WTW101: Prof. Josh Fernandez Started an Anti-Fascist Club. Then He Was Investigated for Over a Year.

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: 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 hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:33 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:42 Thomas: 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?

0:00:48 Lydia: Wow. Finally, the recognition I deserve. We made it, everybody.

0:00:53 Thomas: I feel like I've said it before. I just don't say it enough.

0:00:54 Lydia: Yeah, I know. I'm just giving you a hard time.

0:00:58 Thomas: We have a really cool and special episode today for you. Well, I say today. It's the end of the month, so we have like 40, and they're coming within minutes.

0:01:06 Lydia: They're all special, but you know, this one's really special.

0:01:07 Thomas: But now, current now episode is really special. And why is it so special? Why don't you tell us?

0:01:12 Lydia: 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.

0:01:24 Thomas: Oh, at their little daycare.

0:01:26 Lydia: Yeah so freaking cute.

0:01:26 Thomas: I want to just talk about that. It It's a real roll of the dice. Any parents listening know that your kid's friends, real roll the dice, I'm like, who's this going to be? You know, is it going to me a person who sucks? Is it going be a Trumper? We have a few of those where it's like, oh, the kid's friend's kind of a Tromper. I don't really want them to go over to that house. This was something where coincidentally it's, like, 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 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 subjecting you to investigation,

0:01:35 Lydia: Yeah yeah we do a literal investigation Investigation.

0:02:18 Thomas: 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 yeah

0:02:33 Lydia: 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.

0:02:53 Thomas: Absolutely well let's take our break you can support the show stuff like this at patreon .com where there's woke please do so you'll get early stuff especially right now the end of the month we have a million things to release we space those out for the normies but for patrons we put them out as soon as physically possible so patrons are getting just all kinds of early stuff normies are waiting a little so if you want to not have to wait don't do that patreon .com slash where there's woke and you can skip the auto ads that you might be hearing right after I stop talking so we'll take that break and then we'll be on with josh fernandez can't

0:03:08 Lydia: Boom, boom, boom.

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0:03:28 Lydia: 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. Because, yes, we are. Yeah.

0:03:45 Thomas: Wait yeah I like that disclosure we're all a part of the big anti -fascism industry getting big anti fascism

0:03:54 Lydia: And the way that we all get together is we have our kids meet in day care. That's how the big organization of Antifa works.

0:03:54 Thomas: Bucks yeah yeah I just like how on the 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 you know it's a little different for us.

0:04:07 Lydia: It's all Coke money. Yeah.

0:04:09 Josh: The Soros daycare.

0:04:11 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. George Soros. Yep. He is 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, Josh. Yeah, that's true.

0:04:12 Thomas: Still waiting on my check someday. It helps that we've heard your voice. That helps. Yeah.

0:04:36 Lydia: 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 often times 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.

0:05:04 Thomas: 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?

0:05:11 Josh: 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

0:05:46 Thomas: Nice. Gosh. Yeah. That must've been stressful.

0:05:46 Lydia: Exactly. And good timing. The claim of this investigation is that you were soliciting students. I'm going to say this in quotes, soliciting student for potentially dangerous activities. What were those dangerous activities that you we're, you know, getting everybody riled up about?

0:06:05 Josh: One of the most dangerous ones was sitting around making posters. That's That's pretty much what we did is art, like arts and crafts. It's true, especially for the community college student.

0:06:10 Thomas: I mean, paper cuts are no joke.

0:06:20 Josh: 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 that, 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 get together and just 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 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 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. You know what I mean? Meanwhile, we're literally in a room making arts and crafts. Yeah, Antifa. Yeah. I know. It was. Yeah it really should. Yeah exactly.

0:07:38 Thomas: Jeez. Yeah, I'll, I'm never not hear the Trump Antifa, whatever it was they said, which really should be your battle cry. Like you should play like you're coming, walking out or you're walking out music or whatever I don't know yeah

0:07:58 Josh: It's true. Whenever I walk into a room that actually plays.

0:07:58 Lydia: And then trump is such a narcissist that once he hears that you're using like his voice like Like, yeah, he might be kind of into it.

