Charlottesville marcher linked to furry fandom and neo-nazi organizing.
by Patch O'Furr
Here’s a followup to previous coverage of the tiny alt-right fringe of furry fandom (Altfurry). See: 1) Altfurry supports neo-nazi violence, with member Nathan Gate on camera in Charlottesville. And 2) Furries resist hate, Altfurry Discord logs go public, Casey Hoerth removed by employers. Hate isn’t being welcomed, and this is the third furry name in a headline about it here.
UPDATE AND STATEMENT 3/20/18:
The article subject, Andrew, passed away on 3/9/18. The contents have been removed and archived at this link.
This article uncovered very sensitive information that added to coverage about him in mainstream media. This was the original source to identify him in a video of actively participating in a violent neo-nazi march.
After September 2017, Andrew appeared to want to escape public exposure. He made efforts to claim he had a change of heart or was a victim himself. That wasn’t supported with evidence of insincerity and continuing negative behavior (both published and confidential).
For that reason the archive link is provided. It’s a very serious issue for a news source to remove published records. There needs to be public discussion about hate groups and their deadly consequences, without coverup or historical revisionism. It’s sad that such groups attract people who want belonging, but an adult’s decisions are their own. All readers are asked to leave family and friends of Andrew alone and allow them privacy.
This must be the imaginary Nazis someone said you were seeing.
I only wish it was imaginary.
Informative article! Good to know we can clearly show the end goal of a certain group of people, before it gets to this point again.
Very informative and well written article. Thank you for sharing this. I will be sharing it in my Facebook group to spread awareness.
http://whitewolf.denofwolves.com/anthros/chels-unifiorm.jpg
Takes a Nazifur to identify a Nazifur I guess.
You’re funny. I like how this isn’t linked to the original post on FA, with the description and everything. A single drawing, that doesn’t even depict Nazi paraphernalia, mind you, =/= Nazifur.
When was I the one to identify him, anyway?! Your comment is just loaded with ignorance.
Hi white wolf. Thanks for dropping in. Sorry this thing is very dramatic, but I think publicizing has positive results. And thanks for originally sharing info that gives context to the story.
Doesn’t depict nazi paraphernalia? Like the SS pin?
YOU HAVE TO READ THE RESPONSE TO THE ARTICLE DO IT IT HAS BEEN UPDATED.
https://goo.gl/images/znWh1o
Its funny because she has an obviously skinhead haircut and is known to have OTHER “uniform related stuff” hiding in her closet.
Those who throw stones should take care they are not living in glass houses. Babyfur pedophiles are sickening.
White Wolf is simply a source for the story from many years-old public posts, and not noticeably linked to the events in it beyond reporting experiences from around 2009 that led to a protective order. That has been verified by other sources.
Whether someone does or did once share activities with the subject of the article, please let it be a separate topic and avoid “whataboutism”.
The only comment I will make is that drawing art etc is different from planning marches, and people change. Some of the most important people to this topic are ones who were once associated but grew up and changed.
I may moderate further comments. Please do not dogpile White Wolf and be respectful.
Ambien’s comment is very accurate and spot-on. He is in fact a sociopath. Zero to minimal empathy. Complete lack of impulse control. Completely thoughtless, like an animal acting on instinct and trying to constantly protect himself from some made up invisible enemy – beating up others in the process. He needs medical attention.
Please excuse for writing the name I assume it will be changed by moderator if post posted – per your regulation the name for the comment comes fro the Arkansas article not any other source.
I assume you were referring to Ambien so I edited that in for you.
Lets see, where to begin.
I assume providing clarity and defining terms that I see here being thrown around in an extremely negligent manner would be an acceptable preamble.
Lets start with what the term “Nazi” at least within the context of this article is objectively defining; it is referring to a subset of persons, who possess a fundamental core belief structure that influences their behaviour, cognition, and more concerning, personality; of which consists of idealologies, biases, and very polorized perspectives in relation to the topics of race, equality, violence, tolerance, hatred, essentially everything that contributes to ones subjective experience of “reality”.
Taken in that context, a piece of art, or even an article of clothing, or anything else produced, shared, discussed, or otherwise discovered or disclosed; lacking any of the supporting evidence that the person in question actually possesses the belief structure is entirely flippant, and employing actual reasoning with consideration to possible consiquences, dangerous accusation to make.
