I’ve been reading about the development of resistance movements in WWII, and I noticed something that got me thinking.

Resistance in a unified front (i.e. among groups that disagree politically), seems to require some form of shared identity.

  • The fighting front in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (groups including Zionists and Bundists) shared the common identity of being Jewish.

  • The united front in the French resistance (nationalists and communists) shared the common identity of being French1.

I think we can all agree that identifying with American patriotism is entirely reactionary – as a settler colony, there’s basically nothing redeemable there.

Is there an effective shared identity for people in the U$ to resist from?

I feel like the 2020 BLM protests had a shared identity of anti-racism, but it feels like that energy has dissipated.

1: not an identity without controversy, but not as directly reactionary as a full settler colonial national identity.

  • Malkhodr @lemmygrad.ml
    12·
    8 days ago

    Currently, no such progressive identity exists for the US at a national scale. The US undeniably has a culture, but it’s components are completely built by white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism.

    However, I’d say that the US has a wide variety of smaller subcultures which do have elements of a progressive identity to pull from. The first example is of course the black population and their relationship to liberation struggles. Of course there’s the various native peoples who are still confronting settler colonialism. The various communities who are, or have been, undocumented/face the contradictions of the US immigration system have also developed some progressive cultural identity.

    All these groups have faced the effects of US imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy, and so they act as a sort of counter culture. Yet they are still undeniably a part of wider US culture, but I think they’re roll in influencing the current US culture is actually another way for the dominant white culture to license their own bigotry. They take the advances of these struggles and appropriate it to their own identity, diluting it of its revolutionary charecter. The white dominant culture also uses its physical proximity to these subcultures as a way to dismiss notions of bigotry and entrap those within white culture into reaction.

    As I said at first, there exists no progressive national identity for denizens of the US to pull from. However by studying the progressive sub cultures of the marginalized in US soceity, I think we can arrive at a conclusion for how to construct such an identity. All the progressive subcultures subsumed into the greater reactionary whole all built their progressive charecter in their struggle against US hedgomony.

    Therefore, it’s my opinion that some kind of progressive identity will be forged in the process of anti-imperialists building dual power against the state apparatus. In the process of that struggle, a progressive, anti-imperialist shared culture will gradually manifest to counter act the reactionary US culture which currently exists.

    In order to build these structures, we must learn from what worked in the past from the marginalized Americans liberation struggles.

    Those are my thoughts on the matter as a US denizen.

    • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
      3·
      6 days ago

      I think their role in influencing the current US culture is actually another way for the dominant white culture to license their own bigotry. They take the advances of these struggles and appropriate it to their own identity, diluting it of its revolutionary charecter. The white dominant culture also uses its physical proximity to these subcultures as a way to dismiss notions of bigotry and entrap those within white culture into reaction.

      This is a very astute observation.

      Therefore, it’s my opinion that some kind of progressive identity will be forged in the process of anti-imperialists building dual power against the state apparatus. In the process of that struggle, a progressive, anti-imperialist shared culture will gradually manifest to counter act the reactionary US culture which currently exists.

      I think this is the only viable path.

    • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
      8·
      8 days ago

      This is very on the noze. People really do not realize how big and different the US is. There’s a lot of differences of people by state and even sections of state. The only “homogeneous” culture it has is the rampant nationalism and leader worship that’s been installed by over a century of capitalist propaganda. What I like to call the “sportsball mentality” is the majority of their politics. That being "out team good, their team bad, and no thought beyond that.

      If anyone wants to see real, actual “culture” you have to gouch smaller and deeper into things. Even then though, it’s very shallow. I mean, the country is what? Not even 300 years old since all 50 states existed? There are like, sourdough bread cultures in Europe that are twice the age of the US. There’s tea tree farms in China that are probably more than 5 times that age.

      So as far as what OP is looking for. I agree, there’s really nothing here.

    • Nondiegetic (any) @lemmygrad.mlOP
      6·
      8 days ago

      Thanks for weighing in! You’ve given me a direction of study that might be helpful. You’re probably right that an identity would probably built in the act of resistance, something about theory and practice there.