However, perhaps in bardic form I should begin by telling a story....
It was late Sunday night when Chris went to bed. He had had a long evening getting a wee one to sleep and would have an early morning trying to fashion a fully reticulated adventure out of celery, farm animals, and merry go rounds.
He looked to find the macro he had saved earlier in the day–the one about all the terrible reactions to puns, and he posted it before floomphing into bed to get a well needed seven hours.
But there were two macros. (You have to say that in a sinister Cate Blanchett voice over for maximum effect.)
Two macros that looked just a bit alike if viewed as tiny miniaturized versions of themselves through the bleary haze of tired eyes. But while one macro was all the possible reactions a person could have to a truly terrible pun, the other was about how not to be attacked by Nazis.
Note: Nazi attack list is not comprehensive. |
Let me say that again: I apologized for a post unrelated to writing that I didn't stick around to mod the comments of. I didn't apologize for blemishing their unsullied experience with the profane touch of political thought.
Nonetheless a big chunk of the comments came in: "Oh you are FORGIVEN for putting a political meme on this otherwise marvelous page about writing. Thank you for apologizing and now I can get back to my puns in this hallowed, non-political ground."
And this was my face:
Image description: Writer looking quite annoyed. |
As well there should be. Despite a profusion of white male authors who hail to Richard Baush's advice to "eschew politics," most writers are not afraid to confront social issues. They just do it in a resonant way instead of didactically.
And so, as of that moment, I knew this post simply had to be written.
Had to.
So here we are.
The problem with writers being apolitical, first and foremost, is that they can't be. Not completely.
Yeah you heard me.
You don't have to be a political speechwriter to put forward a political vision of the world. It comes through your writing no matter what you do. Even if you are trying to write in a completely and deliberately apolitical way, what comes through is a complacency and comfort with the status quo. "Nothing is wrong, so let's not talk about it!" is absolutely a social and political stance. Not every story is about politics, not every story is about social issues. Some stories are about growing potatoes on Mars. But even a story about growing potatoes on Mars makes certain assumptions about things like the state of space exploration funding, how respected the scientific community is and where the technology levels will be by then, what countries will be involved in helping with the mission (and why), and a sense that certain social issues will be non-issues enough that they literally NEVER come up.
Any of that sound like it might involve social or political issues?
Look around you at the world. What do you see? Inequality? Injustice? Inhumanity? Poor people? Rich people? Exploitation? What does the political landscape look like? Who is getting screwed? Whose story is being shouted down by others? And whose lives are pretty good that they would want to avoid those topics? What are the truths we cling to, and how do they depend greatly on our own point of view? How are are stories shaping and framing the way we look at things?
It's About the Narrative (oh god, not again)
Of course I'm talking about The Narrative™, and so fucking help me, if you walk away from this blog having absorbed only one thing ever, let it be that controlling the narrative is basically ultimate social power and writers have influence in that regard. (Maybe not as much as media moguls or Hollywood, but we got it.) You don't even have to lie in order to frame a narrative. You just have to decide where to start, where to stop, and which parts to leave out. By not letting certain people speak for themselves, suddenly you have a story that is factually accurate, but not truth.
And writers who refuse to examine their power when it comes to The Narrative™ end up wielding it as Status Quo Defenders. Writers are A) in no way, shape, or form particularly immune to cognitive dissonance (some artists work particularly hard to hear everyone's side of a story, but "writer" just means someone who writes*) and B) writers know the power of words. We shape words and bend them to our wills and in the end we know all too well the dance between semantics and usage and rhetoric and truth. When we apply intellectual rigor only when it suits us, empathy only when it suits us, and start and stop the story only where we want to, it is easy to turn the world into angels and demons.
*Writers run the gamut between high art fiction writers and straight out propagandists writing for [Totally Slanted Press], with legions of Squiddies in between.
- Narrative is the reason that atheists and the religious look at a fact like human psychological need to find meaning in random events and one group says "Proof we made God!" and the other says "Proof God made us!"
- Narrative is the reason people (regardless of ideology or political orientation) will argue ad nauseum against provable, demonstrable facts.