Now, sociopath… This is a word I dislike greatly as it simply does not define anything at all. It attempts to pick and choose behavioural characteristics and personality traits that are commonly seen in cluster b personality disorders, but dont actually meet the severity required for any single label to apply. The actual diagnosis would be one of anti-social personality disoder, however upon objective observation of the subject being reffered to as being a “sociopath” the actual evidence suggests that psychopathy is a more fitting suspected diagnosis particularly due to the inherent inability to employ executive functioning properly leading to an impulsiveness that betrays ones core need for self preservation. This would be indicitive of poor activity in the prefrontal cortex, and possible structual abnormalities in that and other areas of the brain. (personally I would be very much interested in seeing a PET or F-MRI out of idle curiosity)
Now on to adressing the elephant in the room, emotional reasoning, cognitave biases, polorization, objectivity, and personal accountability; not of the subject being discussed, but of yourselves.
It is far too easy to let opportunities for introspective enlightenment and personal growth to pass by unnoticed due to lack of observation.
The fact of the matter is, the exact same components that allow for extreme cases such as the topic at hand to exist, are at play in each and every one of us, too much of the discussion is employing emotional reactivity, and preventing logical analysis and conclusions to be made.
This individuals behaviour is so clearly observable from miles away as being indicitive of the threat that is present in any association with them. Any person that is actually employing rational ability would be able to observe this and take action accordingly by creating as much distance as possible from this individual.
So the fact that everybody is so eager to point fingers, judge, demonize, or form an oppinion about this person based in knee-jerk reactivity, or personal victimization, really ought shine a light on how that can prevent becoming a victim of persons such as this in the future, and how not to become the very thing you so adamantly claim to disagree with.
I posit the perspective of creating personal benefit instead of idle amuesment presented by the topic at hand and to consider that some time be taken to introspect in a rational way to learn and grow as a person.
Uhhh ok
Go ahead and watch the video to see that the things being “thrown around” are literal nazi salutes. There was a lot of resistance to calling things what they are until a lot of this type of info was published by me and others. Now everyone can see it with their own eyes. People weren’t overdefining, they were underdefining the nazi problem.
To get back to the point, Nazis are bad and inviting them into your group is bad. The world had a big war to make that clear forever and ever. This is very simple and should be taken for granted.
If you were suggesting this article is “idle amuesment” you should probably get acquainted with what’s really going on.
This is what’s going on. https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1935124890100282&id=100008083698763
Psychologistish: Interesting comments. If this is the case, one of the features that seems to appear in psychopathy is disregard for the emotions of others, which is ironic considering your critique of people’s emotional and knee-jerk reactions to this individual.
Do you think there is a connection between psychopathy and increased susceptibility to the influence of ‘cults’? This perhaps could manifested as joining various groups (whether its Nazi or a religious group) and exhibiting the type of fanaticism that results in overall harm to self and others. There is for example a link between OCD and hyper-religiosity, but not sure if that is significant in the light of impulse-control or too different. Would be an interesting connection, in light of making some conclusions for future observations and lessons- as you suggested.
It would be interesting to apply the question to:
People who wish to run cults
People who follow cult leaders
https://www.quora.com/Why-are-certain-people-susceptible-to-sociopaths-while-others-are-not
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-do-people-join-cults-janja-lalich
Thanks for the links. his hyper religious inclinations are not mentioned in the media but they’re definitely there and unhealthy fanaticism is an overriding trend for him. Having zero tolerance for anyone associating with hate groups is something many agree on as a lesson from this but it looks like in his past (when he was with the furries) the Nazi thing wasn’t as obvious but other red flags were there – in retrospect at least.
Also.. I know we are trying to get lessons for ourselves – such as not allowing hate in whatever group you’re in – but unfortunately I highly doubt he’ll be extracting a lesson on his part.. if we agree that this is a psychological diagnosis… what would be the best and most compassionate advice for him and his poor family? he needs to see a doctor I would say. And see a doctor a lot . like in all seriousness ..
The thing about highly religious individuals also can be explained by personality.
