Some time ago we came across Yellow Peril Tactical initiative from USA and it quickly became clear that they are our kind of people. We decided to do an interview with them to present them and their work to the wider public.
1.) Can you please introduce yourself and your group?
Absolutely, and we are honored that you’d think of us to interview. We are Yellow Peril Tactical, and we are a collective of East Asian and South Asian gun owners and shooters on the anti-authoritarian left in the USA. For some reason, people like to assume we are all men, but actually about half of us aren’t.
We started as an Instagram page, but then branched out into Twitter, and we also have a podcast, the Tiger Bloc Podcast. Most of what we post is about getting better with guns, but we also post a lot about issues facing Asian and BIPOC shooters, personal protection, LGBTQ issues (many of our contributors are LGBTQ), and anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist politics.
2.) What are the main aims of Yellow Peril Tactical?
So it’s really 4 things, right? And just to give your readers some context, gun ownership in the USA is often seen as a conservative white guy thing. So with that in mind:
- Tolerance vs. Inclusion
Mainstream gun culture paints itself as tolerant. But one barely needs to scratch below the surface to find that is hardly the case. Racial and gender bigotry are tolerated, and in some cases encouraged and accepted.
Yellow Peril Tactical seeks to set the tone for inclusive spaces in gun culture as an active pursuit. People thrive in spaces where they are explicitly welcomed, not merely tolerated.
This gun culture does not include us, and we reject it. We want to hold ourselves out as an alternative. When you look at our posts, everyone’s face is censored. Also, none of our published work is signed. This has a security aspect, sure, but we maintain our anonymity because we do not want us as individuals and as a platform to overcast our values and our message.
Additionally, we care about much more than just surface-level diversity. While mainstream American liberalism has no shortage of gestures and performances under the banner of „inclusion,” what makes us different as leftists is that we challenge the root causes of what creates inequity in the first place. As anti-authoritarians, we are against all oppressive social, economic, racial, and political structures.
- The Right to Self Defense Must Be Decentralized.
YPT hopes to educate people on the responsibilities of the individual and the community for self defense. Firearm education is a small but important part of community defense and securing self-determination and bodily autonomy.
The American liberal political line would have people believe that they should be dependent on the state to keep them safe.
Anyone who pays attention to history, from the genocide of Native Americans, to Reconstruction, to George Floyd, can see there is no reason to trust in the state, except that it is comfortable to many to do so.
- Addressing the Shortcomings of Mainstream Gun Culture
For European readers, in addition to guns being the domain of mostly white men, the culture as a whole is obsessed with mindlessly buying items in the hopes that they will make you more prepared, a better shooter, or more dangerous. It’s almost 100% bullshit.
YPT participates in the normalizing of skill development over this mindless consumption. We post goals and shooting drills so that people can develop and improve their firearms skills. We showcase fellow shooters’ progress to encourage others.
- A Different Approach to Asian Americans in Gun Culture
So many Asian Americans who participate in mainstream „gun culture,” rather than celebrating their own heritage and identity, instead cozying up to whiteness. This is most exemplified in the „Roof Korean” motif, heartening back to the Rodney King uprising in LA, wherein Asian American gun owners celebrate self-defense without ever critically examining why self defense is necessary. Especially within a country that, through its history, has institutionalized anti-Asian racism.
3.) Why do you think your work is important?
Aside from the things we talked about above, it’s important for people on the left, and for people in marginalized groups especially, to have guns. Especially in the political climate these days. Guns aren’t the entirety of community defense, but they are an important part. In the last few years, we’ve been seeing threats of violence and stochastic terrorism against LGBTQ people, especially trans people, become normalized by the right.
And we’ve seen killings and attempted killings of people on the left and from marginalized communities by people with guns. They’re not covered extensively by the media, but they’re happening. Anyone who thinks cops can, or even want, to keep you safe, in the year 2023, after seeing the murders of George Floyd and so many others, is a fucking dumbass. We keep us safe.
4.) What would you say are the main challenges you face at the moment?
Overall, we’ve been pretty pleased with the success of this project. We actually started this because a few of us got really mad at this Asian guy, Austin Tong, a pro-Trump gun owner. That’s what inspired us to create this, and that dude is completely irrelevant now. We never expected this to be this helpful to people, and we never expected that people would care about the stuff we have to say this much.
Now that a lot of people on the left are interested in guns, gun ownership on the left has largely become normalized. What we wish we’d see more, and people are moving in this direction, is more peer coaching from experienced shooters to turn more people who just have a gun into competent shooters. And we are happy to see at least left-wing gun culture moving in this direction.
5.) You do amazing work in solidarity with Ukrainian antifascists fighting against Russian invasion. Tell us bit more about that? Did you face a lot of wrath from the tankie „left?”
Yeah so we’ve done a lot of fundraisers over the years for mutual aid, stuff like that. We’ve done them for Afghan refugees, Food Not Bombs, the PDF in Myanmar, a bunch of stuff. So when the war in Ukraine started, we wanted to help out anarchists and anti-authoritarians there as well. People in the US love tactical stuff. So we asked a group of Ukrainian eco-anarchists called Eco Platform for permission to sell their unit insignia as a velcro-backed patch as a fundraiser. Very cool logo. It’s a play on the Makhno flag, and it says, in Ukrainian, „Death to all who stand in the way of achieving freedom.”
We gave the money to Solidarity Collectives, about $1,400. They’ve done wonderful work supporting anarchist and anti-authoritarian fighters, and civilians as well. They’ve really done amazing in putting together a network of people all over Europe and now in the USA. We got a nice video back from Eco that they spent the money on medical supplies, which was really cool to see.
