#violence against oppressors is always justified

[eejilunio]

"Killing is a cycle" and "I think the cycle only ends when you find the will to walk away." Coming from Silco's mouth, even if he is an hallucination from Jinx, is so distasteful.

Walking away? To go where my dude? To go back to the slums and accept your fate of misery? Silco was willing to kill people for a cause. It wasn't senseless revenge (Like Caitlyn's bloodthirst towards Jinx by the way), it was crime with a purpose. That's what it took to be noticed by topside people, and when he almost got what he wanted, the end of oppression for his people, he was willing to stop his crimes. Silco didn't kill because he was trapped in a cycle of death. He killed because he was trapped at the bottom of a cliff along with all of the undercity people, and killing, being feared, was the only way for him to gain power to get back to even ground, for him AS WELL AS for everyone else trapped there with him.

And Jinx KNOWS that. Jinx only killed :

- enforcers, who, as Vi stated, are only criminals in fancy uniforms ; and Jinx always did it to further Silco's cause, there was no senseless violence there.

- firelights who threathened Silco's operations.

- as for the council, that might have been a strategic mistake, but they were the oppressors, and Silco had just died. Jinx was desperate for Silco's cause not to die with him i imagine. And anyways , idk why i'm trying to justify Jinx's action there, because you can't say that responding to violence with violence is wrong when it's a victim against an oppressor. We can't all be masterminds like Silco, especially when we're traumatized and a minor (And Jinx wouldn't care if one of the oppressor she killed happened to be an enforcer's mum, that was another OOC line out of her mouth)

So anyways, killing is a cycle that ends when you walk away? Please. Silco would never say that. And Jinx would never think that either.

And on another note : AlternateUniverse!Silco owning a bar with Vander?

Silco isn't a bartender. If the undercity ever got some of their dignity back from Piltover's unfair rule, you can be sure Silco would make it his life work to gain back EVERY LAST DROP of dignity Piltover stole, and then find a way to make Piltover always remember the Undercity people who died and suffered under their rule.

Silco is a politician, and the oppression he suffered under shaped him. He would not be a bartender. Please.

And his little line about forgiving? Silco doesn't forgive. Silco always remember when something unfair has happened.

And that's why he would never forgive Vander to the point of becoming friends again.

That bridge burned a long time ago.

This season needs to stop butchering my boy Silco.

It's insulting.

[shaneyunfiltered]

YES THIS EXACTLY THIS

Not to mention that Orion never once said Sentinel doesn't deserve to die, nor does he even try to refute D-16 every time he furiously declares that Sentinel does deserve to die. Orion understands firsthand how D is feeling, he's just as outraged and betrayed by Sentinel's atrocious treachery and deceit, but unlike D, he tempers his feelings by putting an actual plan into action, putting true justice over blind rage and bloodlust. While D can only think about how he personally has been lied to and exploited by Sentinel his entire life and only sees the same suffering from other bots as an afterthought to take advantage of once he declares "one bot's strength over another," Orion's first thought isn't inward, it's outward, how Sentinel has has brutally exploited not just him, but every cogless miner in Iacon. Orion feels the intense need for justice not just for himself, but for all. And he puts that desire into action, once the power to transform his world is given to him.

All that being said, regarding Orion's immediate empathy with all bots and not just himself, regarding his unstoppable thirst for justice, and regarding the fact that he never once denies that Sentinel deserves to die? Orion completely agrees with that sentiment. The difference between him and D-16 is, he's not prioritizing Sentinel's well-deserved death over everything else. What Orion meant when he said "Rebuilding Iacon cannot begin with an execution" wasn't "You can't kill him, we have to prove we're better than him by not taking his life and showing mercy, we're supposed to be the good guys here and good guys never kill anyone" (which would be especially hypocritical since he killed several of Sentinel's guards in self-defense and as casualties of their revolution), what he meant was "I know he deserves to die, I want him dead too, we all do, but that's not important right now, we need to fuel people's hope for a better future, not fuel their rage, that will just end in disaster and lead to so many people dying when we can easily avoid that path."

Knowing Orion's newfound sense of leadership, before he even became Optimus Prime, he would have kept Sentinel prisoner for a limited amount of time before establishing a new, more equitable and just rule of Cybertronian law, and then giving Sentinel a fair trial where the court of the people would properly decide on his well-deserved death sentence. Sentinel's execution would then likely not be a spectacle, or at least it would be far less of a spectacle than D-16 ended up making it.

The point is, when it comes to executing tyrants as they fully deserve, it is not one person's decision to execute said tyrant themselves. Granted, there are some real-world exceptions depending on the level of severity of the despot's tyranny, or of the brutality of the oppressive establishment in the midst of the revolution.

But Sentinel and his reign was not one of those examples. He was fully exposed, fully dethroned, fully defeated, left with absolutely nothing. Orion and friends had truly won, their revolution was won. Cybertron was well on its way to a better society right then and there. But, for reasons we all already covered here, D-16 made it worse, and ended up starting a forever war that would devastate the entire planet and displace countless Cybertronians off-world, Autobot and Decepticon alike.

That's the real tragic beauty of Transformers, that the primary conflict fueling the premise of the entire franchise, compelling and engaging for generations to come as it is, could have all been easily avoided. The real tragedy is that Cybertron could have had everlasting peace, justice and harmony to last for countless lifetimes into the eons... had it not been for "the strength of one bot over another."

I don't feel like Orion trying to stop D-16 from killing Sentinel was because Orion felt like Sentinel deserved to live. I mean, he crashed an entire train into the guy just minutes before.

Imagine you have a chill best friend who is the voice of reason between the two of you, but he goes through a trauma that turns him into a roiling pit of rage. You keep reaching out to him and he keeps shoving you away. He is suddenly getting fusion cannon boners from beating the shit out of potential allies, and you have to beg him not to blow said ally's head off. Your friend frames this restraint as "the last time I will show mercy."

When Orion says "Don't be like Sentinel", I don't think he means "Um, have you considered that ACTUALLY this is not The Proper Way to change the government?", I think he means "You are losing yourself and it's scaring me and it's hurting you."

He was not trying to save Sentinel, he was trying to save D-16.

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

The Demonizing of Change

A trend I've noticed in modern media is that many stories have the message of "protect the status quo". Whether it's a Marvel movie or a fantasy book, the fact that so often the villains are the only ones who fight to change society remains the same.