Conscientiousness, specifically the orderliness aspect (not necessarily the industriousness) is usually very high, interestingly enough this trait sub domain correlates with sensitivity to disgust which when coupled with low openness means a preference for tradition and well defined concrete order and lack of egalitarianism.
So in regards to what I would say are the vast majority of “nazis” or any other radical group for that matter, would be that they are on the extreme ends of the spectrum on openness and conscientiousness (orderliness aspect)
Im sure you are able to deduce many groups of individuals who might meet these criteria to varying degrees, but the biggest contributing factor to radicalism after this fundamental prerequisite is met, is that of agreeableness.
To turn disgust into contemptuous predation requires an extreme lack of agreeableness, again there are varying degrees of this as well that run the gamut from hate speech and minor assault, to outright genocide of entire races of persons.
Any one of these traits not present together however, have extremely different outcomes, say you have an extremely disagreeable person, who is also extremely open to experience, and at least above average in conscientiousness… Youll probably end up with somebody who is harsh, demanding, tough, but also hard working, objective, creative, progressive, and depending on social moorings, has others best interest in mind. These would be the personalities that change the world, but meet resistance every step of the way.
I can see how at first glance disregarding another persons feelings could look like an indication for disorders such as ASPD and Psychopathy. As a matter of fact, it is a core requirement for those two disorders, however it is not the sole culprit and without other contributing factors has zero influence on if one becomes anti-social or psychopathic.
The ability to disregard the feelings of others is one we all possess due to basic cognitive biases, but more so personality.
This is all dictated by trait agreeableness, in essence the more agreeable you are, the more you tend to avoid conflict, value your needs below the needs of others, value interpersonal relationships much more and develop them much easier, are generally more compassionate and generous, and usually are well liked by almost everybody.
Sounds rather fantastic to be high in agreeableness, doesn’t it?
When regarding non-competitive, or deeper intimate relationships however, it causes a plethora of problems. Avoiding conflict in a marriage for instance may reduce short term tension allowing for tempers to cool, however unresolved conflict is a death sentence to any relationship that will inevitably encounter conflict about meaningful issues. This is turn means that higher levels of agreeableness are a fantastic benefit for sort term superficial interactions, but is entirely negative in mid to long term outcomes.
Good examples of this are when you look at trait agreeableness in the genders, women tend to be roughly half a standard deviation higher in agreeableness than men.
Extrapolating from that fact, things such as wage differences and professional success, along with workplace equality, could be very well predicted by lack of assertiveness on behalf of the female, due to being too agreeable. It takes self centered, blunt, and objective confrontation to ask for a raise, it also requires the same skills to be entirely honest when the truth of whatever the matter may be is ugly, or demeaning, such as being able to fire an employee for lack of performance, or addressing unacceptable behaviour in another person.
With this in mind, being -able- to disregard the feelings of others, does not mean you lack the ability to leverage empathy when required, it simply means you tend not to do so when its not required.
To point out the prevalence of this trait in society, the majority of your scientists, critics, comedians, soldiers, police, and lawyers tend to be very disagreeable people, the inverse of this is many of your service, hospitality, and care giving professionals are very high in agreeableness.
ASPD and Psychopathy do require one to be very low in agreeableness and the lower they fall on the spectrum the worse the outcome and greater severity of the disorder.
But they require other traits to develop, such as low conscientiousness.
The serious problem presents itself, when you have a psychopath, that is extremely low in neuroticism, very high in extraversion, and high intelligence.
This kind of person couldn’t care less about you, wont work but will be more than elated to reap the benefits of others labor, is highly assertive, and smart, these kinds of persons are highly charismatic as extroverted/disagreeable people tend to be narcissistic in nature, they have no problem putting themselves out there strongly, and also lack any fear, this conveys a strong confidence from this person and its very easy to confuse that with competence, as to be competent would inherently lead one to also be confident.
Sounds a lot like a cult leader, wouldn’t you say?
As for the followers, it would be those persons that are agreeable, low in openness to experience, and high neuroticism, aka the easily manipulable. This would be shown in the overrepresentation of female followers in cults, and the extreme almost non-existent female leaders.
I think “Scrupulosity” is what you are referring to as hyper-religiosity, as the latter is defined as overwhelming spiritual experiences that impede ones ability to function, its associated with being in a psychotic/manic state, epilepsy, or degeneration of the frontotemporal lobe.
