“[If] it is true that whites want struggles without pain — and we say that it is - then it's because they don't want new life, don't really want a new order. It means they ain't really dissatisfied with the present arrangement of power and property relations." - Ward Churchill, “Pacifism as Pathology”
Not everyone is a victim under our present materialistic hell. That is to say, not only are there people who are to blame, but there are people who refuse to give up power.
The question of why people see suffering, pain, oppression, and destruction yet double down on defending the present order of things has been at the back of my mind for a while now.
One one hand, I recognize how the cognitive and psychological effects of capitalism affect everyone. On the other hand, one rich white person’s psychological decay and, quite frankly, soul crushing experiences do not make them equal with the experiences of super-exploited groups who are routinely used as fodder to prop up the gluttonous lifestyles of the rich and their ideological allies.
Every insurrection in Amerikka has been carried by the lowest and most exploited sectors of society. And every time an insurrection takes places, it is the euro-amerikan elite and middle class alike who rally, through a variety of means, to the defense of not only the state, but its peons of violence and masters of exploitation. It’s these people who justify the very systems that torture their children, shoot Black children, and throw Black and brown children into cages.
With that in mind, I think it’s necessary to point out exactly why many euro-amerikans act the way they do when faced with insurrectionary and rebellious behavior by those most marginalized, mistreated, and oppressed in society.
A handful of factors can be true simultaneously:
- The upper and middle class euro-amerikan contingent is largely complicit in the oppression and exploitation of Blacks, Indigenous nations, the Global South, and other people of color within and without Amerika.
- The upper and middle class euro-amerikan contingent largely exists in a state of purposeful and reinforced ignorance. This is used to not only shield their consciences, but to hide the reality of the oppressed from their eyes. For those who might become race and class traitors, this ignorance keeps them at bay. For those who act maliciously and don’t care, it lets them live without confronting the cognitive dissonance that they live in. I’d argue that a characteristic of being an euro-amerikan settler is to live in a state of ignorance (this is what suburbia is, and what gated communities build on: racial and class isolationism.) Otherwise, why keep attempting to accumulate more and more settler privileges and objects if it’s factually impossible for most of them to climb up the ladder? Hierarchies don’t let more people in (most people exist in lethargic states of delusion thinking they can move forward). Unfortunately, sometimes when euro-amerikan settlers realize this, they turn reactionary, as we saw the past twelve years (yes, I’m including the right’s reaction to Obama’s presidency as a main build up to the reactionarism of the Trump years).
- The upper and middle class euro-amerikan contingent is largely content in their settler state. They know they benefit from the interconnected ecosystem of exploitation that props up their silly, pathetic, and soulless lifestyles and rat races, regardless of whether they recognize the system for what it is or not. They want the benefits and privileges that come with it, and they always want more. They make sure those below them don’t get any. Through their accumulation and protection of said accumulation as only theirs, they uphold white supremacist, patriarchal values. They ignore, devalue, dehumanize, and hurt those who fall outside the status quo of what a successful upstanding Amerikan should look like.
- The upper and middle class euro-amerikan contingent largely pushes back against real and perceived threats to their benefactors (i.e. the state, the capitalist economy, white supremacy, patriarchy, etc). This alone should tell us where most people stand, and consequently how most of them should be treated. To defend a tyrannical and exploitative system through action is the highest level of complicitness. They don’t have to be a Proud Boy, III%’er, or other fascist goons to do so. I’d throw most liberals in here, too. (The amount of euro-amerikan liberals who showed up in the BLM plaza in DC to celebrate Trump’s loss, but refused to show up during the George Floyd insurrection in any meaningful way, and actively told people to go home when fascists came into town shows this. The electoral win wasn’t even theirs to claim! And either way, Trump’s loss won’t spell the end of the fascist/far-right rise in Amerika. Liberal analysis is overall naive, ineffective, and self-defeating.)
- The upper and middle class euro-amerikan contingent largely not only benefits from oppressive systems of control, but internalizes and acts on them. Euro-Amerikans are racist, anti-queer in one way or another (e.g. accepting of gay men, but dismissive or downright malicious to trans people), xenophobic, patriarchal (yes, this includes euro-amerikan women as well), classist, and so on. Most of them reinforce the system through social violence (policy, segregation, red-lining, and all manner of social oppression), while a smaller contingent will do so through direct violence (fascist gangs, hate crimes, etc). At the end of the day, the vast majority of euro-amerikans are actively racist, classist, and so on because they benefit from those interlocking systems of oppression.
This becomes the crux of why change will not come from the end of a ballot box. Policy, elections, and politicians don’t change social structures. They reinforce them. And are often aligned with destructive interests to further them.
Often any substantive course of action is dismissed by many well-intentioned liberals and radicals because they refuse to acknowledge the conscious maliciousness of not only the ruling elite and their peon enforcer force, but the settlers too. They empathize with the “plight” of these people despite the rampant evidence that these people don’t care about anyone but themselves. These well-intentioned folks think no one is above saving, and that any mind can be changed. That may be true or false, but it’s honestly irrelevant right now. The time alone needed to accomplish this would be astronomical. People are being exploited, killed, beaten, and oppressed now. Why worry about changing the hearts of the internment camp guards when you could just liberate the prisoners now? Sure, maybe the guards could go on to do some wholesome things for society, but right now they’re propping up an unjust system and they're not stopping...soooo they’re gonna have to be pushed aside.
It shouldn’t be surprising that even Karl Marx and Frederick Engels acknowledged that a whole contingent of white southern racists would have to die off for real progress to take place in Amerika.
People aren’t enslaved by things, but by other people. It’s about time we start realizing who the internment camp guards and administrators are, and do something about it.
This might be hard for some of you to accept. But let’s put it this way, I don’t have any sympathy for the parents who abuse their children. My emotional and physical resources go to the child. The feelings and “safety” of abusers is not my concern. I laugh at their crocodile tears. I mock them when they feel “offended” or “hurt.” Who the fuck cares about their state when they’ve hurt someone so horribly and refuse to change or admit they did something wrong? You get what you deserve. God ain’t saving you from a hell of your own making.
That that can paint me as “problematic” in the eyes of many people who’d claim to be good people (whatever that means) only goes to show how solidified people are in the lies of a fucked up society built on pain and suffering.
That some people can see pain and suffering - often right in front of their eyes - and not only do nothing, but actively excuse it, is such a disturbing, depressing fact that I don’t know how these people sleep at night. I guess it's what happens when a society values objects over people, turns people into objects for their continued meaningless existence, and then get mad when the people they’ve stepped on get some nice things. Just a bunch of soulless automatons. Fuckin’ sold their souls for some shiny shit. Jesus fucking Christ, man! We don’t need pandemics when we have people like that. Who needs hell when you have a society like this? Jesus fuck. Fuck....
"I don't favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect for our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach [our] objectives peacefully. But I am also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are [the oppressed]. I've never heard anyone go to the Ku Klux Klan and teach them nonviolence, or the [John] Birch Society, or other right-wing elements. Nonviolence is only preached to black Americans and I don't go along with anyone who wants to teach our people nonviolence until someone at the same time is teaching our enemy to be nonviolent. I believe we should protect ourselves by any means necessary when we are attacked by racists." - Malcolm X
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