We all know the story: they were hurt by the system's flaw(s) and so they rose up to destroy that harmful system and in the process destroyed themselves. I'm not saying that this character type is wrong or bad (definitely overused imo), but the framing of the narrative and the protagonists is the issue.

The narrative typically shows the villain's first wrong doing to be the act of rebelling against the system. From the moment the person chose to reject the harmful system, they were in the wrong, or so the narrative frames it. Meanwhile, the protagonist may question and see injustice but they never fight it; it's just accepted and blindly defended. What's worse is the audience chooses to completely accept this telling and sides with the harmful regime the protagonist defends.

I find that some of the most drastic examples of these issues are Daenerys in GOT and the Darkling in the Grishaverse/SaB.

Daenerys Targaryen

One thing I want to specify before I go into this is that Dany's GOT ending is purely bad writing. It's not foreshadowed or justified in any way, so I'll be addressing how D&D tried to frame her past after S8e6 aired and how her antis interpret her.

According to D&D, we should see the beginning of Dany's "madness arc" from the very first season. Namely how she reacted to Viserys' death. While this isn't Dany rejecting a harmful system, her choosing to not defend Viserys (why would she??) is also her choosing to leave behind the cycle of abuse of her early life. It also sets the precedent of Dany killing/allowing the deaths of evil men.

Speaking of evil men, D&D also tried to paint Dany's campaign against slavery as a sign of her "megalomania and madness". This is where we get to the actual fighting against the system. Dany is leading a slave revolt and forcefully overthrowing the masters and the oppressive governments.

The way D&D tried to spin it was that Dany was wrong for using violence, and Tyrion's peaceful method was more successful. Except Dany did try peace in Meereen, it didn't work. She made concessions, she made agreements, she locked up her dragons and they weren't working. That's the whole point of her last chapter in ADWD.

However, the show chose to make it so Dany was failing because she was "too violent" and ultimately made the freedmen hate her. This choice, a clear deviation from the book, is the beginning of them trying to make Dany fall into the trope of "as bad as those you're fighting". In her fight to end slavery, she becomes as oppressive as the masters.

Which is just blatantly wrong. We see in the show that the freedmen are still free, they sit in her councils, they can come to her with their complaints and she listens. Dany is a queen, not a master. The show was already trying to gaslight its audience into believing the opposite of what they wrote. The same goes for her supposed violence. The violence she exerts is almost always towards the slavers, except when she executed Mossador for murder. That was her carrying out justice, why that was portrayed as a bad thing is beyond me.

The implications of the choices D&D made in adapting Dany's Meereen arc are very disturbing. They're basically saying that systematic and centuries old oppression should never be addressed with violence. The people who actively fight oppression are just as bad as the oppressors. If you can't magically fix a system that's been flawed for centuries immediately, you're a tyrant.

The choice to resolve the arc by having Tyrion come in with some great peaceful solution was plain stupid and sexist. We have seen in history that trying to unobtrusively phase out slavery doesn't work. By leaving the elite slave owners in peace, they are allowed to simply find ways to get around or wear down the changes. We see that in ADWD in Meereen by the way. Also the whole idea that a wise man had to come and fix the irrational woman's problem is so gross.

So basically: D&D took an arc about fighting oppression and learning that concessions only continue the cycle of violence and made it into a story about how violence is bad and you can actually just reason with slavers.

The disgusting ideas continue in season eight, where Dany torches KL for no reason and is put down like a rabid dog. Dany is the only character who wants to end oppression in this show. She's the only person to see and experience the suffering of the oppressed and chooses to do something about it. Season seven is full of her talking about leaving the world a better place and breaking the wheel. But in season eight "breaking the wheel" is turned into th deranged battle cry of her desired empire.

Let me restate that: the one character who fought to end systematic oppression is turned into the "true oppressor". Dany's desire to tear down the system that the entire show established as being unjust and awful is made into a sign of madness. Even in season seven, people were rolling their eyes at her talking about breaking the wheel.

Meanwhile, the protagonists of the show end it benefitting from the same system that tortured them the whole time. Westerosi society is shit, but the show ends glorifying the sexist, homophobic, classist, and feudalist kingdoms. They even laugh at Samwell Tarly when he suggests destroying the monarchy. All this sends the message that embracing the system is good, rebellion bad, and shut the fuck up if you're not happy.

Dany was reduced to a cautionary tale against fighting the system. I've seen people frame it as "seeking power is bad", but that doesn't make sense, as characters like Sansa actively seek power and are rewarded by the narrative. Dany's mistake was trying to change the world, rather than supporting it as it is.

The Darkling

The Darkling is a very different character from Dany; he's an actual villain. Aleksander is someone who has already reached the "become what you hate most" part of the trope, so he spends the whole story committing atrocities. The issue with his portrayal is the fact that the narrative and protagonists never address his very real reasons for fighting in the first place.

The grisha as a group are persecuted all throughout Ravka, they have been for centuries. The whole reason Aleksander begins his fight was to protect his people. By the time the series begins, the grisha are more protected, though only because they have become weapons of the state. That was only through Aleksander's mechanisations.

Aleksander became a villain in his attempts to save his people, making him a tragic character. So he has perfectly fallen into the trope, and, unfortunately, so do the protagonists. Alina and her allies all have seen and suffered under the cruelty of the Ravkan monarchy, however, they quickly dismiss just how awful it is. By the end of the story, the Darkling has become, in their eyes, the sole perpetrator of evil in Ravka.

There are no attempts made to rectify the constant damage done by the Apparat, in fact he's left to run free. Alexander Lanstov and Tatiana Grimjer are simply shipped off to a private island where they never are made to pay for the awful things they have done. There are no political reforms done to ensure the safety of grisha in the future; they're basically relying on the goodwill Zoya and Alina have bought with the people.

So basically, the minor villains who all had no reason to be completely atrocious receive basically no punishment from the narrative. Meanwhile, Aleksander, who had very valid reasons for wanting to overthrow the government, is ultimately given a fate worse than death. All his reasons for hating the Ravkan government and the power it has are ignored, even though the story set up that he's not wrong. The resolution of the story leaves the grisha just as, if not more, vulnerable to the prejudice and hatred of the world than they were before.

The narrative is communicating that Aleksander rising up for his people is worse than the centuries of corrupt Lanstovs. Aleksander is worse than the man who stirs up religious fanaticism and exploits the people through it. Yes, Aleksander did horrible things, but so did every other antagonist in the series, but he's somehow the worst because...well, he's grisha.