Psychosis is in absolutely no way connected to Psychopathy as Psychosis is a break with reality that interferes with ones ability to function, whereas even the delusions of a psychopath may be based in pure fantasy, they don’t impede their ability to function.
As for Mr. Patch, I fail to see why you would posit that I would disregard an inquiry that is not only entirely legitimate, but also astutely curious and fully associated with the broader issues behind any of us being here.
competitive*
It’s like I have a huge neon sign over my head that says caution: monster.
I’m sorry I’ve gotten so used to people hating me I never figured out how to love. I know pieces are missing and it feels so fucking lonely. I am the king of rejects, come pay homage to me in hell.
No one said that disregard for others feelings is a defining factor of sociopathy so I’m not sure where you got that from. And it’s common sense that many of the pathological features that appear in mental illness and personality disorders can be found in smaller quantities in normal individuals, what makes pathology is the negative impAct the feature has on the individuals life, ability to keep a job and maintain relationships (and in this case Dodson’s ability -or lack of it- is evident. The commebt about disregard for feelings of others that prevents proper functioning in society was made as a supporting factor for the diagnosis rather than a defining factor, but the effect this has on others is quite catastrophic.
As for cult leaders being psychopaths- yeah you’re right but that theory is old news. This guy is not a leader And in this case it is dangerous because of the blind fanaticism rather than anything else. Psychopathy and fanaticism is not old news as far as I know which is why I brought up the point.
Hyper-religiously – I did not mean psychosis or what people associate with left hemisphere damage necessarily. That is an extreme and I’m referring to a spectrum. This guy is in fact a religious fanatic. It’s important to not get locked in by official terminology especially in a fast growing field of psychiatry.
I apologize, I re-read your earlier reply and noticed I went on a tirade about a single aspect. I replied above, elaborating a bit more.
As you mentioned all of these lines of reason are based on spectrum, pathology in and of itself dwells within the extreme ends of those.
When it comes to Mr. Dodson, the repeated victimization of others, disregard for long term consideration of his actions, along with the ability to say or do anything in the name of self interest, shows an individual who does actually fall within the extremes of many traits, and very well may also suffer from a neurological dysfunction or other biologically contributing factor.
My expertise lies in the field of psychology, so I can only speak with any certainty of confidence through that lense.
It is a complex topic, assuredly, but it also brings to attention, that left unchecked, the building blocks for these kinds of persons are present in all of humanity and if left unexamined and unchecked, allow for extremes to proliferate and cause great harm systemically
This I very much agree with. And particularly the last point you made – It would be useful if this was more present in the media.
I randomly stumbled upon this because I’m sick and surfing the web, doing some light internet stalking of people I was friends with growing up and lost touch with.
Drew (as he was known back then) and his whole family were pretty much bullied by most of our small school growing up because they were all very smart and very unapproachable. He and one of his brothers were in all of my advanced classes and most people were either outright hostile to them or just ignored them.
Drew and I ended both ended up at Clemson and briefly became pretty good friends because we were in the same dorm and I was never mean to him when we were little. I was gay and Black in small conservative town, so I knew what bullying felt like and, even though I wasn’t his friend, I would sit with him at lunch sometimes and work with him on school stuff. That’s literally the only reason he reached out to me. We had absolutely nothing in common, but I was nice to him growing up.
That said, I’m not surprised that this is how he turned out. I think a lot of toxic aggression from the police to politicians to these white supremacists stem from being bullied and never recovering. They band together with other damaged men because there’s safety in numbers where they can lash out at easy targets that don’t have the same sociopolitical power to fight back. He was a bright, lonely kid with no friends and a frightening mean streak growing up and he turned into this.
And just so there’s no confusion, I’m not offering an excuse or absolution. I was also a bright, lonely kid from the same town and I grew up to run volunteer programs and fight for social progress on all fronts. He obviously did not.
Thanks Rafi for dropping in with a very personal perspective. It makes a lot of sense.