0:08:04 Thomas: Oh maybe he'd be into it yeah we'd convert

0:08:06 Josh: Yeah yeah exactly. 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 I literally said, like, Well, what If you did that? It'd be the same. It would be the Same exact thing, because neither of those things happen.

0:08:24 Thomas: Him okay that is incredible is it that's real jesus what the hell wow

0:08:42 Josh: That is totally real. And like he said that more than once. He said it more than once. I know it 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.

0:08:46 Thomas: What in the world that is so funny

0:09:01 Josh: 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, OK, well, it's sort of hard to see yourself as an individual going against an institution 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.

0:09:18 Lydia: Could

0:09:25 Thomas: Yeah yeah I

0:09:26 Lydia: 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, you know, this these potential dangerous activities that you were soliciting students for?

0:09:39 Josh: 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 they don't relate

0:10:07 Thomas: Bet you're not interested in my

0:10:09 Josh: Yeah 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 gonna turn into a thing that's when I kind of knew that yeah some 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

0:10:21 Thomas: Club man were you guys doing like I mean was there anything that was more visible than that were you doing you know protests I don't know marches gathering something or was it really truly just you're just hanging out oh

0:10:48 Josh: 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 uh protesting against the westboro baptist church which is yeah which is that hate church which is exactly yeah

0:11:01 Thomas: God fuck those people yeah no we know they're the most hateable people in the world like I don't think anybody yeah

0:11:04 Josh: I know so hateable and yeah they were going to protest like there was a trans teacher in Rockland I think 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 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 didn't want any students to get hurt or harassed or anything. So I was very protective of these students and they could see that. The investigator in the inn could see it.

0:11:49 Lydia: What was that process like just the the full investigation I know it's it took over a year right just the constant meetings like what was that

0:11:59 Josh: It took over a year. It was constant meetings. It it was horrible. Luckily, my union was so good. And, and right when they got wind of the case, they're basically like, look, we're going to blow our entire budget on this if we have to.

0:12:15 Thomas: Wow that's amazing that's really cool yeah oh

0:12:16 Josh: Yeah, it was a real, exactly. 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, like, hey, I have this lawyer that you can talk to.

0:12:15 Lydia: Wow you're part of a real union and not the Ryan Walters fake union over in in Oklahoma. Yeah.

0:12:35 Josh: And my union was really like, you can really just count on us to do what we're going to do. And so I was like, OK. 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 courses.

0:12:35 Lydia: Yeah,

0:13:05 Thomas: Talk to the proud boys no I'm just kidding

0:13:07 Josh: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, they really did everything they could to just interview everyone around me at the time. They interviewed something like 10 students or maybe more than that.

0:13:22 Thomas: 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

0:13:37 Josh: From what I know, it's it was basically like someone in upper management had a problem with it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:13:42 Thomas: Concept uh someone who's more on the far

0:13:48 Josh: And what I realized through this investigation is that there's a lot of the fa in education. Exactly.

0:13:55 Thomas: Side very least neutral pho yeah

0:13:59 Josh: 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. Check but really none of the ideals are practiced when it comes down to it yeah

0:14:17 Lydia: 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 to 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.

0:14:23 Thomas: I bet yeah

0:14:39 Lydia: What was that like?

0:14:39 Josh: It was a wake up call and and like really when I went into education I was super naive and I just I just thought I was with my people as I've been teaching for for longer and longer I've realized that like that's not really the case there's not wirklich a lot of dedication toward progressive ideology 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'm 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 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 that I don't need to be doing for this institution that doesn't care about me ultimately. So I'm just gonna do the bare bones minimum and just wait it out till I retire.

0:15:10 Thomas: Yeah pay it forward yeah yeah wow that's so sad I 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 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 we're 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 uh yeah I I can't imagine you know for for us it's you know it's not like it'S anyone in our actual like work or personal lives I mean it must have been really hard to be people that you were maybe close to that you thought had your

0:15:48 Josh: Yeah, that's, yeah. Yeah, your world gets a lot smaller when something like that happens.

0:16:28 Lydia: 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 a lot of people were naive to 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, like, we're all a lot smarter now and like a lot more cynical. Yeah.

