sapphire

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shel
@shel

Notable examples, and examples which have resulted in international solidarity movements, is how the occupation of Palestine, the suppression of BLM protests, and the suppression of anti-Apartheid protests and anti-Vietnam War protests all used the same technologies and training tactics. Police in the US and the IDF often train together. The colonization of Ireland famously was the first prototype for the colonization the British then conducted around the globe, including in Palestine.

The same Eugenics and systemic medical violence imposed upon people with birth abnormalities also was utilized to force sterilize Black people was also used to force sterilize Ethiopian Jewish refugees entering israel was also used to force sterilize trans people in Europe.

The ideological fear-mongering and phantasms that stirred up antisemitism leading up to the holocaust is the same kind of moral panic fear-mongering conspiracy bullshit that is being deployed around "Gender Ideology" around the globe now.

The same ICE/DHS state machine that rounds up undocumented latinx immigrants (or people perceived to be undocumented immigrants because they are latine) and puts them in concentration camps on the border before eventually deporting them..... well... it's only not deployed against you so long as you continue to be considered a Citizen (if you are even currently considered a Citizen and not just a Legal Immigrant). But it has happened in history, and has been proposed by some politicians again recently, to end Birthright Citizenship and to even revoke citizenship from certain classes of people. To decide somewhere you have never been is your home country and to deport you.

The machine that arrests Black youth and incarcerates them could be deployed against anyone who someone in power decides should also be considered inherently a criminal. The machine that renders people homeless and struggling on the street could always be anyone.

And even if you don't always think about it... there is an inherent threat that comes with all of this... you see it happen to other people and some part of you understands that that could be you if you don't stay in line and do as you're told to some extent. You see it happen to someone like you and you know that could be you. You see it happen to someone unlike you and you feel grateful that it's not you... because it could be you. It affects your behavior, limits your options, renders you Not Free because the violence actively imposed on others is an Example of what happens to people who are rendered inhuman, rendered a Threat.

You cannot be free in a country with a mass incarceration system systemically targeting certain demographics. You are simply temporarily not a member of the targeted demographic... yet... or... maybe you already are... and so you know, that you are not free.

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in reply to @kda's post:

shockola
@shockola

And even if the mechanisms of oppression had no overlap, marginalized communities do. Group A can't be free until group B is also free, because there are people who are both A and B. Intra-group solidarity is impossible without inter-group solidarity.

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adorablesergal
@adorablesergal

I feel like a lot of the fluff comes from in-person protest strategy spilling out into other areas. There's an art to a good protest chant: it has to be short and catchy enough to not only be memorable to target audiences, but to also be easily picked up by anyone who shows up with little prior knowledge and who wants to help. It's an organization tool as much as it is a projector of energy.

Outside of a protest, I find that isolated catchy slogans like "none are free til all are free" become less about the above, and instead transition into (anti)shibboleths, both signalling allegiance to in-groups and openly repelling undesirable out-groups, so even if a tweet or even a social media bio can carry a more strategic statement, that's not really the goal in most cases.

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kda
@kda

Huh, yeah, that actually more or less clears up my confusion about most instances of that kind of stuff?

Though outside contexts where conciseness and being easy to pick up are important, it's still, eh? Loud moral proclamations of an "it's obvious and you're Evil for not getting it" just don't resonate with me in the same way "here's why this is necessary to improve the world and people's lives" does.

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adorablesergal
@adorablesergal

Yeh, messaging is not easy, there's no universal just-works method for getting a message across.

  • Sometimes a protest isn't for the "target", but for people passing by.
  • Sometimes a protest is purely to remind the target that "we have the numbers to barge in and string you up, but we're not going to because we're being merciful."
  • Sometimes a protest is just about grinding things to a halt to inflict economic damage.
  • Some protests are false flags.
  • Some protests change purpose halfway through.
  • Some protests are outlets for emotions that can't be expressed any other way.

And so on.

Social media is different in that there's a programmatically enforced ruleset that really de-fangs most of the above forms, like block features, account lockdowns, etc. Even with raw intimidation being a motive, it's different than looking out the window and seeing a thousand people calling for your blood.

So really, dumping a string of social justice language in your bio or a pinned post is the most you can do within that system, and so those invested in that system will act accordingly, coming out of nowhere to tell you how much of a piece of shit you are, or doing that signalling to each other to generate blocks or follows. I'm not going to say this is entirely useless, but many people do mistake social media for the real world, and thus deploy the wrong tactics.

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in reply to @shel's post:

Xuelder
@Xuelder

Just to tack something on here, if a concentration camp becomes generational, we call those reservations. In about 20 years I fully expect to start hearing about how we scoop kids from latinx and Mexican families and either place them in schools to force English and American culture upon them or give them to white families to "save" them.

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