kids and we live in our house and it, you, you don't want anyone to come show up to the house.
Yeah.
We take a lot of precautions and we definitely live in a way that's safe.
So I'm not super worried about it.
At the same time, it's like it's kind of hard because you feel like you're doing the right thing and you feel like you're on the right side of history and you're actually, you know, taking steps to make the world a better place and you don't want to stop doing it.
But at the same time, it does make you think like, should I just shut the fuck up for a couple months?
Do you know what I mean?
With kids.
Yeah, I was going to say, like going through that investigation and knowing, you know, that two young kids at home.
And did you feel like you wavered at all during that investigation?
Did you like, were there, were there any moments where you were like, yeah, forget it.
I'm just not going to fight anymore.
No, but I did.
I did.
You know, it was the weirdest thing was I would go into these spirals where I would start blaming myself.
And I'd be like, maybe I am doing the wrong thing.
Maybe they're right about me.
Do you know what I mean?
And so like 100%.
It was, it was, it was really me being like, man, would I fire me if I were them?
Yeah.
Just because it's like when you're blamed for something so hard and they don't let up, you start thinking that you're the problem.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And so that's what I started thinking like, oh my God, I'm never going to win this case because they're right.
I'm just some piece of shit anti-fascist.
Luckily, I have really good support people around me, like my wife and my kids and the union.
And some of my colleagues were there.
My friends were there.
So it was a really good support system that helped me get through it.
And the union went so hard.
And they're like, you are not going anywhere.
And they make sure to tell me that at least twice a week.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
So it was helpful.
Did we cover enough of kind of how that, you know, went down?
I know it's a lot.
And also people obviously should get the book, The Hands That Crafted the Bomb, and we'll link in on all that.
But did we cover enough of how this eventually resolved?
Are there any other key points in kind of how that all went that are that are worth talking about and telling?
Let's see.
I got pulled into the campus police and they were they were going through my Instagram posts, which was funny.
I used the hashtag kill your boss.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it had nothing to do with it.
It was, that's the more of like a punk rock catchphrase.
And it was just kind of like a funny satire type thing.
And so like, I had to explain my way out of that.
And I'm like, oh shit, I'm fucked.
Even the cop was like, I don't really know what's going on.
So there, but there was a lot of that kind of stuff that was like, explain this thing that you said, you know, on social media.
And like, everything was super easy to explain away.
And then once they find, like, the last thing was my interview, which, you know, lasted a couple hours in a weird room that was super silent and it was lots of pressure.
And I was, I was coached to do all that.
I was coached to not say anything, basically.
Right.
Yeah.
Typical lawyer kind of, yeah.
Exactly.
But like the way I work is I can't not say anything.
Yeah.
I just have to lab my app, you know?
And so like, I just couldn't help it.
And so I just kept talking and my union rep would like elbow me every now and then like shut the fuck up.
But that ended up saving me a little bit because she, you know, in her report, which was like more than 100 pages.
I know it was crazy.
It was like 100 pages plus like evidence that they discovered, like all these images and things.
And she said, like, I was very candid and that like helped my credibility and whatever.
So it kind of ended up helping me because she's like, he answered questions that he clearly did not have to answer.
That's nice.
Yeah, it was, it was, I mean, it ended up like she, she just found that I was totally credible, that all of the activities that we did as an anti-fascist club were above the board.
And like, you know, I was looking out for my students and I would never do anything to harm students.
And, and so that ended up feeling really good.
And the, the district had no other choice but to grant my tenure.
Yeah.
What was that moment like?
Like, how did you hear that the investigation was complete and you were cleared of any wrongdoing?
Like, what was that moment?
It was great.
I just, I was at my work computer and I got an email from my union president.
It said, just said, you have a lot of reading to do.
It was the attachment of the investigation report.
And I read through it and I was like, oh my God, this is so good.
It was just all of the interviews, like the redacted stuff, you know, the interviews.
And I just sat there and read it.
And like, my whole body was shaking because it was such a, you know, that year and a half or whatever it was was just so traumatic.
