i don’t think leftists who romanticize the fantasy of “radicalizing” fascists—whether they are poor or petite-bourgeois—understand they are often doing the very thing they hate about liberal representationists and how they treat/have co-opted & neoliberalized identity politics.
treating a marginalized positionality, identity—in this case “working class” standing—as inherently moral, good natured, and progressive. despite their ideological and political alignment representing that of a class traitor. is this not what liberal identity reductionists do?
i’m tweeting this because it’s something i’ve been thinking a lot, and feel i am just finding the words to articulate what i’m saying. but if i’m off base let me know.
also, i intentionally call it a “romanticized fantasy” b/c attempting to change the minds of poor white supremacists is not something the vast majority of you advocating for this, are actively doing, attempting to do, or even supporting those who may already be doing this work).
and this isn’t even to say that it shouldn’t be done, or that minds can’t be shifted, and people can’t be reformed. they can, i’ve seen it for myself.
but, what does it mean when you are more concerned w/people who want us dead & are invested in the maintenance of this white order than millions of racialized people who have divested from this system and are desperately seeking an alternative to their social/political realities?
i know someone’s going to quote-tweet with this “why not both?” and it can’t be both because even if both is possible, it is clearly not a reality, as reflected by your political organizations (re: their racial demographics and aims).
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the concept of “pretty privilege” has always been so odd to me, and i wish we’d retire it from our lexicon. as if being desired by men—and the structures dominated by ‘em—is somehow liberatory, or puts one in further proximity to power instead of male terror, violence, and death
oh my god. this is not saying that “undesirables” don’t face violence. when i have seen “privilege privilege” used, it’s usually in the context of one being hypervisible/desired—& i’m saying: how can that be a privilege, if hypervisibility makes one more susceptible to violence?
my issue is the word “privilege” here, reducing structural and material realities to mere individual experiences and pejoratives.
i’ve seen people call it “pretty privilege” for women to get free drinks at a bar. 😭 and i’ve hated the term ever since...
one of the most harmful—and most beneficial to the ruling elite—political myths, is that the pinnacle of political “success” and progress is putting more milquetoast democrats into office
there is no better depiction of democrats’ historical role as demobilizers of movements than them riding (and co-opting) the wave of m4bl to getting one of the most uninspired candidates in the contemporary era elected, than betraying said demands en masse once elected.
if anything, biden being branded by the professional misleadership class as the solution to police violence—amidst calls to defund the police via the largest, most sustained uprisings we’ve seen in decades—is what won him the election
it has never been more clear that we are on a plantation
there’s no way we should be celebrating, or taking pride in “saving” a country that we are structurally subjugated by and being held hostage in. slavery.
“black people saved the—” no, what you’re describing is slavery. the non-consensual prolongation of our subjugation and dispossession. the delaying of the inevitable. that is slavery. you’re describing an evolved slavery.
the liberal media apparatus acting like they are above trump as if they didn’t create and ushered him in on red carpet, and profited off it, and squeezed out every bit of legitimation via pretending to be in-opposition to his politics 🤣
like this shit means nothing to me when your non-stop free coverage of him in 2015-16 helped put him in the white house to begin with, lol like don’t stop now!
my goal has never been to dissuade people from voting, but to counter reactionary liberal narratives about its structural importance in the face of fascism—specifically in the terrain of nat’l politics (where the average person has v little “influence,” on the daily happenings).
the entire professional liberal apparatus—from the media, to athletes, celebrities, entertainers (many of whom who’ve been relatively apolitical their entire career), etc—has been flat-out LYING to and misleading people about the reality of our situation.
the vast majority our material actualities remain the same regardless of who occupies the slave built white house. even if the chokehold loosens itself ever-so-slightly, for those of us domestically, we are still in a goddamn chokehold unable to fully breathe.
the way these people have deluded themselves into believing having no core principles makes them the adult in the room full of children who try to envision something beyond constant political violence, is actually incredibly impressive.
ever notice how “acceptance of compromise and imperfection” is never in reference to liberal democrats’ relation and proximity to the actual “left”—but to their relationships to fascists on the right (who v rarely “compromise” on their violences btw). i wonder why that is.
it’s becoming far more evident to ordinary people that liberal democrats aren’t the adult in the room, but the stabilizers and upkeepers of fascist rule. you exist to provide an illusion of “opposition”—while actively upholding the neoliberal fascist order & inhibiting progress.