Racist ‘boogaloo’ movement advocates second Civil War

Reported by NBC News on February 19th, the fringe “boogaloo” movement is now becoming mainstream. Although other hate groups have advocated for another Civil War, boogaloo appears to define a new and organized movement that is issuing calls for targeted violence among its members. Anti-government and anti-law enforcement extremists began posting hate messages on social media to rally tens of thousands of members in what are called “cyber swarms.” But some rallies have actually spilled out of cyberspace and morphed into real-world assemblies.

U.S. law enforcement officials, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Defense have all been briefed through a February report issued by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI). The NCRI is an independent nonprofit group comprised of scientists and engineers who track and report hate speech across social media platforms.

Paul Goldenberg, a Homeland Security Advisory Council member, said that the report was a “wake-up call” to shed light on people and organized groups like the boogaloo movement who were “talking about and planning sedition and violence against minorities, police, and public officials.”

The term “boogaloo” is a disparaging reference to the 1984 movie about breakdancing, titled “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” Since NCRI issued its report, NBC News reports that membership in two of Facebook’s groups has almost doubled.