- Narrative is the reason millions upon millions of dollars of post-game riot damage are shrugged off and no sweeping generalizations are made about the moral composition of the (largely white) rioters. (If anything they are usually excused as excessive "revelers" by media and authorities). Yet damage–often far, FAR less damage–done in the name of civil unrest, particularly protesting racial injustice, almost always ends up with whole groups (and often entire races) being labeled as "thugs" or as inherently violent.
- Narrative is the reason that a billion Muslims are held accountable for the actions of the tiniest of percentage of a fraction of their adherents and cast as being "particularly" susceptible to violence without regard to geopolitical circumstances, but the much larger percentage of white Christian males in the U.S. who become violent in the name of white supremacy never cause their broader groups to be viewed with suspicion. Even the actions of other white supremacists are ubiquitously treated mostly with "as long as they mind their manners, let's hear them out," nuance.
- Narrative is the reason that conservatives believe hard work will be rewarded even though the hardest workers are often trapped in a cycle of poverty that makes them the most poor.
- Narrative is (or will be) the reason that the GOP tries to claim the ACA is a failure after it chokes off advertising, funding, and every discretionary budget it can.
- Narrative is the reason mental illness is instantly blamed when someone goes on a mass shooting spree even though many violent criminals are found to be perfectly sane, many folks with mental illness not only aren't predictably violent, but are more likely to be victims of violence themselves, and the far more common X factor is being a cis het white dude marinating in a culture of entitled misogyny and racism.
- Narrative is the reason that NFL players protesting the extrajudicial murder of Blacks by kneeling is suddenly about respecting or disrespecting the flag.
- Narrative is the reason Donald Trump can strip the nuance and empathy when referring to peaceful NFL protesters en mass, all as "sons of bitches," but when it comes to the white supremacists chanting "blood and soil" (whose ranks produced a murderer in James Fields who was willing to plow into protesters with his car), Trump makes sure that we know some "very fine people" are among their ranks.
- Narrative is the reason so many people say feminism accomplished "all of its goals" at some random (ever shifting) time in the past like "about ten years ago" or "about twenty years ago" but can never actually tell you what exactly it was that changed to mark such a momentous victory as the end of the struggle for gender equality.
- "Narrative" is the reason the peaceful, quiet, non-disruptive protests on a knee are considered disrespectful towards the US flag but Kid Rock singing in a flag poncho is still considered a good bet for high political office.
"Just cut a slit right down the middle and poked my head through. Senate seat, here I come." |
- Narrative is the reason people can claim liberals are so easily offended because their political bubbles.....just before they rage-flounce from a page where about 1% of the posts have to do with writing's intersection with social issues in a way they dislike being reminded of.
- Narrative is the reason that people have in their minds some kind of "perfect" protest, that if Black people would only protest their injustices in that exactly way, they would totally listen, but even though they swear by all the gods that they care greatly about the issue of racial equality and police brutality, somehow no protest will ever be quiet enough, respectful enough, non-disruptive enough to satisfy them until it is literally so imperceptible as to not cause a single wayward discomforting thought in the course of a typical day....and then it gets ignored.
- Narrative is the reason that no matter how unarmed the Black suspect is, no matter how cooperative they are, no matter how brutal their killing, no matter how much evidence there is–even film, people race to talk about what they did wrong to deserve it.
- Narrative is the reason that after Clinton dealt with Russian psyops, James Comey's letter, a media that wouldn't let go of a story about private email servers (but has largely been silent about the new administration doing exactly the same thing), a whole fucking shit ton of revolting-level misogyny, and winning the popular vote by four million votes, conservatives then sat down and demanded the left build a bridge to THEM that exculpate them categorically for putting a naked, open bigot in the White House.
- Narrative is the reason we talk about issues like unemployment, wealth disparity, and loss of manufacturing jobs almost exclusively in terms of white men.
- Narrative (or perhaps attempting to control the narrative) is the reason that currently two nuclear powers are consumed with convincing everyone around them that the other is unhinged while the world watches in horror.
- Narrative is the reason the general status quo of peace and stability is so attractive to folks (mostly white, mostly men, mostly het, mostly cis, mostly monied) who aren't particularly harmed by the current situation nor threatened by the future and who, without actually accessing the thoughts of those they assume are harmless, don't think anything worth being outraged about is really happening or will happen and instead demand that folks who speak out about their pain or fear stop bringing up politics.