I think almost anyone has power to change, and that should be taken for granted. I like to think there’s a 98% rule about people who can do good things in the world. Maybe 2% have no concept of other people and want to use them for their own power and it’s incredibly hard to handle and frightening, because you might not be able to tell. Extending kindness can get you abused and they are too broken to care. Then there’s a loose percent orbiting them as enablers. It can grow or shrink a lot and minimum is ideal. But changing requires wanting to first of all. Until they do, just beware.
YOU ARE ALL FUCKING IDIOTS!!!!! You have no lives if this is the highlight of your day. Maybe you should do some research before you open your mouths. He has donated most of his wealth to nonprofit organizations, goes to church, and actually worth something to society. So again you guys are the cunts of the world. SNOWFLAKES ❄️
Do tell! Which organizations, and which church?
LOL… yeah sure, I can attest to the fact that he donated money to the church he attended when we dated. What the heck does that have to do with anything?? IMO that makes him even worse as it just means he’s a huge hypocrite to boot… “Christian” my ass! Giving away money does not make anyone a better person, anyway. -.- In this case it’s just an attempt to make an otherwise worthless human being feel good about themselves. Brings to mind an even better example from another pathetic waste of life I lived with around the same time…
I like how this person puts “church” and “worth something to society” together with Nazi. One of these things, is not like the others…
Hey man I’m actually not a hater. I feel so bad for having this huge wall between me and everyone who has ever tried to love me. I’m actually thankful this article was written even though it’s caused a lot of grief. Im gonna try to apologize to everyone I was mean to or weirded out when I was on drugs. I never tried to kill anyone I’ve just been mildly suicidal my whole life and other people came along for the ride for a while. Like these two smart folks talking psychology are probably right but it’s not the whole story. Like I tried to tell all those reporters the truth and I am totally open if you wanna know. Love ya Rafael
I did not know him, but knew of him.
Anyway, it appears he is now deceased.
I knew Andrew closely in the last few months. You may not know, but he took his own life after the events that resulted from his involvement in the rallies. He was deeply disturbed by how he was perceived. Andrew was not a racist. He was a very troubled person with a myriad of flaws, but he did not deserve the vitriolic hate that he received. His family found out about this. His family who had already disowned him for being gay. This was just salt in the wounds for a boy whose religious ideas about god’s love of him being intertwined with his parents pride.
I understand that Andrew may have made many poor decisions, but I dated him for the several months leading up to his death and I can tell you that his mistakes haunted him. He was a very good person at heart. I would deeply appreciate you taking down this article. It is no longer relevant and it causes me great pain.
Andrew was a very beautiful and very damaged individual. He caused a lot of harm, but that’s what happens. Abused people abuse others. It’s cyclical. That doesn’t excuse his behavior, but please don’t demonize this wonderful creature.
I don’t think I will ever be okay again knowing that he is gone. He was finally starting to come to terms with his mistakes and move on.
Hi Tyler, I’m sorry for what you’re going through, and yes I’ve had private discussions with others about what happened. One of the stages of grief is denial.
In the 2000’s when Andrew was going by GoldenZoltan, he changed his Livejournal user icon to a nazi flag. His accounts were banned from many places for trolling people. The happenings in this 2017 article came from a history of misbehavior covering his whole adult life.
Everyone who supports hate groups has some claim to be troubled. But most people who are rejected by families for being gay or have other personal troubles don’t go on to join hate groups. Andrew made adult decisions.
In this country people’s troubles unfortunately come loaded with race implications – a black child may get criminal punishment as an adult, while a white adult may be treated as a misunderstood child not in control of themselves. It would be irresponsible to contribute to that.
Andrew did leave comments and make claims that he was troubled and misunderstood. Those were contradicted by duplicitous actions.
In early 2017, maybe he didn’t think anyone would connect his Chan board activity to his Skype ID that was verifiable by employment info on the profile. Linked in the article, there was evidence that he posted on those boards about attending leftist meetings in Boston, pretending to be a friendly ally, in order to take notes and pass them to neo-nazi planners for a march. His notes recommended using violence against protesters. That isn’t just a mistake by a misunderstood person.
Then there was what happened when mainstream media reported his support for white supremacy in Charlottesville in August 2017. After suffering disrepute he began telling a contradictory story of only wanting to find out what the march was about and not supporting them. This was months after his planning activity in Boston and clearly untrue. He changed tune because he got caught.
