Fuck Trump, But Fuck You Too: No Unity With Liberals
A cop begins swinging his baton at the protesters in front of me. A riot line begins to form and push against the crowd as they chanted “this is a peaceful movement”. I began chanting “fuck the police” cause that’s what you do when cops start being…well cops. “Shhhh”, a man I did not know said to me while he put his hand in front my lips almost close enough to touch them. I told him to get his hand out of my face, and was met with several other men pushing their bodies up against me, forming hearts with their hands while yelling at me “this is a peaceful movement”. As that is happening, a white woman hits me in the head, knocking my hat off onto the ground. Where were my safety pin allies when I needed you then?
The cop who was swinging his baton watched as the crowd turned their anger on me instead, he smiled. Probably laughing on the inside while the people he so badly wanted to hit made sure no one said, “fuck the police”. Funny enough, earlier the predominantly white crowd was very eager to chant “black lives, they matter here”, just like they saw before on their computer screens when black people took to the streets to protest the violence wielded by the police.
What was made clear that night was that blue lives mattered more than this black one.
This is the anti-Trump movement, at least in Los Angeles. A bunch of white liberals with a fringe radical element who they continuously silenced, policed, threatened, and attacked for pushing past the “not my president” narrative.
While it is great that people are taking the streets, and that protests have remained consistent since the election, it will be all in vain unless systemic issues are brought up and addressed within the movement.
As it stands, for radicals, specifically non-white anti-authoritarians, these actions hold the same element of danger as attending a Trump rally. For a white liberal may not shoot you, they’ll just snitch on you to the cops who will. They’ll also wear a safety pin to show how much of an “ally” they are, while shaking the hands of police officers at an action, cause “LAPD are good cops”, “better” than those other ones.
So while some may try to argue that there is room for everyone in this movement, that we have more to gain from the masses than to be alone in our ideology. It often feels like people don’t understand the gravity of what is happening in this country and around the world. The danger and high stakes we face for being a part of those marginalized groups liberals pretend to represent. They can’t understand what the reality is for undocumented people who are fearful of losing their DACA status and be deported, for those with different abilities who depend on Obamacare and Medicaid, for trans women who fear their name will be added to this year’s deadliest record of violent killings, for queer people attacked and then later placed in an ICE detention center for being a queer immigrant in Orange County, for Muslim women who are afraid to wear their hijab because people are setting them on fire, and for black freshmen in college being put on a lynch lists, because now white people have gotten “their country back”. Let’s understand that all of this racism, hate, and violence was already true and occurring in our lives before Trump. That these same oppressed groups have been ignored by those same white liberals that are now consumed and overwhelmed with a need to take action. After they have spent years ignoring us when we have screamed and stated openly that America is a racist, white supremacist, fascist country, created through the genocide and physical erasure of indigenous people, and built on the backs of Africans that were kidnapped and brought over here and forced into slavery.
Let’s understand all of this, all that has happened and continues to happen, and respect the resistance that has existed and will continue to exist even after Liberals leave because they become satisfied and content with Trump because gay marriage is protected and the Trans-Pacific Partnership was killed.
So while it might appear that the masses have awoken, what use are those masses when they are mostly white liberals filled with denial of their own complacency and contribution towards maintaining the hierarchy of violence?
The fight is against the state and all those who are in place to protect it, liberalism in effect has become the state’s first line of defense. Their role is to funnel dissent into the electoral process for the Democratic party, to keep us dependent on them through funding, and to enforce that our tactics remain weak and passive.
Movements do not move forward on their own. They take a lot of labor, both emotional and physical. We stand on a foundation of resistance built by the blood and hands of our ancestors, as well as those in recent years. People have fought hard against co-optation and peace policing to get to the place we are now, where taking the streets is a given and not a question, to the point where cops now preemptively block every freeway entrance out of fear we will out maneuver them again. With each wave, the same debates resurface, “no police are not your friends”, “yes it’s okay to take the streets”, “no property destruction isn’t violence” this results in keeping us stagnant.
What is the point of pushing the line if we are only to end up back at the start due to the dominance of liberals in our movement?
We might all hate Trump, we might all fear what his presidency will bring, but we don’t all have the same consequences of a Trump presidency, or any other president for that matter.
There is a lot of talk about unity right now, there is this desire by those who seek liberation and revolution to align themselves with liberals. This must end, we must stop chasing the masses, we must realize that we have to be the people we have been waiting for.
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This. So much this. I’ve been saying it since everyone was convinced Sanders would win. This was an excellent read.
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The liberals are trying everything they can to never face what they did and what they really are..these are fake chicken shat liberals that are only upset that their cult does not have their boots on everyone’s necks…THIS IS NO different than the majority of neocons that only care about wielding power….
The “democrats” and these so called liberals and progressives protesting are nothing more than disgruntled LIARS that got caught being corrupt and now want to blame anything but themselves for destroying the confidence in their platform of their elites philosophy.
The Hillary democrats are Neoliberals that care only about the bottom line of corporate interest and all their manipulations and election rigging still could not wipe of the stain of corruption.