- And, of course, narrative is the reason that there is a current sense that antifa is "just as bad" as the genocide espousing Nazis they show up to confront.
Narrative has fueled every war, every genocide, every human marvel of achievement. Narrative is the reason for every pinnacle and depth of humanity. We are a species of stories, and those stories, both who we are and what we are doing here, are never ever EVER not political. Stories are as much of the fabric of what it means to be human as language itself is.
And that's a power a writer cultivates.
Antifa Narratives
It's kind of funny.....
I'm anti-capitalist. Anti patriarchy. Very feminist. Anti heteronormativity. Anti-gender roles. Anti-jingoism. Anti-war. Anti-imperialism. Anti-colonialism and neocolonialism. Anti-oligarchy. Anti-classism. Anti-elitism. Anti-essentialism. Anti-dogma. And (usually) anti-authority.
About anything you tell me is the fabric of modern life, I've weighed, measured, and usually found lacking in some way. I don't have a normal job. I don't have a normal monogamous relationship. I don't have a normal life. I care about my hectare, shower with a bucket to water the plants afterwards and walk miles to avoid driving if I can. I question everything from the foundational assumptions of modern civilization to the veracity of memes I see in my feed each day. I speak out against forms of oppression as forest-for-the-trees as the prison industrial complex and as subtle as ableist language in insults and keep right on going even when friends very vocally Klingon back turn me.
Yet, apparently, the MOST subversive thing I do? The thing that horrifies more people than any other? The thing that truly shocks people when I express it? The thing that on occasion even loses me friends who agree with me?
I listen to everyone with empathy. I try to hear all the stories because they all matter.
The trick with empathy and nuance though is that it has to go in every direction to work. What most people call "nuance" is actually just demanding contrition to the boilerplate arguments of one's own side because obviously if they don't agree with you, they must not have been listening the first five hundred times.
Here I'll tell you the first one:
I'm Chris. I'm a writer. I like museums and local theater and boy do I love books and well-written online articles. I'm non-monogamous. I listen to NPR in the car. I've been to lots of protests (especially lately) but I haven't been violent at one ever and haven't been arrested at one since my twenties. The last time I was intentionally violent with anyone was two years ago, and they were trying to steal my phone and wallet; I came home and cried that I'd beaten up a mugger. I worry a lot about the strategies and tactics that will be most effective in dismantling white supremacy and particularly its recent naked aggression, but I also hear the cries of folks who are pushed to the margins of our society that allowing right wing extremism to continue radicalizing and organizing young cis white men has them terrified not only of the eventual institutional harms that WILL befall them if this movement is emboldened, but also (right this second) of being targets of street violence. I hear them when they say that they are relieved that some come to these protests to defend peaceful protesters against the armed provocateurs who have demonstrated no restraint when it comes to their disrespect for opposition. I went to my last protest knowing that Nazis would be there were willing to commit murder with their cars to kill those who opposed them. I was scared, but I came anyway. I didn't need to put on the bandana a friend lent me because there was no tear gas. I wore my Baymax-hugging-a-cat t-shirt and kept a first aid kit in my backpack. I pet sit to make money for the occasional book, video game, or album. I cried for days after my cat died. I love almost everyone to bits even though the behavior of some makes me angry or worried that they might cause others to feel unsafe. I really like pizza and Mexican food. I would probably love to hug you if you wanted one. It's my birthday tomorrow.
And I am antifa.
Narrative #1- They aren't really nazis. That's a watchword that liberals call anything they don't like and anyone they don't really agree with.
I guess we sort of deserve this one. I mean it's not like we were the only ones using overblown language. ("That 3% tax increase is SOCIALISM!) And "nazi" got thrown around by everyone on the political spectrum to describe the closest thing our society equates with "evil." We probably got cocky after WWII.
But you remember that the third time, the boy cried wolf, there really was one, and it didn't go so well for the town that blew him off.
It's fair enough to point out that people can be hyperbolic–especially online. Godwin's law is a thing. But this ideological sidestep stopped making a whole lot of sense as a talking-point counter when, you know, fucking Germans and the Anti Defamation League started telling us we had a very real problem–along, of course with history teachers, political scientists, anyone who lived under a fascist regime.