And I was trying to hold it in and, you know, be strong.
And I was just like, my whole body was shaking.
And every now and then I will go back to that investigation report and read it over and just my same response, like my body starts shaking.
And it's like, it's, I don't know, it's, it's a weird urge I have to go back and look through it.
And yeah, I probably shouldn't do that.
Yeah.
Or maybe if it was traumatic, they do say that that like kind of like exposure therapy, maybe.
I don't know.
Sure.
Sure.
It might be good.
I don't know.
Talk to your professor on that.
Right.
Josh, you, you talked about kind of like what the experience of like violence in like the early days of your Antifa career, I'm going to call it.
Yeah, decorated Antifa career.
What that was like.
But in the book, it seemed like it, you started doing these backyard like self-defense classes.
Yes.
Can you talk about like the transformation almost of like this ragtag kind of approach to violence to something that seemed a little more like empowering and I guess proactive in a way?
Yeah, absolutely.
I just, you know, as I got older, I think I got really into like my own health and fitness and mental well-being and things like that.
And I thought that was really important.
You know, I'd go to a lot of these actions or these events or protests and I'd see people protesting who were clearly unhealthy and like unable to march the four blocks or whatever and just like smoking cigarettes and like just doing all kinds of unhealthy shit.
You could just see from the psyche and of the people, like there were a lot of problems happening and like a lot of like a lack of connection.
And, and so I just, I found some people who, you know, were into combat sports and martial arts and things like that.
And we started training together and decided that, you know, it would be good to just offer these classes for people just to like have some sort Sort of self-determination and health and fitness and mental awareness and things like that.
And yeah, people ended up coming to these classes.
And we ended up, you know, we were doing it in my backyard and then we ended up getting a space to do it.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, it was really cool.
And so we'd have all these different people coming in and just learning, learning, you know, different kinds of martial arts and things like that.
Nice.
Yeah.
This has also been a through line for me as I was reading your book and reading about your life and how I mentioned it to Thomas.
I was like, Josh has lived like 70 different lives.
Like just reading through it and then, and then like kind of comparing it to like my own life and sheltered in a lot of ways, not like in I wasn't allowed to do anything sort of way, but it was just like this, you know, ignorance about the things that were happening in a world around me kind of thing.
So for me, it was like really eye-opening.
And then when I, when I was reading some of like the recollections that you put about the self-defense, like the martial arts classes and stuff, and how you would just, you know, you'd be fighting and then like get knocked out by your friend.
It was just like, again, something that is just so foreign to me that I, I, I don't know if I would ever be comfortable in that kind of a situation, even if, you know, going to protests and things like that and knowing that I could be put in a position where those kinds of things would be important for me to know.
Just the fear of getting hurt just because is something that would hold me back.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think when we first started training together, we would go 100% every time because we didn't know any different.
We were just, this is what you do when you train.
And then, you know, as some of us joined actual traditional gyms and like learned how to spar and things, you know, usually sparring is like 10% effort or like 20% effort.
And you're barely touching each other.
So we're like, oh, okay, that's how you do it.
So like, you don't need to get knocked out or anything.
Yeah.
Probably not even a good idea to get knocked out.
No.
It's definitely not a good idea to get knocked out.
Yeah.
I'll consult with a real doctor after this.
You don't need to.
Don't do that.
But yeah, I think it's important to train.
Like our family now does jiu-jitsu, which is like mostly grappling, wrestling.
It's more gentle.
There's no like punching or anything.
Well, and what's it like doing that?
Because the jiu-jitsu, you know, the dojos, like, I did a little bit of that in my 20s.
And it's like, that can be a sort of a fascist place sometimes, you know?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You definitely have to shop around.
I'll just say that.
Like the gym, the gym we found is so good.
And like everyone's super cool.
I have a lot of tattoos with basically my politics written all over them.
So like when I'm wearing shorts, people are going to, you know, so like I went to one gym and the coach like whispered in my ear, he's like, yeah, this exercise will be good for throwing Molotov cocktails.
And like, it was just a weird way to say it.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh man, this dude, and I know he's a conservative.