0:16:48 Thomas: Back we've learned to reduce our expectations I guess

0:16:54 Lydia: How do you think that movement has been? Because like, 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 are useless

0:17:24 Josh: I think there's a little hope left just because I'm a hopeful person. But during the first administration, I think institutions could keep up this facade of of giving a shit because um you know they they could say the words like our our institution after george floyd was murdered at the hands of police like changed their instagram profile picture to like a black screen 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 but now, this time, this administration is actually like punishing institutions.

0:18:05 Josh: And so now they're scared. 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 lot of institutions are sort of taking a stand against ICE.

0:18:33 Josh: Yeah, which is really interesting to see. It's almost like this is the line in the sand.

0:18:31 Thomas: Talk about

0:18:31 Lydia: Good yeah

0:18:42 Josh: 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 continue supporting, sending out messages. If you see ICE on campus, this, they're pretty stupid instructions. They're like, call the police. But at least they're doing something.

0:18:40 Thomas: Pho

0:19:00 Lydia: Call ice's

0:19:06 Thomas: If you see a nazi call the gestapo Yeah.

0:19:07 Lydia: Family yeah yeah yeah

0:19:11 Josh: 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.

0:19:24 Lydia: Is that part of like um the full community college district initiative or Or specifically at, you know, your upper middle class, pretty white community college.

0:19:34 Josh: I'm not sure what's happening in other other places, but it seems like California community colleges are all on the same page. And maybe we feel extra protected because we are here in California.

0:19:51 Lydia: And the state administration will at least have their back kind of thing if anything were to happen. Yeah.

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0:20:00 Lydia: You mentioned sort of the demographic makeup of the community college that you work at. Were you there before Trump was elected?

0:20:09 Josh: I was.

0:20:11 Lydia: 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 Donald Trump 2 .0? What did that look like?

0:20:42 Josh: Pre -Trump was like the golden age of my teaching career because not only was it pre -COVID, it was pre -Trum. And students were wild. I used to want to teach because I would watch 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're 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.

0:21:31 Josh: 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 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 it was reading a story about about queerness. And it's like, do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And, and so like, and it's a critical thinking class. So I'm like, well, if you can't engage critically with

0:22:22 Lydia: Oh, my God. Wow. Yeah, exactly.

0:22:27 Thomas: You teach algebra, by the way, we should say. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.

0:22:39 Josh: 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.

0:22:49 Thomas: 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 way better than the, yeah.

0:23:00 Josh: Exactly. It's and it'S, it'S actually incredible. And I love it. And And I say that to my students all the time. Like, if you're a conservative, I want you to argue the living shit out of your conservative views.

0:23:12 Thomas: Yeah. Good luck.

0:23:12 Josh: 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, bet. And then they try it. And then they're like there's nothing here in this database and I'm like yeah it's the 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

0:23:36 Thomas: Your computer's broken. Yep.

0:23:40 Lydia: The database is wrong.

0:23:51 Thomas: Yep, that's what they have to do. Yeah, I

0:23:52 Lydia: Wrong yeah it's that cognitive dissonance yeah

0:23:55 Josh: Yeah and so like sometimes it works sometimes it actually works they're Okay I have to just change my whole thing but it but rarely does that work usually it's like it kind of further alienates them because they're Oh this whole is a conspiracy against my

0:24:04 Thomas: Know

0:24:10 Lydia: It was so

0:24:13 Thomas: 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 the Antifa comes from, the Antifa inside you. Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:22 Josh: Ideology sure yeah absolutely it was in my heart all along it's a you know weird childhood that I'm not gonna like dwell upon but it's like you know broken home divorce weird dad with schizophrenia lots of like fighting and and and some violence and and things like that but um there's always a sense of of justice or underdog or uh always looking out for the underdog and I And I think, you know, at times I've been the underdog, but I see it a lot of my students. I've seen it a little bit. 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 was, you what I mean? Just growing up up in the punk scene and sort of dealing with that and then and then finding out that there were like neo -nazi skinheads right next to me I think that was a lot of it it's

0:24:54 Lydia: Dramatic yeah

0:25:28 Thomas: What's with that? I don't know this world. Tell me about that.

0:25:31 Lydia: I know it's so foreign to me too

0:25:33 Josh: Such yeah it was such a weird thing and I think a lot 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.

0:25:57 Josh: Do you know what I mean? But like, and I was like, at the time I'm like, what do you mean they're everywhere?