But sure let's just assume the whole fucking lot of them are just being hyperbolic worrywarts and white teenagers on Reddit have the real expertise on how much trouble we're in.
However, even if you think fascism (or the current political landscape) is "bad" but recoil at the term "Nazi" then you have to talk about how they are actually LITERALLY CALLING. THEMSELVES. NAZIS.
Nazis: *carry Nazi flags*
Nazis: *do Nazi salutes*
Nazis: *shout Nazi slogans*
Nazis: *use Nazi propaganda*
Nazis: *call for a continuation of Nazi policies*
Nazis: "We are Nazis."
U.S. Moderates: "Let's examine the nuance of throwing that label around."
These guys don't even have the excuse that they didn't know what was going to happen or what was happening. They can't claim they had no choice if they didn't want to go to jail or they were just following orders. They have kicked off the party calling for The Final Solution and white supremacy. When they are in town, they sign their credit card bills at restaurants with "Hitler was right." They looked at the Holocaust and decided that the only problem was no one finished it.
These doctrines aren't just "ideas liberals don't like." These people aren't just "anyone liberals disagree with." We're not talking about a 3% difference on the tax code or a regulation on pollution that could cost companies millions off their profit margins. These are actual, literal nazis. They didn't even bother to change the goddamned name, and I promise up one side and down the other that it's not because they like the National Socialist German Workers' Party's politics regarding domestic labor disputes.
But okay......let's give the devil it's due. Antifa and the left are using "Nazis" as a bit of metonymy. "Nazi" rolls off the tongue a bit easier than "a coalition of capitalist corprofascists, the KKK and other white supremacists of various stripes, white nationalists, edgelord racists who think terrorizing whole demographics is the free speech hill they want to die on, and actual literal neo-nazis." And we've no particular interest in giving them their claim to the sobriquet "Alternative Right" as that makes them sound like they are advancing some sort of refreshing, heretofore untried brand of thoughtful non-mainstream conservatism instead of literally the reactionary racist bullshit that modernity has kicked to the curb time and again.
But I mean, look at that fucking list. It's not like these are a bunch of savory folks and by using "Nazis" as a shortcut for all their white supremacist fuckery, we're really maligning some principled dudes who don't deserve that sort of thing.
Moderates: "We reject nazis. We fought a war over this you know."
White dude: "We aren't actually nazis. Let's be careful with words, okay. I think you're just using that as a slur. I believe you'll find our arguments for a white ethnostate, mass deportations, and violence against anyone with the temerity to resist are entirely different. And if you come to the rallys where we are armed and ignore those guys with swastika flags and confederate flags, we can talk reasonably about the things we have in common. Would a Nazi do that?
Moderates: "Well we should probably hear you out if you are feeling indignant about labels."
You understand what we're talking about when we talk about white nationalism and ethostates, right?
Unless the white nationalists you know are scoping out a deserted island or building a ship with which to colonize Mars, they, nor their literal-Nazi allies can enact their fourteen word manifesto without causing DIRECT, VIOLENT harm. And I mean GENOCIDE caliber harm. You cannot create an ethno-state without deportations, forced relocations, and genocide unless YOU are the one leaving.
Today's neo-nazi movement isn't some kind of nazi-lite thing. ("A friendlier, kinder version of white nationalists than your grandparents fought.") If put into power these particular nazis will not merely go on peacefully writing op-eds for Breitbart encouraging racial self-segregation because they really learned their lesson about using state power in unethical ways.
Everyone thinks they would have done something about it before people started disappearing in the night, but those same people are acting exactly the same way the folks who did NOTHING acted. That might be a narrative that needs some consideration.
Narrative #2- But some of them don't claim any of those titles
Yeah and Mel Gibson swears he isn't racist either.
Also Hulk Hogan, Justin Bieber, Donald Sterling, Paula Dean, Michael Richards, John Mayer, Paris Hilton, Duane Lee Chapman, Jessie James, and Kreayshawn, not to mention others.
Very few people are going to say, "Look, I'm the worst kind of racist you can imagine," because everyone always has a way that they actually feel like they're the ones being persecuted and their behavior is not only reasonable but moral. Trust me. I don't stop at the water's edge of listening to the stories of those I disagree with. I hear them out. (But let's not confusing hearing someone out with never taking a position on what they've said.) I've heard what they have to say. (You should too. Get a real sense of what they're actually saying instead of assuming the left is just maligning them.)
