Thread by @shengokai

Sun Tzu said, "In difficult ground, press on; On hemmed-in ground, use subterfuge; In death ground, fight."

Right, so: some of us have been living on death ground while our allies have insisted it is merely difficult or encircled ground and thus underestimated the threat. (1/n)

This difference between the kinds of ground we think we're standing on is crucial as, if you don't realize you're on death ground, if you merely think you're on encircled ground, the tactics you'll use to fight will be insufficient to ensure your victory. (2/n)

Which gets me to another Sun Tzu quote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." Part of knowing your enemy is knowing the kind of fight you're in. Some of us have long since known the kind of fight that we're in. (3/n)

We have an entire history of folks reminding us: Davis, Lorde, Wells-Barnett, Douglass, Johnson, X, King, Hampton, Du Bois, Baldwin, Moraga. An entire lineage and intellectual tradition dedicated to, among other things, reminding us who our enemy is. (4/n)

This intellectual tradition has also reminded us that we've not had the luxury to fight on "encircled ground," that death ground is the only ground that we've known. The fugitive slave act reminded us of this. Jim Crow reminded us of this. This country reminds us of this. (5/n)

But there's more to that quote: "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."

This, I think, characterizes our "allies." (6/n)

This is not to say that allies haven't been helpful: they have. However. many are not what Frerie would call true converts: they cling to their privileged position like a life raft and fail to place their trust in the people. They deign to tell us how we should fight. (7/n)

They retreat from us when the struggle becomes too distasteful or demands disrupting the very system that has given them comfort. In this they do not know themselves as oppressors, nor do they know the nature of the enemy they face, and thus our victories are incremental. (8/n)

Which gets me back to the above: because many of our allies cling to their privilege, or; they fail to trust those they claim to be in solidarity with, they mistake the death ground for encircled or difficult ground. Thus, they adopt tactics appropriate to that ground. (9/n)

Thus, for every victory we gain, we also suffer a defeat. Or, as the past four years have demonstrated, we are defeated in every battle. All because our allies, those with privilege and the power to make change, fail to recognize that they too stand on death ground. (10/n)

Because it is not their bodies in the street, their homes filled with bullets, they doubt the severity of the situation. Only now, when it has been made plain that our enemies care nothing for the republic or the rule of law or the bodies they step over, they fight. (11/n)

But they choose to do so with the same tactics that served them on encircled ground and difficult ground. They are slow to adjust to a reality that the rest of us have been living in because they fail to trust the us when we tell them what is necessary to survive. (12/n)

And because they fail to trust us, there will be more bodies in the street, more lives lost. But not their lives, at least not yet, and when the need to fight without reservation finally dawns for them, it will be far too late. (fin)