While everyone is busy criticizing the GoFundMe campaign to benefit “ANTIFA Girl” — otherwise known as Louise Rosealma — which has, as of press time, changed intent several times and raised $6678, we happened to catch an even more suspicious campaign that disappeared almost as quickly as it popped up. If you aren’t familiar with the story of Ms. Rosealma, first of all I would like to know under which rock you live so I can move in and second, you can get caught up a bit here. The long and short of it is that she got clocked in the face by some guy at a pro-Trump rally (note, some folks say it was less pro-Trump and more a white supremacist hoedown but we aren’t here to debate those semantics).
On to the extra fishy one. This popped up in a GoFundMe sharing group on Facebook, and though it had a good two dozen comments, I unfortunately didn’t get to them in time.
Someone going by the name Mariela de los Santos put up a campaign on April 16 claiming that she too got clocked in the face at that same rally, with a video still of Antifa Girl’s face-clocking as the campaign photo. The campaign, and the Facebook account tied to it, were both removed within hours of the campaign going up, however an archived copy is saved here. She writes:
I was a victim of a nazi punching me in the face as I proudly protested the Trump supporters in the Berkeley protest on April 15 with a friend that also got punched (in the picture) (i was not in the frame)
My medical bill is more but if you could help me out just a bit I can ask my friends and relatives for the rest, thank you very much and I hope something as disgusting as this doesnt repeat itself again.
OK so wait. You were at the rally with your friend, and yet you don’t have a decent photo of your own to use? You have to resort to taking a screenshot of a YouTube video that is plastered all over the news? Red flag.
And how is it even possible you have a medical bill already? That. Isn’t. How. Hospitals. Work. Red flag. Moving on.
I have learn the lesson that if you dont want to get punched you should not get into such affairs and as much as it pains me to admit, I was wrong and my health is more important than silly ideological skirmishes.
Spoken like a true, passionate anti-fascist there. If you’re going to pretend that you got your nose broken in the course of doing God’s work fighting the forces of evil (as you believe them to be), then it’s highly unlikely a punch to the face is going to motivate you to abandon your belief system. But whatever. Maybe I’m an old school protester but the threat of physical violence never deterred me from marching circles around the Federal Reserve. Then again, Fed cops are pretty nice as long as you don’t do anything crazy like jump the fence or egg them or punch them in the face. Plus I don’t mind taking a punch to the face for a good cause. Anyhoo, the campaign description continues:
After being assessed by a doctor I was left with a medical bill that is way to expensive for me at the moment, as I am in no position to pay for it. As mentioned, I AM NOT ASKING FOR ALL YOUR MONEY anything you could give me and God will be thankful for. I will get the rest of the money (around 15k in total cost) with my savings and the help of relatives. Thank you for helping me out and I hope that whatever you give me God multiply it by a thousand.
Again, that isn’t how doctors work. They don’t “assess” you and then hand you a bill.
It’s unfortunate that I didn’t capture the many comments on the campaign accusing its organizer of being a big fat liar, but FWIW the campaign did disappear off the platform within a matter of hours after it was put up. Whether GoFundMe removed it or “Mariela” did we’ll never know. What we do know is that this campaign was suspect af from the start and if you happen to see any others like it, donate with extreme caution. As in: don’t.