White nationalists don't want to kick out or kill everyone who isn't white because they are moustache twirling villains having an evil laugh about how racist they are. They do it because they've convinced themselves their culture is under attack. They really do think a marginalized group getting together to talk about issues that pertain to them (away from the white people who make them feel unsafe) is "the real racism." Because the social progress from the sixties has undermined their unswerving hegemony. Because identity politics is "bad."
People know being racist is BAD. People just don't really understand what being racist IS.
So when you examine people like Steve Bannon who approves articles encouraging white ethno states on the media outlet entwined with his reputation. Or even examine someone like Trump who swears up and down he loves "the Mexicans" and "the Blacks," has a hard time disavowing the KKK or white supremacists, insists white supremacy marches have "very fine people," uses "those people" unironically in clearly dog whistle sentences against federal judges, basically runs the entire birther movement, calls Mexicans rapists, condones beating a Black Lives Matter protester, shares white supremacist and antisemitic tweets, cares more about undocumented workers than humanitarian crises, clearly has a political motivation that is to destroy every lasting legacy of the Black guy he hates beyond all reason, encourages mob justice against five Black boys (later exonerated), has a shit ton of past racism complaints and lawsuits on his records, and passes laws left and right that are transparently harmful to people of color, sometimes you have to work with what few, meager, fleeting clues you have even if they haven't show you an "I am Spartacus!" moment regarding overt white supremacy.
Narrative # 3- Antifa are just as bad
Antifa means anti fascist. It's basically just a political stance. It unites people otherwise not so united on a particular issue–resistance to fascism. It's like being pro-choice. (Another position that tends to "gather" on the left side of politics, but doesn't really actually tell you anything other than a person's stance on ONE issue.)
Yes, you can bring the semantics of the historical movement and communism in if you want or how antifa failed in Italy and Germany (though you would do well to understand the reasons why--it is not so simple as "because they threw punches and the German people bent to law and order"). You can insist that anyone who uses that label is a commie or something. Or you could just ask people who identify as antifa if they're communist. Most aren't.
(Personally, I think socialism sounds awesome, but in a Bernie Sanders/Star Trek kind of way, not the Stalin/Zedong/Castro type.)
Being angry at someone's genocidal BEHAVIOR is not the same thing as wanting whole demographics dead or forcibly deported based exclusively on the circumstances of their birth.
Nazis: "And should we win the war of ideas, we will use state power to deport you from your home, incarcerate you to be slave labor, relocate you and your family to ensure the success of white people, and kill you if you deign to resist.
Antifa: "Boy they sure have embraced a hateful ideology and are directly threatening the people I love; it kind of makes me want to punch them in the face."
Mainstream media: "I can see no difference between these two monsters."
If you think that antifa is this super organized hive mind gang that borg-style decides to destroy property and throw some punches at armed fascists, white supremacists, and nazis, but that the white supremacist who committed vehicular murder was just a lone wolf who wasn't in any way connected with the group that just happens to explicitly fantasize about exactly driving over demonstrators, you might want to think about what forces are driving those narratives.
Narrative #4- Antifa violence is still violence, and violence is always bad
You know.....being a pacifist is not the same as being silent in the face of systematic violence and the agents who carry it out, but squeamish about seeing a punch thrown or property damaged, and it is hard not to notice that most of the people who espouse never so much as defending oneself are seldom the targets of violent white supremacy.
Let's make sure something is clear: for the most part we're not actually having a conversation about violence itself. Conversations about violence itself involve examining this country's bloody history, calling for the disarming of police, and serious conversations about reducing our military to a defensive force.
In terms of people hurt, punches thrown, or property damage we would be just as upset about bar room brawls or biker gangs as anything that antifa has done. And we would be triaging our concern about the violence committed BY white supremacist groups far higher than that of antifa considering that people from their groups murder folks on the regular and threaten entire demographics with genocide as a matter of open, stated, like-it's-on-our-fucking-websites-non-ironically objectives.