Yeah.
And it was just like this thing where I just didn't feel comfortable.
Yeah, he's like trying to poke the bear kind of thing or something.
Exactly.
And I'm like, okay, I don't want to deal with this.
So yeah, you definitely have to shop around because jiu-jitsu especially has this like right wing cloud over it, which is really gross.
It's like, yeah, it's very like Joe Rogan-y.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's like that kind of thing.
And so if you don't find the right gym, then it's, it's really not a fun thing to do.
So the whole family's doing it, right?
Yeah.
The jiu-jitsu?
Yeah, everyone.
That's so cool.
Yeah, it's, it's really fun.
Speaking of family, I wanted to ask you how like you're bringing these values and imparting them on your kids.
I have mentioned for myself, I've like always listened to authority when I was a kid, always, because I just like always wanted to make a good impression.
I like at a at an unhealthy level.
And so my daughter is like that in some ways, but she also questions things in ways that I think are so, so good.
And I wish I was more like that when I was a kid.
And so I'm trying to like foster that in her.
And obviously, like my experience incredibly different from yours.
So I was just curious how you're kind of incorporating that, you know, authority questioning, the that, the critical thinking, the standing up for others in your two kiddos.
Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
And it's something I think about quite a bit.
I was a juvenile, like a straight up juvenile delinquent.
And I was an anti-authoritarian.
I was out of control and I got into a lot of trouble.
And, you know, I didn't even graduate high school.
My stories are not secret and I don't keep them secret from my kids.
I think that just seeing that level of honesty and, you know, truth, whereas like you can be an anti-authoritarian, you can be a rebel and you can be all these things, but there's also consequences to the things you're doing.
Some people are going to have a problem with you and you just have to think about the repercussions of the things you're doing.
Yeah.
My daughter Luna is more rebellious than my son.
She just is.
That's just how she is.
She can question things and we can talk about things and we talk about her teacher and we talk about, you know, like she's learned these ways to deal with people that I think are really interesting, who, you know, she doesn't necessarily like, but she's found ways to like placate her teacher, which I think is really interesting.
Can you give us like an example?
I should, she's right here staring at me right now.
She's like, yet.
She just like, oh, one thing she, she does, she says, my teacher really likes hugs.
So she goes to give her a hug.
Oh, okay.
Right.
And so, yes.
And then this is the same teacher who was like really mean to my son, who sort of gave my son this anxiety about school and who like really had a problem with my son.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
And he was not like that.
He really was, he's a people pleaser.
He really, he's really sweet.
He's really kind.
He loves to people please.
But this teacher did not like that about him.
And she would just find ways to pick at him.
Wow.
He didn't want to do the placate thing.
He was just like, I can't do this.
And like, it gave him this sense of anxiety, which is really sad.
But Luna's more like, this is how I can make it work.
This is how I can keep her on my side.
Exactly.
It's like, it's like a trick.
It's a really interesting way of thinking about these things.
So I just think honesty, like we're raising kids with honesty and like, we don't want them to stop talking to us.
Yeah.
That's what we think all the time.
That's what we talk about.
Exactly.
And so like, yeah, I don't, I don't, and it's credibility.
It's weird to say this.
Exactly.
Authenticity, credibility.
And like, it's weird to say this as an educator, but I just don't care about school that much.
Interesting.
Yeah.
And I know that a lot of problems are associated with school.
And especially for me, like a lot of my authority problems came from school with teachers who really wanted to flex their authority.
And I just, I felt the need to fight back against that.
When I was younger, I really thought I hated all teachers.
And I don't want my kids to be the same way.
Yeah.
I just don't want to place that much emphasis on school as to where like that's their entire value is how they are as a student because I know they're smart.
I know they're kind.
I know they're funny, which is like a huge thing for me.
I want funny kids for sure.
You know, and they're like playful and they really look out for their friends and they're really kind to people and they're joyful.
So I want to maintain that.
And I don't want to put emphasis on things that like will probably work themselves out later.
Right.
Like, you know, if they're smart and kind and funny and they have drive, then I think everything will be fine.