That's the only other difference between him and the others, aside from his motives. So either Bardugo is supporting the in-universe prejudice against grisha or she's saying rising up against an oppressive system is wrong. I don't expect her or any other author to have complex political and social commentaries in her story. However, she chose to create a world containing those elements and a main character who suffers from them. She chose to make the issues with the system have a prominent place in the story. And she chose to ignore them in the end.

Aleksander did awful things in the name of a just cause, this creates a complex moral issue that the story just never addresses. The established injustices and sanctioned atrocities by the Lanstovs are all ignored in favor of bringing down the dangerous rebel. That kind of message is pretty fucked up. Yes, Nikolai is a better man than his father, but what about his descendants? The propaganda of the Apparat and his church are extremely strong, it's only a matter of time before that propaganda once again starts turning people against grisha. The hatred of grisha is still embedded into Ravkan society.

Aleksander was the only character who was actually set on protecting and bettering the lives of the grisha. His original mission was still extremely important, no matter what he devolved to. The fact that the protagonists just blatantly dismissed just how dangerous Ravka still is for grisha is frustrating.

The treatment of both Dany and Aleksander by their writers and narratives show a hatred/mistrust of rebellion against the status quo, no matter how atrocious it is. The message of the trope is that people who fight against a system are worse than the system itself. I'm not saying that was Bardugo's intention (D&D I'm much less sure about though), but the way both the Darkling and Dany were written combined with the endings of the stories support that idea.

[cherrybomb107]

One more thing about the difference between Caitlyn’s actions and Jinx’s. As I’ve said before, comparing their actions is disingenuous imo, for the simple fact that Caitlyn is an oppressor, and Jinx is oppressed. That’s not to say that victims of systemic oppression are incapable of violence, just that the violence they are capable of is fundamentally different to that of their oppressor, and therefore cannot be compared. But the difference in reaction to Caitlyn’s actions vs the reaction to Jinx’s is what I wanna talk about.

Caitlyn is an authoritarian dictator. She gassed Zaunites, co-signed martial law, hit her partner, unlawfully arrested people, and almost killed a child just to get to Jinx. Yet large swathes of the fandom brush off or downplay these atrocities because of “grief”. Of course grief is a reason for doing things and acting out of character, but it does not excuse anything. Especially because, as not just a Piltie but a Kiramman, Caitlyn’s allowed to be much more destructive in her “grief”. She gets to take out her pain and anguish on an entire city, but other characters are not afforded that privilege? Why is that?

Jinx meanwhile makes all of her weapons by hand. She only kills enforcers, Firelights, Councilors, and goons who attack her. I’m not going to defend her actions here(as I’ve made many posts here explaining my thoughts and feelings on them). But I will say that it’s interesting that the violence Jinx is responsible for is enough to make her a “psycho” and a “terrorist” but if you point out how Caitlyn’s actions literally make her a dictator and how “grief” doesn’t excuse anything, you’ll be crucified by the fandom. Why? Because both in the show and in real life, the feelings of the privileged are legitimized, while the actions of the under privileged are demonized and pathologized.

It’s the same story with women and misogyny. Men are not “crazy” or “emotional” for perpetuating patriarchy and punishing women for the crime of existing. Men get to make “jokes” about how much they hate women. How they want to rape, kill, and harm them. Then they actually go out and do it! And this is not called the results of misogyny, oh no! It’s simply a “male loneliness epidemic”. Men have spent centuries subjugating women to horrible things I can’t even describe without tearing up. But they are still thought of as the more “logical” and “reasonable” gender. However, when women react to this institutional sexism, they get labeled instead of listened to. “Crazy”, “hysterical”, “delusional”, “emotional”, “hormonal”, “pmsing”, “doing too much” etc. Women don’t get to lash out and fight back against a system that sees them as subhuman. But men are allowed to set that system up and benefit from it.

Same thing with slavery. Slave owners were not “crazy”, “insane”, or “cruel” for not only owning human beings but mentally, physically, emotionally, financially, and sexually abusing and torturing my people. Yet enslaved people who would do anything to be free were labeled “drapetomanic”. Called crazy because they didn’t want to be enslaved. The oppressor’s feelings are always more valid and justified than the oppressed, no matter what they do.

The Black Panther Party were called “terrorists” for arming themselves both with guns and with books, and preparing to fight back against a system that didn’t see them as human beings. The government made multiple plans on how to disrupt their movement and destroy it from the inside out. Why is the US government not commonly called a terrorist organization? Why does a kid who steals candy from a store, or a mother who steals formula for her child get labeled a “criminal” or a “thief”, but the government is allowed to steal thousands of dollars from us, pump poison into our food, water, air, push propaganda at every turn, brutalize our people, and destroy our communities with no consequences?

Because the privileged are always justified both in their feelings and actions, no matter how heinous. That’s why the Black Panthers were “criminals” and “terrorists” while the government was just “trying to restore order”. That’s why men get to kidnap, rape, murder, beat, and oppress women but a woman making jokes about the male suicide rate is a “bitch” or a “feminazi”. That’s why Jinx is a “terrorist” and a “psycho” but Caitlyn is a “complex female character” who’s “grieving.

This also points to something else: individuality as yet another privilege. Despite overwhelming evidence that men commit majority of violent crimes, when women express hesitation about being around men, it gets brushed off as “not all men”. When Black people express wariness about cops it gets brushed off as “a few bad apples”. When in reality it is an issue with policing as an institution. Yet when a woman does something bad, it’s “These bitches can’t be trusted.” “All women are the same.” “All women want blah blah blah.” Women don’t get to be thought of as individuals. When one woman does something, it reflects on women as a whole. When a Black person does something, all Black people are “criminals” or “thugs.” We don’t get to be individuals.

Same thing with Caitlyn and Piltover as a whole. It’s “not all Pilties” and “we’re people, just like you” when the heat is on them. But when Caitlyn lost her mom, it was “those animals”. “I see how easy it is to hate them”. Councilor Salo referred to Zaunites as “demons”. And when Caitlyn asked Vi to be an enforcer, she said “We can show them that not everyone in Zaun supports Jinx.” Huh? What type of sense does that make? Caitlyn had been conducting her off the book’s investigation into the Undercity’s violence since season one, yet she still didn’t even know who was behind it all, or who Jinx was! Now, it’s “we have to show them that not everyone in Zaun supports Jinx”? Where would she even get the idea that people in Zaun would support Jinx in the first place?

