Nick Fuentes, identified as a "white supremacist" in Justice Department filings, made headlines last week for hosting a white nationalist conference in Florida. His father is also half Mexican American.

The big picture: Fuentes is part of a small but increasingly visible number of far-right provocateurs with Hispanic backgrounds who spread racist, antisemitic messages.

Driving the news: Cuban American Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, a group the Anti-Defamation League calls an extremist group with a violent agenda, was arrested Tuesday and charged with conspiracy in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

What they're saying: Experts tell Axios far-right extremism within the Latino community stems from three sources: Hispanic Americans who identify as white; the spread of online misinformation; and lingering anti-Black, antisemitic views among U.S. Latinos that are rarely openly discussed.

Fuentes has questioned the Holocaust, criticized interracial marriage and defended Jim Crow-era segregation. The ADL describes him as "a white supremacist leader and podcaster who seeks to forge a white nationalist alternative to the mainstream GOP.”

"I'm pretty brown, I'm Cuban. There's nothing white supremacist about me," Tarrio told Insider in 2020. But Tarrio was suspended from Twitter in 2019 for posting anti-immigrant threats, has denigrated transgender people and has used racist language to describe a Black actor.

But, but, but: There are limits to how accepted some far-right Latino activists can become in white supremacist and neo-Nazi circles

Some extremists on 4chan and 8chan say Fuentes' Latino heritage disqualifies him from speaking on white supremacy, Pitcavage said. Meanwhile, some white supremacist elements of the Proud Boys dismiss Tarrio as a leader but so far he has withstood the criticism, said Pitcavage, who monitors the chats.

White supremacists must really be desperate for bodies as they attempt to join the mainstream if they’re relegated to cozying up with hispanics. Aren’t most hispanics blood “tainted” with African and Indian blood? Hispanic white supremacists do serve a purpose though. Members of white supremacist groups like they say they’re not racist white supremacists because they have hispanics within their ranks.

I never thought I would ever give the losers on 4chan and 8chan props. At least some of them are true white supremacists by saying Latino heritage disqualifies a mud person hispanic from speaking on white supremacy. Being a vocal leader of white supremacists.

Shalom

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