Sports fans have literally destroyed more things and hurt more people in one night than antifa has since they got on people's radars months ago, but strangely we don't see very many mainstream think pieces calling for their classification as a gang or terrorist group.
What we are having for the most part is a conversation about who has the moral authority to engage in and/or threaten violence, both as a group or in a moment under their own acumen and assessment of a situation. And our country continues (mostly unconsciously of the double standard and what it represents) to have a tremendous discomfort with people pushed towards the margins of our society–who are not in the service of institutions that serve the social order like cops or military–making that judgement call for themselves.
However, that said, are you thinking of Black Bloc?
Text of image at page bottom. |
I sympathize. I really do. It can be really alarming to see someone in a black mask throwing punches at a dude on the ground trying to cover their face. I'm still not sure I'm really comfortable with it. But I don't control every single person who is anti-fascist.
Then again, letting a few seconds of footage in a five hour protest, committed by fewer than 1 thousandth of the population of the overall demonstration completely dominate the narrative of the entire protest is pretty reactionary. Not only that, but that narrative does not include the nuance of the moment regarding what acts of violence provoked that attack (such as the punchee using pepper spray indiscriminately and as an offensive weapon before the cameras started rolling). And the intense hostile environment of a protest/counterprotest is already like a powder keg.
I'm not saying it's moral absolution, but it muddies the water of a sanctimonious narrative that all antifa are always just as bad as Nazis.
Law enforcement does not protect either group with identical diligence. Nor does the criminal justice system. (This is for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that law enforcement agencies have been infiltrated by white supremacists as a matter of FBI record.) Protecting one's identity is important if they don't want to be harassed. You know....like Batman.
And even STILL, people are directly equating and morally conflating the group that wants to kill Jews and Muslims and people of color and trans folks with those who have come to defend them–however personally misguided they think those tactics are.
If folks thought Buzz Aldrin probably had every right to clock a conspiracy theorist for being an asshole (and most pretty much did), but someone in a person's face calling for the systematic eradication of their race is no reason to lose one's cool, perhaps that's a narrative worth examining.
Are you sure you can't see some nuance here?
Group 1: Brings assault rifles to a rally where they discuss violence against people according to the immutable characteristics of their birth in order to create an ethno state of only white people. Brings literally the most easily recognizable symbols of white supremacy available. Discusses using lethal violence. Murder counter-protesters. Bring the most lethal weapons the authorities of a given city will allow. Would move forward with their agenda of ethnic and LGBTQ+ cleansing faster if the other side went away tomorrow.
Group 2: Is sick of group one's shit and their chosen ideology, which could be changed at any time and is not fettered to the static circumstances of their birth. Brings non-lethal defensive accoutrement to counter protests. Stands in the path of clergy to protect them. Would be playing Pokemon Go and complaining about Danny Rand online if the other side went away tomorrow.
Narrative #5 Those poor peaceful Nazis
A) This is not an accurate narrative. Check your facts.
They come with the most lethal weapons they are legally allowed to carry for the venue. They throw eggs and bottles. They will street harass people, including assaulting trans folks they find alone and vandalizing Synagogues. And far from the the "punch nazis" narrative (which, I can see why that doesn't set well with everyone to be honest), they actually go on at length about how they're going to MURDER us.
And if you think that violent white supremacists are just random one off individuals by which the larger group should not be judged. Why is it that the actions of a single antifa break this rule. Why is a narrative with that caliber of double standard acceptable.
B) Regardless of the legality, what Nazis and white nationalists are espousing is genocide. That's espousing, encouraging, organizing, and recruiting to do violence. The very words themselves are violent threats against many groups–essentially promising to kill them and their families if they succeed.
Narrative #6- Things are not that bad
You know you're not going to get a Fallout-style video game prompt the day before it's too late that says: "Fascists are about to take over your government. Do you really want to keep doing nothing? (This may drastically change your gameplay experience.) Yes/No?" There's this idea that there are a lot of steps left before we reach some point of no return, but you never know what that point is until you're looking back at it through 20/20 hindsight.
You know that everyone who knows anything about the rise of fascist regimes and even folks who actually went through THE RISE OF THE ORIGINAL NAZIS is at defcon 1, right? And they are jumping up and down and screaming that we don't have twenty degrees of "this deal is getting worse by the minute" before it's too late.