She says this in the first episode of season two. Why would all of Zaun be responsible for Jinx’s actions? Why would all of Zaun be supporting Jinx at this point in time? See what I mean about individuality? When Pilties like Marcus cause harm, it’s “one bad apple”. Yet when Jinx justifiably tries to fight back against her oppressors, all of Zaun is put on the hook, whether they support her or not. It doesn’t matter. Just being a Zaunite means you support Jinx, and you need to be brought to “justice”. Whether you actually did anything wrong or not is irrelevant. By virtue of your identity you are guilty until proven innocent, while Pilties are innocent until proven guilty. And even then, they get a slap on the wrist when proven guilty.

Oppressed people will always be demonized and vilified in the court of public opinion in real life, and that absolutely affects how people consume fiction. Jinx’s actions are blown out of proportion (people think she’s killed dozens/hundreds of people when that’s simply not the case) while Caitlyn was “manipulated by Ambessa” and she “didn’t even do anything that bad”. One of these characters has the money, power, and institution backing her to make a city suffer. The other character has scraps at best. But only one of these characters will ever be thought of as a “monster”.

TL;DR The fandom’s reception to Caitlyn’s actions highlights a larger issue irl in that oppressors get let off the hook, while oppressed people get held to different, and sometimes even impossible standards

[dailyanarchistposts]

A.3.4 Is anarchism pacifistic?

A pacifist strand has long existed in anarchism, with Leo Tolstoy being one of its major figures. This strand is usually called “anarcho-pacifism” (the term “non-violent anarchist” is sometimes used, but this term is unfortunate because it implies the rest of the movement are “violent,” which is not the case!). The union of anarchism and pacifism is not surprising given the fundamental ideals and arguments of anarchism. After all, violence, or the threat of violence or harm, is a key means by which individual freedom is destroyed. As Peter Marshall points out, ”[g]iven the anarchist’s respect for the sovereignty of the individual, in the long run it is non-violence and not violence which is implied by anarchist values.” [Demanding the Impossible, p.637] Malatesta is even more explicit when he wrote that the “main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations” and that anarchists “are opposed to violence.” [Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas, p. 53]

However, although many anarchists reject violence and proclaim pacifism, the movement, in general, is not essentially pacifistic (in the sense of opposed all forms of violence at all times). Rather, it is anti-militarist, being against the organised violence of the state but recognising that there are important differences between the violence of the oppressor and the violence of the oppressed. This explains why the anarchist movement has always placed a lot of time and energy in opposing the military machine and capitalist wars while, at the same time, supporting and organising armed resistance against oppression (as in the case of the Makhnovist army during the Russian Revolution which resisted both Red and White armies and the militias the anarchists organised to resist the fascists during the Spanish Revolution — see sections A.5.4 and A.5.6, respectively).

On the question of non-violence, as a rough rule of thumb, the movement divides along Individualist and Social lines. Most Individualist anarchists support purely non-violent tactics of social change, as do the Mutualists. However, Individualist anarchism is not pacifist as such, as many support the idea of violence in self-defence against aggression. Most social anarchists, on the other hand, do support the use of revolutionary violence, holding that physical force will be required to overthrow entrenched power and to resist state and capitalist aggression (although it was an anarcho-syndicalist, Bart de Ligt, who wrote the pacifist classic, The Conquest of Violence). As Malatesta put it, violence, while being “in itself an evil,” is “justifiable only when it is necessary to defend oneself and others from violence” and that a “slave is always in a state of legitimate defence and consequently, his violence against the boss, against the oppressor, is always morally justifiable.” [Op. Cit., p. 55 and pp. 53–54] Moreover, they stress that, to use the words of Bakunin, since social oppression “stems far less from individuals than from the organisation of things and from social positions” anarchists aim to “ruthlessly destroy positions and things” rather than people, since the aim of an anarchist revolution is to see the end of privileged classes “not as individuals, but as classes.” [quoted by Richard B. Saltman, The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin p. 121, p. 124 and p. 122]

Indeed, the question of violence is relatively unimportant to most anarchists, as they do not glorify it and think that it should be kept to a minimum during any social struggle or revolution. All anarchists would agree with the Dutch pacifist anarcho-syndicalist Bart de Ligt when he argued that “the violence and warfare which are characteristic conditions of the capitalist world do not go with the liberation of the individual, which is the historic mission of the exploited classes. The greater the violence, the weaker the revolution, even where violence has deliberately been put at the service of the revolution.” [The Conquest of Violence, p. 75]

Similarly, all anarchists would agree with de Ligt on, to use the name of one of his book’s chapters, “the absurdity of bourgeois pacifism.” For de Ligt, and all anarchists, violence is inherent in the capitalist system and any attempt to make capitalism pacifistic is doomed to failure. This is because, on the one hand, war is often just economic competition carried out by other means. Nations often go to war when they face an economic crisis, what they cannot gain in economic struggle they attempt to get by conflict. On the other hand, “violence is indispensable in modern society… [because] without it the ruling class would be completely unable to maintain its privileged position with regard to the exploited masses in each country. The army is used first and foremost to hold down the workers… when they become discontented.” [Bart de Ligt, Op. Cit., p. 62] As long as the state and capitalism exist, violence is inevitable and so, for anarcho-pacifists, the consistent pacifist must be an anarchist just as the consistent anarchist must be a pacifist.

For those anarchists who are non-pacifists, violence is seen as an unavoidable and unfortunate result of oppression and exploitation as well as the only means by which the privileged classes will renounce their power and wealth. Those in authority rarely give up their power and so must be forced. Hence the need for “transitional” violence “to put an end to the far greater, and permanent, violence which keeps the majority of mankind in servitude.” [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 55] To concentrate on the issue of violence versus non-violence is to ignore the real issue, namely how do we change society for the better. As Alexander Berkman pointed out, those anarchists who are pacifists confuse the issue, like those who think “it’s the same as if rolling up your sleeves for work should be considered the work itself.” To the contrary, ”[t]he fighting part of revolution is merely rolling up your sleeves. The real, actual task is ahead.” [What is Anarchism?, p. 183] And, indeed, most social struggle and revolutions start relatively peaceful (via strikes, occupations and so on) and only degenerate into violence when those in power try to maintain their position (a classic example of this is in Italy, in 1920, when the occupation of factories by their workers was followed by fascist terror — see section A.5.5).