0:26:03 Thomas: Wow.

0:26:03 Josh: But she obviously like, she just didn't see it obviously because she didn't go to punk shows every, you know, Thursday through Sunday night. And that's all I did when I was a kid is I would go to. Punk shows, um, from when I Was, you Know, 13 and well Well, till now we're going to one next weekend, but back in the early nineties, 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. We called them boneheads at the time

0:25:58 Lydia: Right

0:26:21 Thomas: How

0:26:36 Lydia: Mr

0:26:36 Josh: 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.

0:26:45 Thomas: Is this allowed to happen? Like, did they, like, could the bands have a say in it? You know, are they skinheads too? Like CM Punk?

0:26:50 Lydia: Punk didn't come in and like close it down

0:26:54 Josh: 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?

0:27:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:06 Josh: 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, 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 children older kids in Sacramento had read a little magazine yeah exactly yeah if only we learned from that yeah and a whip uh we 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 uh banded together and and just pushed neo -Nazis out of their scene.

0:27:25 Thomas: I was watching Indiana Jones over the weekend. Does anyone have a tank? Oh man, that's awesome.

0:27:56 Josh: Yeah, it was really cool. And it was amazing because it was all these little kids. I was a tiny little kid going to these punk shows with my friends who were also little kids, and 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 and grab our weapons and chase them away and that was something that actually worked

0:28:29 Thomas: 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 gotta be like one of the scenes for sure. That's incredible. Incredible that sounds scary and dangerous though like I just weren't you weren't she afraid

0:28:44 Josh: Super dangerous oh my god yeah it still makes me afraid to be honest and um yeah but it worked because there were so many of us right and it's like you know we're all tiny little kids who couldn't fight but if you have enough it's like like children of the corn if you have enough children who are good scary looking you can chase people away okay okay yeah that's a that's a good one exactly yeah that might even be a better better one I'm gonna use that from now on and yeah they we chase them away and they stop coming to shows basically and it It was like a bunch of kids from different scenes would would end up doing this. It happened in Berkeley. It happened at Oakland, San Francisco. And they just stopped coming to shows and and they went away and most of them moved to like the hills and were never heard from again until Trump's next. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly 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 and for

0:29:06 Thomas: It's like a bug's life lydia that's I just it's translating for her she knows yeah she she doesn't watch she doesn'T watch horror so just just just translating sorry yeah oh great now I'll never hear the end of this

0:29:08 Lydia: Yes, a bug's life is the metaphor I would use. Yeah, when the ants realize that they can all, yeah there's more of them than the grasshoppers, yeah Yeah, until they start driving their trucks down here and then, yeah and just drive their trucks around the capital like with their Trump flags for hours doing nothing. Yeah.

0:29:51 Thomas: No until yeah I was gonna say in 20 till 2016 20 yeah roughly oh yeah

0:30:17 Josh: Some sort of farmers in some other country.

0:30:20 Thomas: South african farmers that's the

0:30:20 Josh: I don't know what it was, but it was like, exactly.

0:30:22 Thomas: Yeah yeah that's their go -to

0:30:23 Josh: That's what it Was. Was so they had this yeah and so it was all of these people from 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 um yeah but the same same ideologies and everything yeah

0:30:27 Thomas: Oh my god that's like a microcosm of antifa as a philosophy right I mean I'm not I'm 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 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.

0:31:04 Thomas: I wasn't, you know I just like grew up in this era in, in an age where it just felt like all that stuff was worked out, you Know, like it was just very, very, youknow, ignorant and sheltered in retrospect, but it's hard. You don't ,you don't really know. Well, no, I'm talking about like just growing up all through the nineties and the post history feeling.

0:31:12 Lydia: Yeah. Obama was president. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Right.

0:31:22 Thomas: And it's like, it's 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, and all that kind of stuff. And 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? Maybe?

0:31:22 Josh: 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're going to be racist in public, well, then you're gonna have a whole campaign against you.

0:32:28 Josh: We're going to talk to your work, we're goingto talk to you, your family, we are 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 government school board, maybe it was school board yeah and he was a proud boy and we ended up figuring out that he was selling Nazi merchandise people ended up finding all his information and pressuring him so bad that he now lives in

0:32:44 Lydia: Was school board? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

0:33:04 Thomas: All good. Yeah.

