Philly Anti-Capitalist Philly Anti-authoritarian News

from Idavox

The City of Brotherly Love does not love fascists, and so many of them have found that out the hard way. Now the neo-Fascists of Red Ice will learn that lesson.

With her firing early last week, Emily Youcis became the second person associated with the neo-Fascist podcast Red Ice in Philadelphia to be fired from their day job after their racist activities were reported.

Youcis, 26, an animator and punk musician who gained local fame as a vendor at Citizens Bank Park where the Philadelphia Phillies play, selling pistachios, earning her the nickname “Pistachio Girl”, said during an interview with Red Ice that she was terminated by Aramark, the corporation that operates the food concessions at the Phillies’ ballpark after being told her social media activities supporting white nationalist ideas do not reflect her employer’s values. Youcis had been working with Red Ice for only a few months, covering the Democratic Convention last July for the podcast and on Election Day producing a video where she is seen harassing Black pollworkers in North Philadelphia. She started to garner attention in local and national media when she covered the Nov. 19 conference sponsored by the White Supremacist National Policy Institute (NPI) when things became physical between protesters, her and her cameraperson, Ian Fenwick, who suffered a headwound in the melee. Before he scrubbed much of the information leading to him, Fenwick’s social networks listed him as an IT technician at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City, NJ who also bought a home near Absecon, NJ as “investment property” with an FHA loan, which is not permitted under the conditions of such a loan.

In a statement, Aramark confirmed the dismissal after the news was spread around on social networking sites. “A core Aramark value is treating everyone with integrity and respect always,” the statement read. “That includes respecting our associates’ right to privacy and dealing with personnel matters confidentially. We can only confirm that the individual asked about is no longer employed after publicly connecting our company to views that contradict our values.”

Youcis follows Bryan Christopher Sawyer, a nude model and White Supremacist who also does work for Red Ice and videotaped himself engaging with the same Black pollworkers on Election Day that Youcis did. He lost his job at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts when he videotaped himself harassing a Black woman with racial slurs, posting the video on his Facebook page. In an interview with Philadelphia Magazine, he defended his action by simply saying, “I gotta be me, even when it hurts.”

Based in Charleston, South Carolina, Red Ice, who says on their website they were founded in 2000, is operated by Henrik Palmgren and Lana Lokteff and have been particularly active over the past two years producing radio and video podcasts and as of this year covering not just the NPI conference but the American Renaissance conference earlier this year. Volunteers from around the country cover events in their local area such as both the Republican and Democratic conventions, the rally held by the Traditionalist Worker Party last June in Sacramento, CA where their reporter suffered injuries in the scuffle that took place. Chicago Men’s Rights Activist (MRA) Matthew Forney covered both conventions for Red Ice and was videotaped either by himself or others running from antifa when they caught up with him.

In the Red Ice interview Youcis, who at one time was an animator for Glenside, PA-based entertainment company Newgrounds says she is going to focus more in that field as well as working with Red Ice after working at Citizens Bank Park for seven years. “I can devote myself full-time to the cause,” she said.

Editor’s note – One People’s Project is headquartered in Philadelphia.