As noted above, all anarchists are anti-militarists and oppose both the military machine (and so the “defence” industry) as well as statist/capitalist wars (although a few anarchists, like Rudolf Rocker and Sam Dolgoff, supported the anti-fascist capitalist side during the second world war as the lesser evil). The anti-war machine message of anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists was propagated long before the start of the first world war, with syndicalists and anarchists in Britain and North America reprinting a French CGT leaflet urging soldiers not to follow orders and repress their striking fellow workers. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman were both arrested and deported from America for organising a “No-Conscription League” in 1917 while many anarchists in Europe were jailed for refusing to join the armed forces in the first and second world wars. The anarcho-syndicalist influenced IWW was crushed by a ruthless wave of government repression due to the threat its organising and anti-war message presented to the powerful elites who favoured war. More recently, anarchists, (including people like Noam Chomsky and Paul Goodman) have been active in the peace movement as well as contributing to the resistance to conscription where it still exists. Anarchists took an active part in opposing such wars as the Vietnam War, the Falklands war as well as the Gulf wars of 1991 and 2003 (including, in Italy and Spain, helping to organise strikes in protest against it). And it was during the 1991 Gulf War when many anarchists raised the slogan “No war but the class war” which nicely sums up the anarchist opposition to war — namely an evil consequence of any class system, in which the oppressed classes of different countries kill each other for the power and profits of their rulers. Rather than take part in this organised slaughter, anarchists urge working people to fight for their own interests, not those of their masters:

“More than ever we must avoid compromise; deepen the chasm between capitalists and wage slaves, between rulers and ruled; preach expropriation of private property and the destruction of states such as the only means of guaranteeing fraternity between peoples and Justice and Liberty for all; and we must prepare to accomplish these things.” [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 251]

We must note here that Malatesta’s words were written in part against Peter Kropotkin who, for reasons best known to himself, rejected everything he had argued for decades and supported the allies in the First World War as a lesser evil against German authoritarianism and Imperialism. Of course, as Malatesta pointed out, “all Governments and all capitalist classes” do “misdeeds … against the workers and rebels of their own countries.” [Op. Cit., p. 246] He, along with Berkman, Goldman and a host of other anarchists, put their name to International Anarchist Manifesto against the First World War. It expressed the opinion of the bulk of the anarchist movement (at the time and consequently) on war and how to stop it. It is worth quoting from:

“The truth is that the cause of wars … rests solely in the existence of the State, which is the form of privilege … Whatever the form it may assume, the State is nothing but organised oppression for the advantage of a privileged minority … “The misfortune of the peoples, who were deeply attached to peace, is that, in order to avoid war, they placed their confidence in the State with its intriguing diplomatists, in democracy, and in political parties … This confidence has been deliberately betrayed, and continues to be so, when governments, with the aid of the whole of the press, persuade their respective people that this war is a war of liberation. “We are resolutely against all wars between peoples, and … have been, are, and ever will be most energetically opposed to war. “The role of the Anarchists … is to continue to proclaim that there is only one war of liberation: that which in all countries is waged by the oppressed against the oppressors, by the exploited against the exploiters. Our part is to summon the slaves to revolt against their masters. “Anarchist action and propaganda should assiduously and perseveringly aim at weakening and dissolving the various States, at cultivating the spirit of revolt, and arousing discontent in peoples and armies… “We must take advantage of all the movements of revolt, of all the discontent, in order to foment insurrection, and to organise the revolution which we look to put end to all social wrongs… Social justice realised through the free organisation of producers: war and militarism done away with forever; and complete freedom won, by the abolition of the State and its organs of destruction.” [“International Anarchist Manifesto on the War,” Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth, pp. 386–8]

Thus, the attraction of pacifism to anarchists is clear. Violence is authoritarian and coercive, and so its use does contradict anarchist principles. That is why anarchists would agree with Malatesta when he argues that ”[w]e are on principle opposed to violence and for this reason wish that the social struggle should be conducted as humanely as possible.” [Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 57] Most, if not all, anarchists who are not strict pacifists agree with pacifist-anarchists when they argue that violence can often be counterproductive, alienating people and giving the state an excuse to repress both the anarchist movement and popular movements for social change. All anarchists support non-violent direct action and civil disobedience, which often provide better roads to radical change.

So, to sum up, anarchists who are pure pacifists are rare. Most accept the use of violence as a necessary evil and advocate minimising its use. All agree that a revolution which institutionalises violence will just recreate the state in a new form. They argue, however, that it is not authoritarian to destroy authority or to use violence to resist violence. Therefore, although most anarchists are not pacifists, most reject violence except in self-defence and even then kept to the minimum.

[littleweowmeow]

I just love people who shout about the villainous deeds of Zuko that he committed sometime before our era (as if this cancels his redemption arc and the fact that he is a hero in the end lol). And they do it with such pathos of great enlighteners, the only ones who see the truth while the "gray mass" is blinded by their love for the "colonizer". It is impossible to look at this without laughing. It's like smart thoughts were chasing people, but people were faster.

Like I always say that Zuko is a villain at the beginning of his journey and that's what makes his arc so impressive. He has the potential to become like Ozai or Azula and he is already on the way to it. But he stops and doesn't do the same thing. Although he may also thinked, namely, "well, if it hurt me, then I have the right to hurt others," and I do not claim that he has never resorted to such rhetoric. He fucking stopped and went in the exact opposite direction and damn it it's so important! It's as if we're talking about a character who turned away from an entire political system that brainwashed people and from his disgusting family, which drove him into a psychological trap for a long time and breaks the cycle of violence because he doesn't grow into an abuser. The plot itself holds him accountable both for his actions and for what was done by his ancestors. He wanders around the Earth Kingdom and feels all the damage done to the world by his country on his own skin, he cannot escape from his past and the past of his people, so despite the fact that he saves the villagers, they drive him away with horror and hatred. In the finale, Zuko literally becomes the Fire Lord, pledging to atone for the sins of his entire people over a hundred years of war. But come on. What if Zuko was the one who didn't want to continue the violence from the very beginning?

Agni Kai with Admiral Zhao. Zuko, in a position of power, can do whatever he wants with his opponent. An opponent who smiled when his face was burned, an opponent who reveled in power over him right before the duel, an opponent who would definitely not show mercy. And what does Zuko do? Shows mercy. Although he remembers exactly what Ozai did when Zuko himself ended up on the floor. He refuses to act like his main tyrant when he can do it but doesn't. It is also interesting that Zhao calls Zuko a coward for showing mercy and then, when the duel is over, hits him in the back. Yes, Zuko is definitely definitely an evil and incorrigible guy.

And now my favorite:

Anon : You understand that the Blue Spirit literally robbed people, the same refugees because in his opinion these people owe him? He's still a disgusting racist and colonizer!

