The Confederate fursuit incident shows how you can’t be a troll and a victim at the same time.
by Patch O'Furr
TROLLING ANTHROCON
The infamous Confederate fursuit got a lot of views on social media. The issue started with complaints during Anthrocon and Midwest Furfest in 2015. By no coincidence, the symbol was pushed on the fandom at the same time as racist mass murder by Dylann Roof led to taking down Confederate flags across the USA. Then in 2017, during a huge amount of positive news about Anthrocon, the issue bubbled up again like a turd in a punchbowl.
The fursuiter is Magnus Diridian, AKA Rob Shokawsky. He was previously known for causing disturbances by copying the fursuit of Lemonade Coyote to exploit his death for attention. For several years, Magnus was reputedly banned from MWFF and Anthrocon. He came back to troll with the Confederate fursuit and a Trump sign that violated AC’s Code of Conduct:
Any action or behavior that causes significant interference with convention operations, excessive discomfort to other attendees, or adversely affects Anthrocon’s relationship with its guests, its venues or the public is strictly forbidden and may result in permanent suspension of membership.
Harassment includes … Conduct, dress, or speech that targets, threatens, intimidates, or is otherwise intended to cause distress to other attendees, or to members of protected classes (such as those based on race, age, religion, national origin, disability, gender, or sexual identity).
Magnus chose to bring that suit even though he has many others. There’s no pretending that it was anything but forcing politics on others, since he admits he did it because of “attack” on the flag. According to his helper, he was even “ghosting” the con to do it. He could have attended like anyone else if he didn’t set out to cause entirely predictable negativity. To be perfectly clear, Magnus was an antagonistic outsider who did not register or support Anthrocon.
buh byyyye~ pic.twitter.com/S3vFkz0Bbx
— Ed "Tedious" Bear (@That_Edward) July 2, 2017
FREE SPEECH
As clear as the problem was, it got muddied by misunderstanding. There was a post by another blogger who I like:
“I am glad that everyone had a blast at Anthrocon 2017. I could not go, but I did follow the con as closely as I could…and, there is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind… Why am I angry? Because I realize that we (as a people and fandom) or more oppressed than ever before. But, not by the public… but by our own f***ing community!!! It’s because we are not allowed to have an unpopular opinion…”
The blogger offered understanding for why people don’t like the Confederate Flag, but believed that it was part of some people’s cultural heritage and pride. “It does NOT automatically make you a racist of any kind… or a bigot.” They continued:
“This guy was doing NOTHING to harm anyone. Like people that protest on the sides of the roads, he was not attacking anyone directly, physically… he was not being violent in any way, shape, or form. He was making a ‘statement’, he was showing what he believed in. And guess what? THAT IS NOT WRONG!!! It is freedom of speech, it is freedom of expression… and as a human, he has the right to do that. As a Furry, he had the right to be there at that convention, same as anyone else.”
Their conclusion said:
“It seems pretty bad that we claim that we are an open, loving, and understanding fandom- yet we shun people because they believe differently than we do. (…) People can not even be themselves anymore without offending someone, and it’s sad. (…) I will not censor myself for the sake of delicate sensibilities… I will not censor myself because some people wanna pick and choose what it means to have freedom of speech and expression, and I will NOT censor myself for people that think that everyone else is in the wrong if they do not believe the same things… and that punishment should be reserved only for the ones with the unpopular opinion. That makes YOU the close-minded one if you think that way.”
CONTEXT MATTERS
I left this reply anonymously so it could speak for itself:
“Magnus had already been banned from the con for provoking others. When he came back, instead of getting along he decided to provoke. He knew he was doing something wrong.
Cons are private events that happen by the goodwill of everyone involved, and if you go you’re something of a guest. That wasn’t being a good guest. Of course in the USA we have freedom of speech – but the most simple meaning of freedom of speech is that the government can’t arrest you. A con isn’t the government, or public property – it’s a private event, and the con organizers have freedom to make their rules. If they say their con is a place to have fun and be positive, and you can’t go to be negative and upset others, it’s their rules and they can ask you to leave. Same as if Magnus was in your house and you told him to leave. His freedom of speech isn’t taken away – he can do what he wants at his own con, or on a public street somewhere else.
Unfortunately it was provocative because that flag can never be separated from history of slavery, no more than a swastika can be separate in Germany’s (and it’s even illegal there). If you get familiar with the history of slavery, you can find that there was a huge propaganda campaign to try erasing that – they lied about what it meant and who was involved and what they did. The “heritage” story was invented much after the civil war and it is dishonest. That went together with racism of the 20th century, and new laws they made to make it worse, all the way into the Jim Crow era and the 1960’s.