0:33:04 Lydia: Wow.

0:33:05 Josh: Ohio right so sorry to Ohio that they have to deal with his ass right now but like that's what it is and 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, they soften their ideology and they're like, it's just not worth it. It's not worth it. And so 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.

0:33:39 Lydia: You're on the professor watch list. Yeah.

0:33:41 Josh: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm definitely it's

0:33:42 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. Charlie Kirk's watch list.

0:33:44 Thomas: Wait, is this official? Oh, congrats.

0:33:47 Josh: Official. I've yeah.

0:33:47 Lydia: He's officially on professor watch list Well, we're not professors so

0:33:48 Thomas: That's awesome. I hope we can make it someday. I doubt it. Well, you know, honorable mention or something?

0:33:51 Josh: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Maybe, maybe one day I read through their, 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 or something like that. And I'm like, oh, that's actually a pretty good quote. Thank you.

0:34:11 Thomas: What's wrong with that?

0:34:12 Lydia: 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 watchlist. 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 Now, where'd all these tattoos come from?

0:34:25 Josh: Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:34:29 Thomas: What? What? Oh, like now you're willing to like, seriously?

0:34:34 Josh: Yeah exactly.

0:34:36 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:34:36 Thomas: Oh that's, 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 hun? I'm bad with names, but you know, Kamala.

0:34:46 Lydia: Isaac Kamala?

0:34:47 Thomas: 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

0:34:58 Josh: Yeah 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. It's scary and it's and you know I have kids and we live in our house and you don't want anyone to come show up to the house we take a lot of precautions and we we definitely live in a way that's safe so I'm not super worried about it but 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 you know 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

0:35:57 Thomas: But with kids too especially it's so

0:35:58 Lydia: Yeah yeah I was gonna say yeah like like going through that investigation and knowing you know that two young kids at home and um 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 get it. I'm just not going to fight anymore.

0:36:15 Josh: No but 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 it was really me being like, man, would I fire me if I were them?

0:36:25 Thomas: Hard yeah oh yeah 100 yeah

0:36:37 Lydia: Yeah.

0:36:37 Josh: 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. 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 yeah so it was helpful

0:37:05 Lydia: Good.

0:37:17 Thomas: That's awesome

0:37:18 Lydia: Wow.

0:37:25 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:37:25 Thomas: 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 hints 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 and kind of how that all went that that are that are worth talking about and

0:37:42 Josh: Let's see I got pulled into the campus police and they were they were going through my instagram posts which was funny I I used the hashtag kill your boss just yeah yeah yeah but it had nothing to do it was that's the more of like a punk rock catchphrase and it was just kind of like a funny uh satire type thing and so like I had to explain my way out of that and I'm like oh shit I'm fucked

0:37:50 Thomas: Telling okay yeah I could see yeah that's

0:38:09 Josh: Even the cop was like I don't really know what's going on uh 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 uh there everything was super easy to explain away and then once they find like the last thing was my interview which you know has lasted a couple hours in a weird room that was super silent and it was lots of pressure and I was coached to do all that I was coaxed to not say anything basically exactly but like the way I work is I can't not say anything I just have to blab my ass 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 a more than 100 pages I know it was it was like 100 pages plus like evidence that they discovered like all these images and things and um she said like I was very candid and that like helped my credibility and whatever. So it kind of ended up helping me. Uh, cause she's like, he answered questions that he clearly did not have to answer.

0:38:39 Lydia: Right. Yeah typical lawyer kind of yeah.

0:39:22 Thomas: Hmm okay that's nice device.

0:39:27 Lydia: Yeah.

0:39:27 Josh: So yeah, it was, it was, I mean, it ended up like she, she just found that I was totally credible that all of the, 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 so that ended up feeling really good. And the district had no other choice but to grant my tenure.

0:39:50 Lydia: What was that moment like? Like, how did you hear that the investigation was complete and you were cleared of any wrongdoing? Like what what was that moment?

0:39:58 Josh: It was great. I was at my work computer and I got an email from the union president. It just said, you have a lot of reading to do. And 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 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.