I'm : I am aware of this and I do not shut myself off from the inconvenient truth. And in the subsequent series, he literally saves the village of such "peasants" from people who abuse power over peaceful and defenseless residents, although he was more than inclined not to do so. Oh yes, no one tells him what to do, there is no one around and Zuko is alone. He chooses what to do and his choice is to save the inhabitants of the enemy village from the oppressors. (A very villainous act of a real colonizer) Zuko does not get mad at the inhabitants when they drive him away because he did not save them in order to get laurels. He just walks away. Not taking revenge for ingratitude or anything else. (Very villainous, but okay).

Anon : ...

I'm : ...This is called personal growth.

Anon : * piss with boiling water *

I don't even need to do brain gymnastics to justify him. He changes himself and accepts responsibility for his actions, faces their consequences. Zuko doesn't make excuses for himself and the plot doesn't do the same for him. Unlike many, he has a real redemption arc. There is a group of fans in the fandom who justify the villain in every possible way and humiliate other characters so that they seem worse against the background of their "poor meow meow", these are those people who cannot stand criticism of their favorite and want their favorite not to face the consequences of his actions. Oh yes, this character does not have a redemption arc. I didn't mention their names, but you all know who I mean. Zuko stans doesn't need to babysit him and justify everything he does. Because Zuko accepts responsibility himself. Because Zuko is no longer a villain. Cope with it.

[patricide1885]

Trans women experience transmisogyny, but trans men also experience their own weird combo of misogyny/transphobia + weaponized woke misandry. I'm not saying that misandry is a systemic force, but it is true that in say, black and gay men their masculinity is used against them in terms of projections of violence and hypersexuality/sexual perversion respectively, and I think something similar goes on with us. We are treated like stupid women while being villainized and it being assumed to be ok social justice wise for us to be abused due to our being men. And TERFs do the same thing with trans women.

I think we need to acknowledge the reactionary tendencies in our movements and adopt a more nuanced and correct understanding of the patriarchy as a complex and nuanced system. I think the fact that people don't do this is partially why the TERF movement is as large as it is, and the only difference between them and non-TERF feminists is who is being targeted as a "man" and how. And of course non-TERFs also villainize trans women as "men" in more covert and at times unconscious ways, even if it's not blatant.

It's an incel-like mentality where the abuser projects the label of "oppressor" onto their victim in order to justify their abuse of that victim. That is what incels do. This is a very common and unsurprising reactionary phenomenon and it's ridiculous that it continues to be ignored and unacknowledged when it appears. The same exact pattern as always. It's what borderlines do and narcissists etc do. It's a trauma response, yes, but a very maladaptive and harmful one.

I think beneath this is another truth - ultimately we do actually have to humanize everyone in order to destroy hierarchy. Reactive othering of the oppressor as an inhuman monster rather than a human with power who is abusing that power is not only simply an incorrect and handicappingly fearful understanding of the situation, it destroys the possibility of the problem ever being solved - as the only way to solve an issue where some people are humans and others are inherently inhuman monsters that can never be reached is for the inhuman monsters to be eliminated. And most minorities aren't advocating for that so all it does is crystalize the struggle into something that is impossible to ever fix - meaning that we are ultimately wasting our time doing social justice work in the first place.

[thegreenpea]

OP will read about the allegories of war and violence and miss the point so bad that you think violence is the solution

I have read The Hunger Games a long time ago (eight or nine years ago?), so bear with me, but the ending (excluding the epilogue) never sat right with me. Katniss shooting president Coin instead of president Snow felt... really strange, and, frankly very American? Like, it felt like those US red-scare propagandistic pieces about "all authoritariansim being evil" for primary schoolers. I also don't understand the plotline of President Coin organising another Hunger Game, with Capitol children in it- it felt like a cheap attempt to make it seem that Snow and Coin are both "equally evil". I've always felt this thematic tread was the weak link in the series.

I cannot explain it, but it always felt like this was an expression of a fear, a uniquely American fear, that the people of the nations they opressed, along with those within their nation that they have opressed as well, will unite against them, burn thwm to the ground, destroy their values and return the "favors" they've been giving the global south, african americans and natives for quite a while. And while THG really did well on some of these fronts, it refused to go all. Why is revenge seen as this big bad?

It may also just be me misremembering things. I liked the books otherwise. Maybe it's time I revisit the series.

[hero-israel]

i know i'm stating the obvious but:

the thing that gets me is that. erasing jews' indigenity to the levant and casually claiming israel is committing genocide and apartheid… it's all untrue and completely wrong and horrible. and obviously that needs to be recognized.

but at this point there is a part of me that is like "it doesn't even matter whether or not israelis are Colonizers."

because even if it WAS true, even if israel was doing every horrible thing some of these people claim, NONE of that justifies celebrating rape, mass murder of civilians, child murder, and harassing and committing violence against jews globally.

i don't know how to talk to anyone who thinks labeling people "an oppressor" means you can justify anything to them, even war crimes and the worst kinds of human rights violations. i thought it was obvious that was unacceptable, at the very least among people who purport to care deeply about human rights.

i suppose it's naive of me, but it truly was a shocker to find out how much of the Left's commitment to human rights was a complete lie. i expected antisemitic responses in the form of "whataboutism," in downplaying what happened, and even denial, but not this. i thought there would be some people acting like hamas were oppressed freedom fighters and denying their atrocious tactics... i didn't expect SO MANY people to outright celebrate the horror.

i guess it's just making me realize how many of these people don't actually give a damn about human rights, about human suffering and justice, they care about being Right, and finding righteous targets to hate and attack. i always knew that existed, but i assumed that was a small, vocal minority mainly online. the rot goes so much deeper than i realized, and i have no idea what to do about it.

While it certainly does matter that the "colonizer" frame is a complete lie, you raise a good point about the significance of a supermassive surge in leftist advocacy for the death penalty and corrective rape. These are often the same people who want prisons and police abolished, but it turns out they held far more enthusiastic lust for gory revenge than your average Texas governor. They increasingly talk like abortion clinic bombers.

They have no principles, only a vocab list. Every woman Donald Trump grabbed was a colonizer, as were all the protestors Kyle Rittenhouse shot in Waukesha or James Fields rammed with his car in Charlottesville. John Wayne Gacy preferred targeting white males. It would take perhaps 3-6 words to make them into left-idpol heroes. What happens when a school shooter figures out to say "colonizer"? No, really. The man who beat Sarah Halimi to death in her Paris apartment said he saw Hebrew writing on her walls and it made him feel persecuted and oppressed.