We’re still undoing what they did wrong. Only this year, we learned that Emmett Till, the kid who was murdered for supposedly whistling at a white woman, never did that. We only know because the woman confessed in her 80’s. The KKK uses the confederate flag as their symbol and that should tell you everything about what’s wrong. They lost that war and it’s time to let it die.”
The Confederate flag is a symbol of racism: [1] A historian from the Museum of the Confederacy says the Confederate flag can never be separated from defense of slavery. [2] The flag wasn’t politically resurrected until the mid-20th century as backlash against desegregation. [3] There is a “150-year-old propaganda campaign designed to erase slavery as the cause of the war and whitewash the Confederate cause as a noble one.” [4] Besides flags, monuments for Confederate propaganda were built generations after the war. [5] Removing these monuments is like taking down statues of Stalin. [6] As recently as 7/8/17, the KKK rallied for the monuments with Confederate flags.
Idea: if you still fly the Confederate Flag, you're not allowed to use any technology or medicine invented later than 1865
— Megan Amram (@meganamram) June 19, 2015
My comment never asked the blogger to take down their post or censor themselves. However, they gave consideration and decided to take it down on their own. It was replaced with a new post:
I was NOT aware that he was there, deliberately provoking people… I also was not aware of Anthrocon’s policy on political propoganda which is stated in their ToS. So while I still do not feel he should have been escorted out… I do understand the decision. A friend made a point when she said that Anthrocon is huge and gets a lot of press coverage… and he is def the type of person we do not want to be represented by. HOWEVER… this does not change my feelings of how people (the world) now treats people with the unpopular opinion. This does not change how I feel about how everything now seems to cater to those of delicate sensibilities, and it is just not realistic how we baby our population. But this is, in itself, just an opinion… and I do not expect everyone to like what I say or even agree.
Unpopular opinions often deserve care and majority opinions aren’t always right. There are plenty of places to debate those online or in public. Are cons the place for it? Anthrocon says: “The primary purpose of Anthrocon is for our attendees to have fun.” The con didn’t go to Magnus’s home and tell him how to think. He went out of his way to get in other people’s faces with politics that interfered with the con’s purpose.
Let me add that the blogger is nice and sincere. (They can stay unlinked here unless they want to comment.) It can be hard to pass info without sounding like a lecture, especially with a lot of young people in this fandom, but I’m not writing to focus on that blogger. This is about Magnus and the line between opinion and truth, and trolling vs. honest speech.
A “FURRY RAIDERS” TROLLING PROJECT
Speaking as a furry who does bold speech (in a place I built for it), and speaking about young people, there’s even more to this story. It’s a situation built for sleazy chickenhawks to swoop in and exploit. That’s the purpose of groups like the Furry Raiders and their leader Foxler.
By no coincidence, Magnus Diridian’s roommate Ricardo Nightwing is a Furry Raider. He assisted with the incident at Anthrocon. Afterwards, pictures of Magnus were proudly posted in the Furry Raiders Facebook group where they mocked protest of Confederate flags. That’s the purpose of the whole thing. Call it indoctrination especially for their young, gullible members.
The video they’re mocking has a woman protesting Confederate flags on a car at a festival. (For context they never bothered to learn: it was in Canada, where supposed American heritage isn’t entitled to a place, and she was staff.) Notice the dishonest trick of connecting an extreme example of a “triggered SJW” with reactions the Furry Raiders provoke themselves. They aren’t the same thing… again, it comes down to context. The video shows a woman coming to a festival and complaining, but Magnus and Foxler go to furry cons to push their behavior on others.
Apparently it’s OK when they do it.
That sleight-of-hand with context is meant to build an “SJW” strawman/boogeyman. In the Facebook thread, Foxler poses as victim of “same people that tell me to remove my paw print armband”. But Foxler set out to provoke by trolling events with unmistakable Nazi iconography. His ref sheet was tagged “nazi“, and he made public comments like “I stand by Hitler” and signed his comments “Hitler of Furry Fandom”. To pose as a victim, he later flipped the story to pretend the name was just “Fox Miller” and he didn’t know what Nazis were.
There’s a simple name for this goalpost-shifting, context-erasing manipulation: Two-faced lying. If you see it happen, remember that you can’t be a troll and a victim at the same time.