In December 2017 he attended the Midwest Furfest convention. His roommates questioned him about his activity and he lied about it. After his death they posted about learning of his real activity, including an irrefutable video of him at a violent march where he hugged people throwing nazi salutes. They were unhappy about being lied to.
At the convention he also stalked a political critic, causing security concerns and a story I’m keeping confidential. I learned about it directly while it was happening.
Good people can do bad things, but there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical about attempts to revise history or repair Andrew’s reputation. He had a career in nuclear engineering and wasn’t a helpless boy. His actions caused grief to others, and some of them requested that the article be left unaltered as a record. The article is a news source – you can’t go to a newspaper and ask them to take down articles for having uncomfortable info.
The past can’t be changed but it’s important that people learn from it and see the consequences of hate group activity. I’m sorry that this is painful – it’s not the first time a person close to a difficult story has pled for changing it – but there are other readers who deserve a firm commitment to reporting.
However I did compromise in respect for family by 1) removing the name from the headline 2) deleting an external link from Facebook to here (I can’t do anything about other people’s links) and 3) archiving the text to make it harder to come up in search results, so maybe archived info will take more dedicated effort to find.
One of the ironies about this story involves the Charlottesville march that Andrew supported. The neo-nazis attacked protesters of Confederate statues who believed they glorified a terrible unhealed wound left by slavery. The marchers said that it was history and heritage, without caring about living people. Now the irony is that removing history of a marcher so he can be regarded more positively, despite his choices, would go against their efforts to leave things as they were.
If this remains a painful memory it may help to make amends with living people – those affected by hate groups, anti gay attitudes or personal troubles. They’ll be grateful for the concern. But please don’t ask to hide this – the truth needs to stay.
I don’t doubt that Andrew made some very very bad choices, but we had lengthy decisions about race and it is clear to me that he was not racist. He was a fox-and-friends indoctinrated child born of a family that spread toxicity and hatred.
He had nothing against people of other races. He was simply a fucking troll that didn’t have any real grasp of how his behavior could realistically harm others.
I don’t really want to get into the semantics or make excuses. I thank you for removing the name from the headline and the link from the facebook. I understand your desire to keep things up.
Andrew did a lot of foolish things but I loved him deeply and I can tell you that at the end of his life he deeply regretted the decisions he made. So much so that he feel into heroin use. in my personal opinion he was punishing himself for the mistakes he made and for the ways he treated others. I tried very hard to get him into counseling, but I was too late.
The grief I feel will never go away.
I understand the need for you to keep this story up, but please do not remove my comment. Andrew was not a monster. He did despicable things and I will not argue with that. I am a staunch liberal and believe me we had many arguments over that, but he did concede that he made many seriously bad decisions in the ways he attempted to ‘stir up’ the status quo.
I just want the dead to be treated with respect, so I thank you for taking the steps that you have.
peace be with you and sending love your way
That’s what he was to you, and it counts. Everyone has potential to change. Be well.
Thank you Patch. If on’y the same count be true of all things. I would give anything to have my stupid right wing idiot back and I don’t know if I can handle the grief I feel anymore.
It has been two weeks and the pain has only gotten worse
Hi Tyler,
Please email me regarding Andrew. I was a coworker of his…
Emilio . M @ Engineer. com
I’d appreciate it if you make it fast. I’m probably going to kill myself soon. Ty.whidden@gmail.com
Andrew was my everywhere
I wasn’t in the fandom at the time of the original events of this article, but I appreciate both your update statement and your decision to keep an archive of the original article available.
Better him than me. Suicide is never okay, but he’s gone and good riddance
Fuck yourself you piece of fucking human garbage. Suicide is not a joke and I’m probably going to end my life over his when your political views line up very similarly with mine
Can someone please contact me regarding Andrew’s suicide? I just learned of his death today and we worked together in engineering. There is a matter that involves him and I am greatly concerned part of the reason he committed suicide was due to this, though I don’t know if he was aware and that is what I am trying to find out. In respect to him and his family I won’t divulge any more here. Please contact me.
Emilio.M@Engineer.com
FYI in case anyone reads down here, there was a police wellness check on Ty and he was OK. I’m trying to arrange some more support in his area.