How many have actually listened to these white nationalists and nazis? I mean engaged the "source material" as it were? Do they know what neo-nazis and white nationalists are saying? Do they understand how they are openly discussing their plans to get more power and utilize state authority? Or do they just see the sensationalized images of them getting punched and think, "Those poor little people who just want free speech." How mean the leftists are to them." Because if anyone actually read their think pieces and listened to their interviews, and let them define themselves instead of doing it for them, and let their narrative be challenged by real people, they might walk away with a different impression of why someone on one of their lists of "Demographics to Be Expunged" is feeling pretty prickly right about now.
Narrative #7 Most of the people they punch aren't Nazis (or KKK, or white supremacists, or white nationalists, or any of that stuff
Citation needed.
Narrative #8- Counter protest doesn't work
Yes it does.
Personally I'm just fucking tired. I'm tired of people thinking I endorse all manner of extrajudicial violence because I hate fallacies of equivocation and see some nuance in the tactics of self-defense when literally armed Nazis march into MY town. I'm tired of people watching the rise of anti-democratic and anti-pluralistic forces by white supremacists who think discussing it nothing more than typical left v. right nonsense instead of the social issue of our day. I'm tired of normalizing white supremacy and genocide because edge lords are too lazy to educate themselves on what's really being said or do anything more than proffer forth a textbook Middle-of-the-Road™ fallacy as "hella deep" analysis. I'm tired of getting told to stop talking politics on my own goddamned fucking page every time I dare to ask a writer to consider the power they have in shaping the narrative–a power that has destroyed nations, wiped out whole groups of humanity, and convinced itself it's the good guys in spite of, sometimes because of, that.
So forgive me if I don't pause to give a fuck if people wish this post were just another pun.
Because at the end of the day, I'm not telling you that you ought to be Antifa too. I just want to complicate your narrative. I've listened to both sides with empathy. Have you? I'm just reminding you that where you choose to start and stop the story matters. Who you listen to and who you don't matters. And if you start and stop the in a way that vilifies a group of people–a group of people whose stories have been conspicuously absent–the ONE group of people who have definitively stood up (and even put their bodies in harm's way) to protect all the folks who would be at the shitty end of an ethnic cleansing is itself a narrative–it matters. And if your intellectual rigor, your nuance, your empathy and, yes, even your sympathy are all going towards the group that includes among other revolting characters actual, literal Nazis, then you are sympathizing with them. And if you want to play semantic games with words, a Nazi sympathizer is exactly what that makes you.
Care to examine your narratives?
Or at least hearing out those who do? |
"So, that image you have in your mind when you hear "Antifa"? The protester wearing all black, including a hood and facemask, amidst a whole bunch of others dressed the same way? That's not Antifa."Antifa," which is a term many decades old, means one thing, and one thing only: Anti-Fascist. If you oppose fascism, you're Antifa. Full stop.
The image you're thinking of is the Black Bloc, a tactic designed to grant protesters anonymity while they take actions that might get the in trouble. It's a tactic, not an organization. Yes, some--SOME--Antifa groups utilize the Black Bloc. Many more do not. And lots of other movements use the Black Bloc, too, including a variety of anarchist groups. And here's the rub; not even people in a single specific Black Bloc crowd know the identities, let alone political ideologies, of everyone with them.
Now, it is also true that most of the reports of Black Bloc Antifa violence have proved to be either lies or misrepresentations. But even those that are genuine? Do not represent Antifa as a movement, or most people who identify as Antifa. And every single time you post that they do, EVERY SINGLE TIME you equate "Antifa" with "violence," you are spreading Nazi talking points for them."
--Ari Marmell
Chris, the last caption for an image (Cap. America) has been switch with the caption of Ari Marmell's post.
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Dude! You're awesome and if some day we're in the same geographical location we should totally drink lots of coffee and talk about lots of things until servers are giving us the stink eye to vacate a table.
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ReplyDeleteThere's an excellent poem by Michael Rosen that sums it up:
ReplyDelete"I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.
Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...
It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution." "
http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/fascism-i-sometimes-fear.html
Thank you. I could say more, but a whisper from my heart wants you to know just this. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteWell written with much to mull over. Shared.
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