The Furry Raiders “mission” claims to “build a stronger community with projects that challenge social obstacles”. Here, their obstacle is people who aren’t cool with racism. But there was a rare moment of clarity for the Furry Raiders. Magnus’ helper dropped the fake “community” pose, leaving just “you can’t stop us:”
MYTHS VS. THE TRUTH
For even more evidence of how poorly informed the myths about “SJW’s” are, see the facebook comment “Watch SJW’s try to ban this movie next”. Cry Baby is a movie by John Waters, a super fabulous gay man who also made the movie Hairspray about race integration. Ban him? I’m fan enough to have gotten him invited to furry events. (See what I mean about myths?)
Confederate flaggers are “a ghetto of stupidity” – John Waters, maker of Cry Baby
This doesn’t have two sides when “SJW” myths are getting trumped up by trolls. There are just reasonable complaints about negative symbols. Again, I never asked the blogger defending Magnus to take anything down. Magnus didn’t have his fursuit taken away. This isn’t about taking away rights or never letting go of problems. We’re discussing misinformation and trolling vs. the truth.
The truth is: negative symbols are being pushed for shock by posers who don’t care about this community. Everyone deserves more honesty about that. The trolls believe they can’t be stopped, but everyone can point out dishonesty, stop defending them, and demand better.
Furries revere free expression. Let’s conclude with an example of standing for it in a mature, honest, positive way: In 2015, the Vermont Furs were banned from costuming at a public festival because of a law against masks. So they got support from the ACLU and local news, went to their city council and got the laws changed. The law still regulates masked KKK activity, but now it allows peaceful expression too. Sounds ideal to me, and what reasonable furries want.
- Vermont town selectively bans fursuiters: Prejudice complaint and update (Dogpatch Press)
- Free to Be Furry? Group Fights to Wear Animal Costumes in Burlington. (Seven Days Vermont)
- An Update from the ACLU – and We did it! (Vermont Furs)
- With Furries And Free Speech In Mind, Burlington Redrafts Anti-Mask Ordinance (Vermont Public Radio)
UPDATE – Ricardo Nightwing posted a response vid (I left further response to it in the comments on Youtube.) Ricardo also posted about leaving the Furry Raiders, and I think we can all relate to going through a process of change and maturity in life.
Responses by the Furry Raiders have included more flags and telling me: “there’s always a burning oven ready for you.”
Furries: "people who do that are being despicable losers"
— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) July 12, 2017
Loser: "We'll never stop"
Furries: "We know"
Like the article? It takes a lot of effort to share these. Please consider supporting Dogpatch Press on Patreon, where you can access exclusive stuff for just $1.
Some furries from Pennsylvania and elsewhere who’ve been around for a while, including at least one on Anthrocon’s higher staff, will recognize Magnus Diridian / Robert Sojokowski (the correct spelling of his real name) as an actual convicted criminal, and not just someone who enjoys being disruptive at events. He is simply not someone you want at your convention.
Those of us who know him well enough can safely assume that he is not simply trying to express himself with the confederate flag design, but that he’s intentionally creating disruptions at events. That alone is justification for his removal from them.
Anthrocon is where people go to have fun. A furry convention is not an appropriate venue for the kind of dissenting political expression and symbolism known to make many people uncomfortable and others downright upset. People who legitimately want to make an issue known and ask for change can organize petitions, marches, protests, and say all they want online.
Magnus is most likely very thrilled to have created as much controversy on a national in-fandom level as he has.
Charge 1: Battery – Charge Date: 01/07/2016
http://atlaspublicrecords.com/name/robert-m-sojkowski/baraboo-wi/d239c678d0?case_details=true
What else is there?
Theft and attempted theft in 1999 and 2002
http://imgur.com/a/4xf7U
“Terroristic threats” in 2004. He was angry at his bank because his account was overdrawn by $40. So he showed up at a branch and set off a stink bomb. He had not even completed his probation so he was in jail for a while.
(I was hoping I could find a link to the article in Google’s news archives, but I don’t see a way to search archives in the new interface.)
I know of other unreported allegations by other furs before 2010 including vandalism, harassment, and attempted assault, but I can’t share those details without revealing identities.
Opinions include personal preferences, such as “that outfit is too bright” or “I do not care for the comedy stylings of Rob Schneider”.
The Confederate flag’s message is “Black people are animals, only fit to work in the fields. Slavery now… slavery forever.”
One only need read the “Cornerstone Address”, or the secession documents of the southern states, to know that was the meaning behind the Civil War.