Since we did that fundraiser, a friend in Germany asked us if we wanted to do a fundraiser for antifascist hooligans Hoods Hoods Klan, who were a part of a documentary called „Frontline Hooligan” from Jake Hanrahan with conflict news org Popular Front. We sold their „Kaifariki” insignia. It means, roughly, „vibes” or „chillin.” We asked people to donate to XVX Tacticaid in Poland, who was making them an ambulance. Truly an international effort on that one. UH Fists Up in Germany covered the shipping, a donor in the USA paid for the patches, and XVX Tacticaid in Poland made the ambulance. Very awesome. XVX put one of our stickers on the ambulance dashboard. We were very proud to see that, and we raised about $4,700.
Since then, we’ve done several more fundraisers, usually partnering with XVX Tacticaid and/or Solidarity Collectives. We helped Eco collect money for drones. We sold t-shirts for HHK. We sold patches with artwork from a Ukrainian artist to help fund a Jeep prepared by XVX Tacticaid for a drone reconnaissance unit. Just recently, we helped Eco again raise money for a truck.
One of the things we are most proud of is a trip one of us took in November 2022 to Poland and Ukraine. We (there is no „I;” we are a collective) volunteered to deliver a Suzuki Vitara from XVX Tacticaid/SolCol to Mykolaiv to some soldiers. It was an excellent trip not just to meet everyone, but because we were able to bring tactical gear donated from Soup and Brass, a leftist gun club in central Florida, and some sophisticated medical supplies from Foxfire Medical. This was pretty awesome, since a lot of this stuff is unavailable or hard to source in Ukraine and Poland. It may surprise some people to learn that physically bringing stuff to Poland, versus mailing, is the only reliable way to get stuff over from the United States. Thanks to Eco Platform, SolCol, and Mutual Aid Odesa for providing housing on the trip.
Not only was it great to just meet people face to face, but it was truly a learning experience to see the mutual aid networks our friends in Europe have created. We can’t say too much in print, but suffice it to say, the scale and efficiency of aid delivery is impressive. We definitely hope to strengthen relationships and learn from this expertise going forward.
Working on Ukraine aid has been extremely fun, by the way. It’s a lot of fun seeing support from all around the globe, and we’ve made a lot of new friends all over the world. A special shout out to:
- Max with XVX Tacticaid
- Kat and Ksun with Solidarity Collectives
- Lilith, „A,” and „G” with Eco Platform
- Leon with Anarchist Black Cross Galicia
- Anton with HHK
- Richard with UH Fists Up
We’re looking forward to additional projects to support Ukrainian anti-authoritarians in 2023.
As far as tankies, yeah, lots of hate. Let’s put it this way. A lot of times, we get the question, „why is it that you do so much support for Ukraine when there are other conflicts around the globe?” Sometimes this is a sincere question from those unfamiliar with our other efforts, but often it’s just a backhanded criticism from do-nothing shitbags on the internet. The decision for us to support was easy. People in the Ukrainian left didn’t want to get invaded by Russia and wanted to fight back. Anarchists and anti-authoritarians asked others, including us, for help. So we helped. It was fun and we made new friends. Simple as that. Not a hard decision. What kind of anti-authoritarians would we be if we made excuses or apologies for an imperial invasion?
But yeah, we got a ton of hate on the internet, especially on twitter, from so-called „anti imperialists,” who are basically just huffing laundered Russian propaganda from places like Grayzone. People have called us the CIA, they’ve said we are supporting Nazis, etc. After meeting and working with so many cool people in Ukraine, Poland, and elsewhere, we say, fuck that and fuck you. People in Ukraine really don’t want to live under the Russian boot, while internet tankies, and even large left voices like Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, are all too happy to lick the boot, or choke on it, to varying degrees. If this is the „principled anti-imperialism” that many leftists in the US adopt, enjoy journeying to irrelevance as people rightly recognize that you all are dumbasses.
We could talk about that all day, but we want to boost our friends abroad. You can follow all these people on social media, usually on Instagram. Please go follow people like XVX Tacticaid, SolCol, Resistance Committee, Eco Platform, HHK, FC Lviv Ultras, ACK Galicja, 161 Crew, and others. Any hate we get from tankie clowns honestly makes us want to do more to help.
And our love goes out to all of our friends in Ukraine, Poland, and Germany..
6.) You also do a podcast. What’s the deal with that? Is it a regular thing? How many people tune in?
Yeah we’d like to podcast more, but editing is an issue. It comes out every 2 to 3 weeks or so. It’s really fun to do though, and we usually get around 1,000 plays for a good episode. We usually like to have on guests who have cool stories to tell, or we talk to other guests who shoot. Sometimes we just record us answering questions. We figured it would be another good way to get our message out there. We’ve had SolCol on, whom we are all now familiar with. Before that we had a Q&A, and before that, a highly ranked competition shooter named Katon. Our last episode was with Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, who have been active in the armed defense of queer and trans people against fascists and bigots in Texas.
7.) What would you say is your biggest success since founding of your project?
Honestly, it’s the little successes that mean a lot. Someone who is inspired to shoot or train, someone who shoots their first competition, or someone who takes out new shooters for the first time. That’s what it’s all about. People DM us all the time to tell us about it, or they tweet at us about it, or we see it on Instagram. It’s absolutely amazing to see. That’s why we do this.
8.) Is there any message you would like to send to anarchists and antifascists in Europe?
A lot of times, the left in the US acts like it’s the center of the world. In an environment of rising pro-right sentiment in not just the US, but also in the UK, France, Hungary, Poland, etc., we want to say we stand with you, and look forward to continue learning from you.
Socials:
IG: yellow_peril_tactical
Twitter: YPTActual
Mastodon: yellow_peril_tactical kolektiva.social
Podcast: Tiger Bloc Podcast