0:40:30 Josh: 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 is a weird urge I have to go back and look through it. And, um, yeah, I probably shouldn't do that.

0:40:54 Thomas: Or maybe if it was traumatic, they do say that kind of exposure therapy maybe, I don't know, might be good. I don't know. Talk to a professional.

0:40:54 Lydia: Don't know.

0:41:01 Josh: Sure. Sure, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Right. Yeah.

0:41:06 Lydia: Yeah, Josh. Josh, 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, what that was like.

0:41:20 Thomas: Decorated Antifa career.

0:41:23 Lydia: But in the book, it seemed like you started doing these backyard self-defense classes. Can you talk about the transformation almost of this ragtag kind of approach to violence, to something that seemed a little more empowering and, I guess, proactive in a way?

0:41:44 Josh: Absolutely. I just, you know, as I got older, I think, um I got really into like my own health and fitness and mental well -being and things like that. Um, 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 you know you know like 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 like a lack of connection 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'd be good to just offer these classes for people just to like have some sort of self-determination and health and fitness and mental awareness and things like and yeah people ended up coming to these classes and we ended up you know we're doing it my backyard and then we ended getting a space to do

0:42:53 Josh: It yeah it was really cool and so we'd have all these different people coming in and just learning um you know different kinds of martial arts and things like that

0:43:02 Lydia: 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 like kind of comparing it to like my own life and sheltered in a lot of ways, not like and 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, be fighting and then like get knocked out by your friend.

0:43:50 Lydia: And it's just like, again, something that is just so foreign to me that 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, 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 is something that would hold me back.

0:44:14 Josh: Yeah absolutely I think um when we first started training together we would go a hundred percent 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.

0:44:39 Josh: So we're like, Oh, okay. That's how you do it. So like you don't need to get knocked out or anything, probably not even a good idea to get knocked out. Um, yeah, yeah. I'll consult with a real doctor after this, but, uh, uh, um, but yeah, I think it's important to train, uh、 like our family now does jujitsu, which is like, you

0:44:46 Thomas: No, it's not. It's definitely not a good idea to get knocked out. Just putting that out there for everybody. You don't need to. Don't do that. I'm the best. Well, and what's it like doing that? Because the jujitsu, you know, 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, that culture.

0:45:04 Josh: Know, mostly grappling wrestling it's more gentle there's no like uh punching or anything yeah yes oh yeah you definitely have to shop around I'll just say that like 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 gonna 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 and I was like oh man this dude and I know he's a conservative and it was like this thing where I just didn't feel comfortable so I was like okay I exactly and I'm like okay I don't want to deal with this so yeah you definitely have to shop around because jujitsu especially has this like right wing cloud over

0:45:59 Lydia: Yeah he's like trying to poke the bear kind of thing or something yeah huh oh

0:46:14 Josh: It which is really gross it's like yeah it's very like joe rogan-y yeah so it's that kind of thing and so if you don't find the right gym then it's really not a fun thing to do

0:46:18 Lydia: Yeah okay okay that makes sense so the whole family's doing it right with jujitsu that's so cool

0:46:30 Josh: Yep yep yep everyone yep yeah it is really fun mm

0:46:33 Lydia: 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 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 an unhealthy level. And so my daughter is, 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 child. And obviously, like, my experience incredibly different from from yours. So I was just curious how you're kind of incorporating that, you know, authority questioning, the critical thinking, the standing up for others in your two kiddos.

0:47:22 Josh: 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. So like, 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.

0:47:29 Lydia: Mm hmm. I read the book. Yeah. Mm hmm, yeah.

0:47:45 Josh: I think that just seeing that level of honesty and 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.

0:48:07 Josh: 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, 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.

0:48:34 Lydia: Do you give us like an example?

0:48:35 Josh: I should she's right here staring at me right now, I should just ask her. But she just like, oh, one thing she does, she says, my teacher really likes hugs.

0:48:36 Lydia: Example she's like yeah dad okay

0:48:45 Josh: So she goes to give her a hug. 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 like really had a problem with my son and he was not like that he really what 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 he didn't want to do the placate thing he was just like I can't do this and like it gave him this uh sense of anxiety which is really sad

0:49:22 Lydia: But luna's more like I this is how I can make it work this is how I can keep her on my side Yeah Mm

0:49:27 Josh: 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

0:49:41 Thomas: What we think all the time. That's what we talk about. We want credibility.

