as a white person let me just say that white liberal defeatism is just that... very white, very liberal, and in the contexts i'm currently seeing it also very "american exceptionalism"
we are seeing a global fascist resurgence and as white people may we be queer, trans, disabled and marginalized we are among the LAST to feel its boots upon our pale-skinned necks
"the US has become a police state" what did you think it HAS been?
the militarization of police forces isn't a new thing at ALL
the USA has BEEN a police state, its BEEN a segregated state, its BEEN an imperialist and thoroughly fascist empire from the START
and people across the world have felt its fascism just as the marginalized within it have
i'm a white disabled trans leftist, i've got heaps of privilege
i've also got friends all over this planet and i've heard and learned and listened from the struggles of others
i've talked to Chilean leftists about their movements, i've learned a bit about the Pinochet regime, i know what "Venceremos" means
i've talked to Indigenous people from across the world, i've learned a bit about their resistance to genocide and imperialism and what "survival" means to them
i've talked to Black people, i've learned a bit about Black history and their struggle for liberation, about slavery, apartheid, about institutional racism, white supremacy and police brutality
if you're disheartened now, as a white leftist, i encourage you to look at those who have been resisting for far longer, at those whose survival is a testament to that
look to the perspectives of those who have KNOWN the states that so long held us in a dubious protection for being white but now are starting to show us the true contempt they hold for us
there's grief and rage, there's the acute awareness that i've lived so unaware for so long because of my privilege and that even now i am NOT the one who suffers most but there is also HOPE in knowing that the struggle isn't new and never-forged-before
the struggle continues and we are part of it
edit: let me add to this a bit more
this ALSO means that as white people we cannot simply reap Indigenous resistance, Black resistance, the struggles of marginalized and people of color across the world as the source of our inspiration.
we MUST stand in solidarity with those struggles as well and we cannot allow ourselves to close our eyes to the suffering and the ways that our fascist "homelands" hurt them and demonize and kill them.
we must never allow ourselves to intellectualize these struggles as abstract sources of our inspiration rather than seeing them as the lived experiences, the living and dying of people we should stand in solidarity and support with.