I mean, just think about like your own journey, right?
Going from hating all teachers with a deep passion to becoming one.
Right.
Right.
And hopefully we can do that and skip the middleman of like jail and like misery and drug use and drug use.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do have a question just while we're kind of talking about kids and stuff.
Has it come up at all at the school that your kids go to about like other, do other kids talk about Trump in positive ways?
Because that's been happening at our daughter's school.
And we've been having a lot of conversations about politics, way more than I thought we would have with, you know, an eight-year-old.
Yeah, a little bit.
I don't know if it's conversations, but it's like quick things.
Yeah.
Questions and yeah, and like her saying, well, you know, for example, she, she was like, you know, I'm, I'm hearing that no on 50, like people wanted everyone to vote no on 50.
And we're like, well, no, that's what you're hearing from certain kids, depending on what their parents think, but that's what you're hearing.
And I'm, I know we live in kind of different areas of this city, but I was just wondering if you guys are experiencing that too.
We get mostly like flyby comments like, oh, this kid said he liked Trump or this kid, you know, this kid hates Trump.
Just kind of things like that, but really not any detailed analysis from the kids.
But it's mostly like a lot of the things we talk about are just like kindness.
We talk a lot about like gender and queerness and things like that, because that seems to be a bigger topic than anything else.
Because, you know, they have some non-binary students in there and some trans students there.
So it's like just setting them up for those conversations, I think is really important because those are the big issues rather than like, you know, the political ones.
Yeah.
Well, that is political for sure.
It is political.
Yeah.
It is political.
Yeah.
It's just so interesting because, you know, at another time, I think I would be the kind of person that I would kind of want to not put too much of a thumb on the scale again at another time.
But now it's just like, it's, I found myself just being pretty simplistic about it.
I'm like, yeah, well, there's the bad guys.
And then, you know, it's like when they're this young, it's kind of like, they are the bad guys.
You know, I don't know what to say.
Like ICE, the people who want people to be abducted by ICE are the bad guys.
I have no chill about it anymore.
So when Phoebe said that about the 50 thing, I was like, oh, okay.
Well, they support the bad people.
That's why they said that.
It's like, I can't.
I have no chill anymore.
I can't do it.
It's just like, it's, you know, maybe in the 90s or something, I could have been like, oh, just different views on taxes.
It's just not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it's funny.
I know, I know Ezra was on the right.
My son Ezra was on the right path because he must have been like six or seven playing Roblox.
And he got into this room where another user had sprayed a swastika on the wall in his Roblox room.
And so what he did was he just, he found that users, he, he like messaged the user and he's like, fuck Nazis or something like that.
And then he got, he, he's like, he figured out how to ban.
He got 11 other people to complain about this guy that I'm banned from from Roblox.
There you go.
That is so cool.
Man, freaking Ezra.
Perfect.
Yeah.
It's like, it's amazing how, you know, how he went about it with thought and care.
And organizing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And organizing.
And I think these conversations are super important.
It's a fine line between like pushing your ideology and just like living a truth that you think is real.
And hopefully we can all do that so that our kids don't like lash out against it later.
That's one of my things, my horrors is that Ezra is going to like turn into a cop or something like that.
So true.
I didn't let Paw Patrol.
Paw Patrol is fucking banned in our house.
ACAB means Paw Patrol too.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, we're for sure out of time, but this was so interesting.
And it was really fun to get to know somebody that we kind of knew.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not your whole story by any means.
I'm really glad that we did this because it's really cool.
And I think people should buy the book.
And is there anything else, anywhere else you want to send people?
Anywhere else you want to point people to?
No, just check out the PM Press website.
I got a new book coming out in 2027 called Letter to My FBI Agent.
And that'll be out January 2027 on PM Press.
Wow.
Looking forward to it.
Yeah.
So if you ever need an Antifa correspondent, I'm your man.
Yeah.
I mean, hey, Mark Bray.
Mark Bray read your book and wrote some really nice words about it.
So well, Josh Bernandez, thank you so much for coming on the show.