Questioning the humanity of black people, by repeating a slogan or by flying the Confederate battle flag, is not an “opinion” that we have to tolerate. Allowing that sentiment to have a platform implies it is worth debating.
That’s why they are harping on free speech, appealing to our sense of fairness and tolerance, and trying to redefine Anthrocon as a public square instead of a private party — because the only thing left as their defense is “it’s technically not illegal to say it.”
I am 76 years old. I remember the 1950s and the 1960s in Los Angeles, California, when the Confederate flag was only something that we learned about in U.S. history classes. Some kids liked it because it was a pretty design. From 1961 to 1965, both the Confederate flag and the U.S. flag during the Civil War were emphasized in the 100th anniversary of the Civil War celebrations.
Then during the 1960s, we saw the civil rights movement news in the newspapers and on TV. Marches. Beatings. Murders. Assassinations. Those doing the killings and the oppression of African-Americans often displayed the Confederate flag. It turned from a neutral design in history books into an active symbol of oppression.
Some apologists for it claimed that it was being perverted by the 1960s White supremacists. That the C.S.A. during the Civil War had really been fighting for States Rights against Northern/Federal oppression, not for slavery. The popular “Dukes of Hazzard” TV comedy emphasized the Confederate flag as a humorous Flag of Freedom against bumbling petty dictators. I don’t remember that there were any Black people in the TV episodes.
But during the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and later, in news articles and history articles and more, there was deeper coverage of U.S. history and what the Civil War and life in the Confederacy was really like. It became obvious that the “States Rights” argument really dated from the Lost Cause period of about 1865 to 1900, when all the statues to Confederate heroes like Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson were going up. During the Civil War itself, probably less than 5% of the Southerners claimed that they were fighting for States Rights, and they were mostly lawyers and politicians. As far as the average Southerner was concerned, the C.S.A. was either about Slavery or “we aren’t gonna let the Yankees tell us what to do”. Slavery was seen in the South as a symbol of Southern Freedom. By the Southern Whites. Nobody in the South cared what the Southern Blacks had thought.
I saw a September 1857 issue of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, published just before the Civil War, that had a front-page editorial about how Slavery was the greatest blessing of the U.S. government. I don’t remember if it used the N word, but it did say that the slaves were all simple, childlike people who were happy to let the White people do their thinking for them, and just do what they were told.
So, gradually during the last quarter of the 1900s, the “Confederate flag” turned from a harmless design from American history into an active symbol for oppression of Southern African-Americas; and people learned that it hadn’t really been about Southern Freedom during the Civil War as far as the slaves — the African-Americans — had been concerned. Today I can’t look at it as just a part of history or as a pretty flag any more. I agree with those who say that it’s time to take it down, except in specific historical displays such as Civil War battle reenactments. It’s definitely not something to be displayed at furry events.
Thanks Fred – and this is why you’re one of the greatest things in furry fandom.
Something else – and this has less to do with furry fandom than with historical speculation, so don’t read this if you feel that it wanders too far off-topic. The Confederate flag (or the version of its battle flag popularized during the 20th century) is supposed to stand for what a strong Southern nation the C.S.A. would have become if the South had won the Civil War. See such alternate-history s-f novels as Ward Moore’s “Bring the Jubilee” (1953), or Harry Turtledove’s 11 Southern Victory novels beginning with “How Few Remain” (1997). Some s-f authors have speculated that a victorious C.S.A. would have become a dictatorship like Nazi Germany, maybe under Louisiana’s Huey Long.
What everyone seems to ignore is that the whole point of the South’s secession was that the Southern states claimed that the Federal Government was taking too much control over the state’s governments. The “Confederate” States of America was supposed to be a return to the Articles of Confederation, which had been replaced by the U.S. Constitution in 1787 because it wasn’t working. During the Civil War, almost all the Confederate States accused Jefferson Davis and the C.S.A. government in Richmond of being as dictatorial as the U.S. federal government. (Davis claimed it was necessary to conduct a coordinated Confederate national defense.) The C.S.A. Constitution didn’t allow for any national taxation, and the individual Confederate states never contributed as much as Richmond needed, forcing the C.S.A. to print almost worthless paper money. North Carolina’s Governor Zebulon Vance openly threatened to re-secede from the C.S.A. and become an independent republic (North Carolina had its own paper money with Vance’s portrait on the $20 and $50 bills – one-sided, because they couldn’t afford to print on both sides), and Texas was widely expected to follow suit. Louisiana had its own national flag. In my opinion, if a united C.S.A. had won the Civil War (and established secession as legal), it would have broken up within the next 15 years. So the Confederate flag would never have lasted long in any case.
