They wore matching clothes and covered their faces, moving in formation. They wanted people to look at them and understand the message: we are here, and we are organized.
The group was Patriot Front, described by major news outlets as a white supremacist and neo-fascist organization.
Reuters reported that hundreds of masked members marched through DC on July 4, carrying Confederate flags, Patriot Front flags, and altered versions of the American flag.
The Guardian reported the same: hundreds of masked members of a white supremacist organization marching in the nation’s capital on Independence Day.
It is tempting to look at this and ask, How did we get here?
But the truth is, we have always been here. The slogans and the platforms change, but the belief underneath stays the same.
Some people matter, and some people do not. Some people deserve protection, while other people deserve punishment.
Today, under an online post made, a man wrote: “good we should sentence all them hookers to death.”
Just someone sitting behind a screen, typing out that hookers should be sentenced to death like he was commenting on the shitty 4th of July Anchorage weather.
People want to pretend there is a huge distance between masked men marching with Confederate flags and some guy on Facebook saying sex workers should die, but there isn’t.
Both are built on dehumanization.
What is that?
Dehumanization is when someone takes a whole group of people and turns them into a label. Not a person. Not a mother or a daughter. Not a friend. Not a survivor. Not someone trying to pay rent, stay alive, feed their kids, get through the day, or get home safe.
Just a label. “Hooker.”
Once a person becomes a label, it becomes easier to say what should happen to them.
Lock them up. Ignore them. Laugh at them. Don’t believe them.
Don’t investigate when they disappear.
Don’t care when they are beaten. Don’t care when they are raped.
Don’t care when they are murdered.
And if someone says hookers should die, people shrug and call it a joke.
That is what scares me on this glorious American holiday celebrating freedom. Not only the men marching through DC, although they should scare everyone, but the everyday permission people give themselves to talk about marginalized people as if their lives are negotiable.
I have watched this happen with sex workers for years.
When a sex worker is raped, people ask if she can even be raped.
When a sex worker is murdered, social media talks about her record before they ask about the man who killed her.
When a sex worker reports violence or a possible murder, cops look for a reason not to believe her.
So when someone publicly says “hookers” should be sentenced to death, too many people treat it like ugly background noise instead of what it is: a violent belief stated plainly.
That comment did not come outta nowhere, it came from a social culture that has spent decades teaching people that sex workers are disposable.
Disposable to police - to prosecutors - to politicians.
Disposable to the public.
Language matters, not because I am sensitive or because I cannot take a joke, but because violence starts with the story people tell themselves about which bodies count.
Before a society abandons people, it has to rename them.
This is what fascism does.
It sorts human beings into categories of worthy and unworthy. It promises safety to one group by threatening another. It turns cruelty into order. It turns domination into patriotism. It tells people their fear is righteous and their hatred is moral.
And that is also what whorephobia does.
This is why these two images belong in the same conversation.
One is a national warning sign, the other is a local warning.
Do not look away from either one. Hate doesn’t stay contained in the comment section. It doesn’t stay at the march. It finds laws, policies, police indifference, prosecutorial discretion, public silence, and social permission.
I am not going to pretend the man saying “sentence all them hookers to death” is just some random idiot online.
I am not going to pretend masked men waving Confederate flags on the Fourth of July is just some fringe embarrassment to an already Idiocracy-looking presidency.
The Fourth of July is supposed to be about freedom, and yes, freedom has always been complicated in this country, and for sex workers, freedom is still conditional.
In 2026, neo-fascists can march through Washington, DC with Confederate flags, and a man online can say “hookers” should be sentenced to death.
Both are warnings, and both are asking the same question:
Whose humanity is still up for debate?
Mine is, is yours, yet?
Thanks for reading The Alaska Record by Amber Batts ! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.