[valtsv]

The original post seems to be about something other than the tropes around revenge being bad. Not many people will disagree that revenge is dangerous, not always productive and often selfish. That's not the same thing as "you're just as bad them" which is not only an unfortunately common trope, but also not only a trope, it's an idea, a belief.

We see this idea when strikes inconvenience other people, when we're intolerant of bigots and even when taking about revolutions killing their despots. We got to the point that people sided with Mussolini's family and followers against people sharing a photo of him hanging.

If we cannot empathize with the people of Italy for beating their fleeing dictator, instead condemning them as equally bad for using violence and seeking revenge, but can empathize with him and his followers, then I believe there's something of ourselves that we see in the oppressors that we don't see in the oppressed. That it would be easier for us to be collaborators than to be resistors.

Sometimes it's just a trope, yes. Batman won't kill the joker as he progressively does more and more harm because "that's not that kind of story", but the fact that almost all stories in the mainstream are "not that kind of story" and the real life examples of people and media criticizing revolutionaries, protesters and other people lashing out against oppression show that this is not just about good and bad storytelling. Some people believe these ideas to justify the status quo.

i completely agree, and i want to stress that i don't actually totally disagree with the tweet (i worded myself a bit badly when writing in the tags because i was rushing, and that's my bad) but i think that 'getting revenge makes you just as bad as the person you're seeking revenge against' is more nuanced than it appears on the surface. a better way of expressing what i mean would be "getting revenge can lead to you becoming arguably 'just as bad' as whoever you're seeking revenge against, if you end up losing sight of the reasons you're seeking revenge and start to perpetrate the same violence and abuses of power that whoever you're seeking revenge against did in your quest for satisfaction".

i believe those stories have an important place in the world and as a member of marginalized groups who wants to assist in fighting back against my and others' oppressors and oppression i consider them very valuable in helping to remind me not to get caught up in feeling right and justified and forget to ask myself if i'm actually helping myself and others. i'm going to make my own post to explain it, but i was using that tweet as a discussion point (hence why i wrote in the tags), not arguing with it.

[dig-jules]

the thing about star trek tos is that it's so good conceptually. it'll set up a really captivating ethical dilemma. it'll have a premise that could be so politically bold. but every single time the episode takes the most revisionist route possible in how it "deals" with the conflict.

i.e. "Let This Be Your Last Battlefield". a fairly good, albeit very simplified, representation of the oppressor touting peace (as a means to stabilize society by instilling submission from the oppressed) vs. the resistance of the oppressed through necessary violence and disruption of the status quo.

but of course star trek decides to denounce the oppressed's methods as the reason their society is completely destroyed. and they have kirk make some grand speech about how great it is to take a moderate approach and always try to compromise. kill yourself

exact same thing happened with "The Cloud Minders" with them setting up a class divide premise but then doubling back and is like "oh no the people forced to live in the mines and do unpaid labor for the rich people in the clouds just have a biological deficiency built up from exposure to minerals that makes them really angry so lets just solve the anger issue and they can be normal functioning citizens in the mines again!" "and maybe we'll ask the people in the cloud castle to maybe give them better wages too and maybe come up to the castle sometimes!" it is LITERALLY THE IVORY TOWER

let's see, similar acts of cowardice happen in

mark of gideon

dagger of the mind

conscience of the king (kind of though this could be justified by kirk's internal struggle)

the omega glory

plato's stepchildren

Patterns of Force (this one gets praised ALL THE TIME about being anti-fascist but literally they punch like one nazi and then the resolution of the episode is them being like 'people can change! let's leave all the existing government officials in place and just tell them to be nice to the people they committed genocide against from now on! they were just mislead it's not their fault!' like i would think kirk would be a little more resistant to just fucking letting them be considering how ready he was to arm the populace in A Private Little War?)

the writers also have this issue where they can't stand to see societies not "progressing" by basing the value of their lives on innovation and capital. so places like the tribe in "The Apple" somehow become things to be fixed by western notions of progress? but yeah just go settler colonialism right?

[rotzaprachim]

idk this is a discussion for Jews (and other marginalized people) but I’ve always felt really iced out of or even disturbed by people esp goyim casually stating support for Jews “killing our oppressors” as the Solution for all our problems when the reality is that antisemites outnumber Jews by such incredible numbers that the result would be incredible carnage and also it’s all a sign of how little goyim really reckon with antisemitism as a widespread and potent modern force.

Furthermore while I am in no way here wishing to describe Palestinians as our oppressors, the idea that what an oppressed group actually needs to be safe is just violence and to be armed- to be Jews with guns, Jews who can fight Back, Jews Tough Enough to respond to what happened to Us- is a huge aspect of the modern ideology that keeps justifying anti Palestinian violence as well as the Zionist “new Jew.” Like the reality here is there’s no way out without asking Jews to profoundly disarm themselves and reevaluate our relationship with militarism, lay down the arms, and that fits uncomfortably with the global reality of antisemitism- also begging the question, why do discussions center the Jews’ culpability for turning towards armed nation state based solutions rather than the world’s culpability for making a profoundly non violent people kneel at the hour or organized militaries and mandated conscription as the only means of safety. The answers to these questions lie at complex junctures of Israeli demilitarization and disarmament and return of land and nation but also global culpabilities to create a world in which Jews don’t need to be Jews with Guns to live but either way it strays so far from either Christian centrist rhetoric of turning the cheek and tumblr cultural Christian rhetoric of maybe if we just killed the right people everything would be fine and the route to Justice of all oppressed peoples is violence (regardless of what happens when multiple oppressed peoples have been turned against each other, as imperialism loves to make happen)

[chaiaurchaandni]

"whether we like it or not, the leila khaleds of the world are forcing us to pay attention to them."

thoughts:

how interesting that the host says that israel says the Palestinians 'fled' from their homeland while the Palestinians say they were 'driven out' - notice the changing narratives within israel, previously using the excuse that Palestinians themselves left and emptied their houses voluntarily, and now, in 2024, saying that the Palestinians never existed, or that they fought against jews and were driven out in the retaliatory attacks. they change their lies to whichever one suits their agenda more. similarly, back when colonialism was the popular thing to do in europe, herzl openly called for the colonization of Palestine by 'civilised' european jews. now that decolonization is popular, israelis often argue that the nakba and forceful displacement of Palestinians was an act of 'jewish decolonization' and reclamation'

notice how, despite being a Palestinian who literally lived through the nakba, and a resistance fighter herself, leila refuses to center herself. she remains humble, says that she has only done her duty, which is small compared to her cause, she's neither a heroine of a joan of arc. it is important to remember that anyone who truly cares about the cause does not center themselves as individuals. this behaviour is only seen from grifters, such as shaun king or khaled beydoun, who pedestalize themselves within the movement, and act like the sole saviours of the people. meanwhile, sincere and committed activists, like leila, who are on the frontlines, always put the cause above themselves.