http://vernpotter.com/VernPotter/NC/2NC17304.htm
http://vernpotter.com/VernPotter/NC/2NC17294.htm
https://www.houzz.com/photos/47499671/Louisiana-CSA-1861-1865-3×5-Nylon-Flag-traditional-flags-and-flagpoles
Another technical nitpick: The Confederate States started out in March 1861 with 7 states. The first battle flags, adopted in September, had only 12 stars (and a yellow border); the 13th star, for Kentucky, was added in December 1861. The 13 stars on the Confederate battle flag officially stood for the 13 Confederate states, or the 13 states claimed by the Confederate government – it claimed Missouri and Kentucky, which it never controlled. A victorious C.S.A. would probably have added more states – Arizona and New Mexico which the C.S.A. invaded in 1862, maybe Southern California if it was separated from Northern California to give the C.S.A. a Pacific seacoast, maybe Cuba if the C.S.A. had bought or conquered it from Spain. Would a victorious C.S.A.’s flag have stayed at 13 stars?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._G._T._Beauregard#/media/File:Confederate_Battle_Flag_(official_design).png
Fred,
A fascinating faux documentary (“mockumentary” is too cute a word for this film) called “C.S.A.” was produced in 2004. The film tells the fictional story of what happened in the aftermath of the South’s supposed victory in the Civil War, including the CSA annexing most of the Caribbean (not just Cuba!) Here’s Wikipedia’s article on the film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.S.A.:_The_Confederate_States_of_America
Definitely worth a viewing if you can track it down
Personally this furry raiders and this man who decides to use a confederate flag are ignorant. A confederate flag does not have culture. It has history yes, but history of showing that people went against a nation which can almost be related to Isis considering they did practically the same thing. If i rose a flag of Isis (I dont support them) and waved it here and told people how it has culture. I would be in trouble. This also is stupid because Anthrocon is supposed to be fun, who wants to have poltics in fun? Its like saying youre going to discuss poltics or protest at a 5 year olds birthday party.
This guy used to live with two old friends of mine and I find this knowledge uncomfortable.
They seem unstable and dangerous as fuck.
Robert Sojokowski did commit a terror attack against a bank in 2004.
Source: http://magnusdiridian.livejournal.com/22622.html
Mirror: http://archive.is/ZrtRn
And here in his own words are things he actually said in that post:
“So,back in I went,and set it off DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE TELLER after making another deposit.”
“I drove past the bank on my way home 5 minutes later and nothing seemed amiss. So I figured things were cool.”
“They illegally raised the terroristic threat charge to a felony”
“Hazmat team was sent to the scene as well as the fire department. A pregnant woman was rushed to the hospital.”
This is the kind of person we’re dealing with. A person whose actions put a pregnant woman in the hospital over $100 in bank fees and then complains that he was charged with a felony.
Posting this anonymously because I am worried for my safety.
This is completely accurate. Showakowsky is yet another of his pseudanyms. Sojkowski is his real last name. Saw it on paperwork for his parole for previous crimes in his house.
https://www.mylife.com/rob-sojkowski/robsojkowski
https://archive.is/eXhI3
He also lies about his age. He’s over 45 and served in the military in his youth.
Can’t play the video linked at the bottom (not the Ricardo Nightwing one, the archived one).
Don’t give hits… it’s “yeah SO” from a nazifur. One of their “counterpoints” was that the woman in Canada was protesting the Dukes of Hazzard car so of course that makes it OK and I must have never seen it. I saw the original show run in 79-85 and in fact many of the trolls weren’t even born then. How does “heritage” work if context goes back no further than 1979? It’s a waste of time to hear them fail.
For those who haven’t seen it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dukes_of_Hazzard
You can check out YouTube for clips.
[…] Confederate flag fursuit: At Anthrocon 2017, Magnus caused more anger with a flag-design fursuit and a Trump sign. It was a protest of takedown of the flags around the USA due to their racist association, following national attention on hate crime murders by Dylann Roof. The story was covered in a Dogpatch Press article: The Confederate fursuit incident shows how you can’t be a troll and a victim at the same time. […]
[…] Magnus was convicted and jailed for a terroristic chemical attack on a bank in 2004. (There was a reader tip about it.) As requested, we didn’t discuss his past record, but it’s relevant to at least link […]