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It’s been a long slow process for me, as a poor, queer, fat, old woman to recognize the privilege I enjoy because I am white. But every day for the past 5 years it has been getting clearer to me. I’m grateful that Trump got elected because I have heard SO MANY stories of racism that I somehow wasn’t able to hear before. I’ve realized that the hate crimes have been ongoing for ages–Trump’s victory was just another shoddy excuse for business as usual. I’ve heard SO MANY messages calling me and my kind out for the blind hypocrites we have been. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do other than speak the truths, attend the protests, use my privilege to deliver the messages. But that’s what I’m doing now. Thank you for this article. Blessed be.
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I am not a liberal and have been on the front lines facing tear gas and rubber bullets a lot lately, most recently in North Dakota. I agree with much of what you have to say but would like to warn against falling into the venting anger mode rather than staying focused on the goal at hand, which I would think is system change. I, too, believe the police should be challenged, but not with fuck yous but rather with face-to-face dialogues on those protest lines and holding a mirror up to what they’ve become. They should be reminded that they are one of us and that they have brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, too, and that we are all in this together. They are protecting the very forces destroying our families. Join us, should be the cry, and not fuck you. We are fighting for you. We did this in North Dakota and several of the police did quit. The idea should be to separate them from the corporations they protect and get them to join humanity. I do not see how just venting anger accomplishes that, nor do the Native American elders who have some experience with oppression and fighting for the very right to exist.
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I loved your article, and the perspective it provides. You’re right. I will never know what it’s like to be muslim, trans, or any kind of demographic that is not what I presently am. I can empathize as much as possible as I would with any other human being, but I know that doing just that won’t bring any change in any way other than on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis.
I wouldn’t identify as liberal or conservative, but I do identify as a white male, because that’s who I am. My ancestors fled Germany after WWI to seek farming opportunities in Wisconsin and to escape the various political movements taking place thereafter. My main question as of late is regarding what is wanted from me, and what is expected of me at this time in our history.
How can I help if my presence in the street is unwanted? What am I supposed to say if in one aspect, I’m being called out for not being outspoken enough; but if I begin to speak, people demand my silence- as my voice has been heard for long enough throughout history? How can I help lead a movement if it’s simultaneously demanded that I take a backseat?
I personally want to work toward the goal of solidarity between all people if we are to move forward on this planet and succeed as humans. What I don’t completely understand is when one would want unity, but their ideology seems to encapsulate the want for struggle toward unity (and the external recognition of it) rather than the end goal of unity- which creates a paradox of separating people by way of ideology rather than working to understand each other as individuals, forming a collective ideology we can agree on.
We can whip out labels and descriptions for individuals, labeling them what we might think them to be based on their superficial being. But I think in many ways that doesn’t give enough credit or freedom to the individual to allow them to act as the reality of what they truly are – it takes away their right to act out of their own volition if we are to generalize in any direction. If the construct that truly motivates a human to act is their right to freedom and to act of their own volition; taking that away by using sweeping generalizations and labels in any direction would be detrimental to leading or assisting a movement of any kind. One might argue that taking away freedom of volition might spark individuals into action, which can be true as well.
But, how do we join a movement we believe in that socially and systematically excludes us once we begin?
So, how do we move forward? I would love to hear back from you on my thoughts, along with any suggestions you may have.
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Reblogged this on nonnie7696's Blog and commented:
#FakeLeft #Neoliberalism #PoliceStateUSA
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If you think “America is a racist, white supremacist, fascist country, created through the genocide and physical erasure of indigenous people, and built on the backs of Africans that were kidnapped and brought over here and forced into slavery”, that sounds pretty terrible. So why don’t you leave?
No, but actually. I’m neither a troll nor a Trump supporter. I am asking seriously. I know that a lot of people can’t stand the US and how it treats them. So why stay? You do realize that by choosing to live there, you vote with your feet? You do realize that by choosing to pay them your tax money, you are perpetuating the system? Most people don’t have an answer to this question, or they answer with some lame response like “because I want to change things”. IT WON’T CHANGE. Staying in a place you don’t feel respected because you think it will change is no better than staying with an abusive spouse. You cannot change it. You will not change those Republicans’ minds. You will not make the country into some kind of inclusive, cosmopolitan place, because it never was. You will not make them think like you, EVER.
And don’t give me some weak answer like “I can’t afford it” or “I just can’t”. Barring exceptional circumstances, you probably can find a way. Do lots of research and figure it out. I did. I might not have been able to afford rent or food the whole time, but I did it anyway. There’s a big wide world out there and you have lots of options.
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I just finished watching “Hypernormalisation” on the BBC. I’m doing what I can to educate myself. I’m straight, white, in my 40s, female. I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, and it rocked me to the core. But I can’t live it, no matter what I do — without looking like I’m the bad dancer at a Soul Train party. But the issue I take with your article is that you’re not telling all the liberals what should be doing. Should we just step aside and do nothing? What are you doing that the liberals aren’t? And if you don’t align with the liberals…who do you align with and what are the emotional and physical acts you are planning? Lead the liberals, then. If we’re weak and ineffective, please show us the way. Teach us how to defeat the Blackshirts.
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Those aren’t “liberals”, those are grasstops, command and control Democrats and their yuppie coterie who are well funded and well fortified. Stay away from democrats.
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