The following statement was submitted anonymously to Hellbender:

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We’ve been seeing local and regional responses in WNC from regular people autonomously addressing each other’s immediate needs in the face of ongoing crisis from the effects of Hurricane Helene. Simultaneously, we’ve been seeing fascist and white supremacist formations all reacting to the crisis with responses of their own. It’s important to understand that an inherent part of fascist thinking and organizing is to seize on moments of crisis and of failures of the state to further their own agenda. Fascists prop themselves up as a solution to the state’s inadequacy and enact programmatic violence against marginalized community members. It is under this guise of a helping hand that fascists are propagandizing their efforts to further their larger goal of white supremacy, whether that be through the lens of ethnonationalism, ecofascism, accelerationism, or a broader ethnocentrism. We didn’t want fascists on our streets before the floods, and we certainly don’t want them while our roads are washed away.

Fascists positioning themselves as providers of resources to whomever they deem ‘worthy recipients’ is unacceptable. We know that these same people advocate for the death and decimation of whole groups of people based on their marginalized identities – from Black, Indigenous, or immigrant communities, to LGBTQ+ community members, and residents who use drugs and may be homeless. This is not ‘help’ they are providing to people; this is an opaque contract of white supremacist eugenics signed with the deaths of those they consider ‘less deserving’. Humanitarian aid with qualifications is not humanitarian. When climate crisis strikes, we put mutual aid into practice. We take back our lives and ensure our collective survival, together.    

Another way we can collectively support one another’s well-being is by standing together against these clear efforts by fascists to take advantage of us. Appalachia has been taken advantage of enough. Within the past week we’ve seen Patriot Front, Proud Boys, Asatru Folk Assembly and Active Club chapters all swoop in for photo opportunities posing as saviors, in hollow attempts to use our communities’ plight to legitimize themselves. While the people of WNC have been constantly readjusting our lives to eke out what quality we can in an ever-growing economy of tourism, we now need to understand the economy of disaster tourism developing before our eyes. As we continue to determine our own futures amidst the ongoing crises that leave some worse off than others, lets make sure we all are taken care of. By keeping fascists from being able to decide who gets to live and who gets to die, we take back our lives through defending each other’s.

– Some Appalachian Antifascists