Connecting ourselves across race lines takes dedicated work and practice, intentional focus, self-awareness, other-awareness, radical hospitality, hope, compassion, empathy, and love. (So says the older [63], white, privileged guy raised on racism, capitalism, and the “American Dream”…) Building meaningful relationships across race, class, gender, abilities, geography, faith/non-faith/spiritual lines, and more, requires, well, more effort still. But not that much more. Because, as I’ve discovered, once one barrier is broken, the second, third, fourth, and fifth barriers melt away with greater and greater ease. That’s the beauty — yes beauty! — of anti-Fascism in its highest form.
In a strange and awkward way, Fascism is a gift. It clarifies all that is ugly and evil in the world. (See https://www.americanfascists.us/the-three-cornerstones-of-american-fascism/) The opposite of ugly and evil, the best practiced version of anti-Fascism, is pro-Democracy: radical, bottom-up, participatory, non-violent, hospitable, hopeful, and loving.
Sounds simple, right? It’s not, of course. And it’s one major reason why the American experiment has gone sideways, in reverse, actually, especially during and since the watershed year 1968: Tet (Vietnam), MLK, Columbia U, Bobby Kennedy, Chicago Democratic Convention, and election of Nixon. Globally, events in Vietnam, Japan, Paris, Prague, Mexico City — and in a thousand more locations — reverberated the same, or similar, anti-Fascism and pro-Democracy demands in the streets, only to be crushed by State Power wedded to Corporate Power, Dominant Race Power, and local power (mob, religious, feudal family, land-owning, courts, police, and finance).
So this is why anti-Racism work is vital but not enough; it must be anti-Fascism and it must be global. We fight for universal transformative justice for all citizens, here and around the globe. For an injustice to one is an injustice to all.