0:49:42 Josh: Us exactly and so like yeah I don't and it's weird to say this exactly authenticity credibility and like it is weird to say this as an educator but I just don't care about school that much 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.

0:49:56 Thomas: Interesting.

0:50:21 Josh: I just don't wanna 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 you know and they're like playful and they really look out for their friends and they are really kind to people and they are 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 are smart and kind and funny and they have drive then I think everything will be fine right

0:50:43 Lydia: I mean just think about like your own journey, right? Going from hating all teachers with a deep passion to becoming one that's yeah yeah and drug use yeah I do have a question um 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 um 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.

0:51:07 Josh: Right and hopefully we can do that and skip the middleman of like jail and like misery and drug use yeah

0:51:40 Thomas: Little bit. I don't know if it's conversations but it's like quick things yeah yeah

0:51:44 Lydia: Questions and, yeah, and like her saying, well, you Know, for example, she was like, you Know, I'm hearing that no on 50. Like people wanted everyone to vote no on 50. 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 know we live in kind of different areas of This city.

0:51:56 Josh: Interesting

0:52:06 Lydia: But I was just wondering if you guys are experiencing that too.

0:52:06 Josh: Yeah we get mostly like flyby comments like oh this kid said he liked trump or this kid you know this kid hates trump and 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 out are just like kindness we talk a lot about like gender and 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 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 the big issues rather than like you know the uh the political ones it is political yeah it is political

0:52:53 Thomas: Is political for sure yeah it's just so interesting because you know at another time I think I 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 I'm like yeah well there's the bad guys and then it's Like when they're this young it's kind of like they are the 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. I have no chill about it anymore. So when Phoebe said that about the 50 thing, I was like, oh, OK, well, they support the bad people. That's why they said that. Just like I can't.

0:53:32 Thomas: I've no chill anymore. I can'T do it. It's just like it's it's, you know, maybe in the 90s or something, I could have been like, Oh, there's different views on taxes.

0:53:32 Josh: Yeah yeah absolutely it

0:53:40 Thomas: But it's just It's just not, it's just not that anymore.

0:53:40 Josh: Yeah yeah yeah yeah I it's it's funny I know I know ezra was on the right my son ezra is on the wrong side of 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 So what he did was he just, he found that users, he like messaged the user and he's like, fuck Nazis or something like that.

0:54:10 Josh: And then he got, he's, like, he figured out how to ban, he got 11 other people to complain about this guy and got him banned from Roblox.

0:54:16 Lydia: My gosh. That is so cool. Man freaking Ezra and organizing.

0:54:17 Thomas: There we go. Perfect.

0:54:22 Josh: Yeah, it's like it's amazing how, you know, how he went about it with thought and care.

0:54:29 Josh: 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 is real and hopefully we can all do that so that our kids don't like lash out against it you know uh later that's one of my things my my horrors is that ezra is going to like turn into a cop or something like that

0:54:53 Thomas: It's so true. I didn't, I didn'T let Paw Patrol, Paw Patrol's fucking banned in our house. ACAB means Paw Patrol too. Well, we're, we'RE for sure out of time, but this was so interesting and it was really, it was really fun to get to know somebody that we are, we kind of knew, but it's like not, not, 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? You know, anywhere other than the book? Anywhere else you would point people to?

0:55:27 Josh: No just check out the uh p .m. press website I got a new book coming out in 2027 called letter to my FBI agent and and that'll be out January 2027 on p .n.

0:55:41 Thomas: Looking forward to it.

0:55:42 Josh: Press yeah so if you ever need a antifa correspondent I'm your man there you go

0:55:45 Lydia: Yeah. I mean, hey, Mark Bray, Mark Bray read your book and and wrote some really nice words about it.

0:55:52 Thomas: That's awesome.

0:55:52 Lydia: So, yeah, pretty cool.

0:55:52 Josh: He sure did yeah

0:55:53 Thomas: Well, Josh Fernandez, thank you so much for coming on the show.

0:55:56 Josh: Thanks y 'all what are you doing there's no Nazis anymore