notice how she says that the people of the world do not pay attention to Palestinians when israelies forcefully displace Palestinians, when israeli bombs kill Palestinians and their children, but these people only pay attention when the palestinians fight back. still rings true to this day, the violence of the oppressor is seen as the norm, the violence of the oppressed is seen as 'unprovoked, uncivilised, meaningless.' remember that before oct 7, 2023 was already one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the WB. remember that israel has bombed Gaza several times in the past.

important that she points out how religion has little to do with the cause of Palestinian liberation itself. it is not a muslim cause. meanwhile the oppression of Palestinians and theft of Palestinian homeland is still justified on the basis of the religion of judaism.

im surprised by how patient she is. she says that she does not expect to see a free Palestine in her lifetime because a struggle such as hers takes DECADES. despite this, she strongly believes that one day, Palestine will be free. she says: "we believe that a popular revolution needs a long time. and time is with the people, always, not against them, when they use it properly and i think we are beginning to use the time properly"

when she said she has only seen heifa, her hometown in palestine, from the air ........... </3

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

Funniest shit ever is realising 90% of all BNHA villain groups are just Senator Armstrong using a different ideology to justify the same "Darwinist Restructuring of Society" he's always going on about.

AFO wants Japan to fall to Anarchy so he can become the Demon king with him at the top in a world where only the strong survive.

The MLA also want Japan to lose all regulations and quirk laws so they can get to the top as the 1%ers who are therefore totally going to thrive in a world with no protections (their members are literally Elon Musk, a major politician, a traditional media mogul, a new media mogul, and a fucking inbred aristocrat, they are Ancaps).

Shie Hassaikai want to erase all quirks o they can be on top as the only ones with Quirks in a world with no more protections against them.

Humarise also wants to kill all quirked people only sparing their members to have the monopoly on quirk violence in the future.

Nine wants to also do Darwinism but with himself and his friends as living gods.

Like holy shit every major single villain in bnha is a variation of "I want society to become The Purge 24/7 with me as the one on top and I'm going to justify it with some bullshit excuse."

The only two outliers are Stain, who wants actually more police state brutality and for cops not to be paid, and Gentle Criminal who is just Jerma.

Just saying, that's a weird recurring theme, especially since outside of the MLA most of those groups are made of the lowest ranks of society whose members want to do The Purge 24/7 also as a way to get a better life for themselves since capitalist hero society is kinda shitty toward them.

"When education is lacking liberation becomes the dream of the oppressed to become the oppressor" and all that.

[canmom]

this fucking circus of 'project the Israeli flag on every available surface as the bombs fall', from the govs of every Western country, is so indescribably bleak. there's not even the pretense of both-sidesing 'oh it's so sad that they're killing each other over there' anymore, no mealy-mouthed 'we hope for a quick end to the violence', it's just full on cheering for the side carrying out a retaliatory massacre.

if you treated any population the way the two million-ish people in Gaza have been treated - if, for more than a (significantly curtailed) lifetime, you restrict their access to food, water, medicine, and electricity, strangle their economy, uphold an apartheid system with different legal rights based on ethnicity, prevent them from leaving, put invasive checkpoints on every other street, routinely blow up their homes, have snipers maim and kill people - if you leave no possibility that things could get better in the future...

well, orthogonal to what's 'moral', it's simply unsurprising someone in that situation would sooner or later try to fight back, however futilely. fuck, we saturate our media with stories of heroic rebels standing up against oppressors - it's not a foreign idea. it's not complicated to recognise that as long as conditions are so horrible, and so obviously, undeniably caused by Israel, organisations like Hamas will be able to position themselves as liberators.

but the Western Overton window seems to squarely centre on the idea that Hamas shooting back retroactively justifies the whole system of repression, and in fact it should probably be stepped up a notch. Netanyahu is out there talking like a fucking Final Fantasy villain about genociding the whole Strip, the Security Minister's throwing around phrases like 'human animals', and it still gives no one pause. like where the fuck is anyone in Gaza supposed to go? on one side is a massive wall and a warzone, on the second is Egypt's closed border, and on the third is the fucking ocean. so, what, run to a refugee camp elsewhere in Gaza? no, Israel will bomb that too.

(but of course (sigh) "geopolitics" overrides everything, always. the conclusion is already written, the justification is an afterthought. the West wants to keep its loyal, dependent outpost, so the Palestinians have to die. "it's so tragic, but there's no other option, you see? Hamas definitely steals all the aid ever. we can't imagine doing anything other than sending boxes of food of course. it's a difficult problem! now quick, sell the Israelis some more bombs, they'll run out at this rate.")

[fiercynn]

I cannot equate the Hamas attacks to what Israel is doing, and has been doing for years, to the Palestinians - no matter how much people have been insisting that I do so. Not because I ever support the killing of anyone, “innocent” or not, I promise you that I do not support such violence. But because to do so would be inaccurate and dangerous. The systemic oppression of a people, the ethnic cleansing of a people, the genocide against a people, is not the same thing as the horrific actions of those acting violently in response to oppression, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. That does not mean that I am saying that it feels any different to you, my friends who have lost loved ones, who have lost community members, who have been made to feel unsafe by these attacks. But when we decide on a larger socio-political scale that the personal matters as much as, or even more than, the systemic in issues that are clearly systemic in nature, we will always default to prioritizing those who are more valued in society. We will default to humanizing one, and dehumanizing the other. And we will find ourselves signed on to systemic retribution that does not feel that it is responsible for what it does. This is what keeps justifying the violent oppression of millions of people for decades. This is what emboldens people to say that the safety of one people must mean the loss of freedom of another. This is what enables the idea that one population has to prove that they “deserve” their freedom, by insisting on staying meek and silent under violent oppression. This carries the fantasy that healthy, liberal, peace-loving ways of organizing and governing can thrive in a space where people are brutalized every day - and the fantasy that it can exist for their oppressors as well.

- ijeoma oluo on october 16, 2023. please consider subscribing to her newsletter ijeoma oluo: behind the book.