Once again, I'm cracking open this musty old blog that died under Trunp. I had this plan to dust it off, exercise my brain in a fun way, and write about how my "not ready for Christmas music" was messing up my enjoyment of Christmas music, Instead...
Look, that verdict yesterday wasn't surprising - it wasn't just the judge's million pound thumb on the scale, it was the massive weight of American white supremacist authoritarianism and resentment. But it was still enraging. Because we keep talking about the wrong thing!
I'm tired of giving any air to that weepy, baby-faced fascist. I'm tired of the American media endlessly trying to humanize him - a person whose whole entire raison d'etre is inextricably tied up in the worship of authoritarianism, in denying the humanity of others. Suffice it to say, you don't walk into public spaces wearing one of those goddamn giant guns without hoping you'll get to use it - they are the most cowardly expression of "patriotism".
Suffice it to say, I am no longer concerned with the feelings of those who value property over people.
But I know so much about that fucking strapped-up authoritarian asshole. And when I do a google on Anthony Huber, I can find out he had a daughter and he loved skateboarding, I guess. JoJo Rosenbaum had some mental health issues. Jacob Blake had a knife ... in the car, not on him. But I guess, still? Derek Chauvin is in jail, so George Floyd's murder is all taken care of, I guess?
We have to stop bending to the narrative shifts that distract us.
I don't think I'm being histrionic when I say we are teetering on the edge of fascism. This is not about squishy white guilt. This is not about getting a cookie for being woke (god, I hate that word). This is about how every white person in America knows (and likely loves) someone who embraces an increasingly violent, racist, authoritarian ethos and we stay polite about it. We all know how the Nazis happened now. We're living it.
So this is my exhortation to the Whites - every single one of us needs to be keeping our own houses tidy. We have to call fascism by its name, reject Trumperism in all its formats. Show up at school board meetings, vote in every election, donate money where we can, and, most importantly, tell the people we love that we will not stand for white supremacy in our homes, no matter how inconvenient that is.
Maybe start here. Here's one neat trick. Tell the people you love that if they won't say it in front of a Black person, then they shouldn't say it in front of you. Because, white people, we all have to admit we've let things pass in the interest of keeping the peace, of avoiding the awkward. But we all need to stop being safe white spaces; we need to do whatever we can to urge the people we love to think about their own reactionary, unexamined racism.
There's so much work to be done and it all needs to be done by white people, in white places; where we're not performing it for Black people. It's not about a baby-faced assassin with a permanent hard-on for the police. It's about all the ways we abet a slide into fascism by allowing its white supremacist roots simply to go unremarked on.
