Four days ago, on my daily #FuckFascism stroll amid the gorgeous natural beauty of a progressive US city where cutesy-expensive homes have “Black Lives Matter,” “trans rights are human rights,” and “peace” signs on their front lawns, I walked by a house that has a basket of free chalk out front, urging passersby to write something. There on the sidewalk was “love is not the enemy,” which I’m still not sure I understand.
Three days ago, someone else had chalked “rest in piss Kirk,” perhaps gesturing toward a tangible enemy. Yet two days ago, the “RIP” had been nearly buffed clean from the concrete—with remnants of illegible letters left over.
One day ago—next to the untouched “love is not the enemy”—another person had written “Hate fascists, love your friends” on the sidewalk in two different colors. I took a photo and posted it to my “stories” here, kind of guessing that like my “stories,” this slogan would not last beyond 24 hours in light of the posi-liberal adornments on most homes.
Sure enough, today, as the christofascist regime’s gears are cranking overtime to make antifascism the enemy and disappear all dissent, an anonymous do-gooder had taken “direct action” to (try to) erase the “hate fascists” but leave “love your friends”—but apparently doesn’t love their real-life neighbors who still hold the old-fashioned view that fascists and fascism are bad. (Not to wax nostalgic, but I long for the days when you could go to a movie theater to see an entertaining action film about WWII, and the whole audience would cheer on the folks who were battling Nazis and delight when they vanquished fascism.)
Listen liberals: solidarity is our best weapon. It can look as simple as not buffing out antifascist slogans, or as hard(er) as emotionally, materially, and/or ethically loving your neighbors enough to protect and defend them from fascism—sticking by each other even if you’re discomforted (in which case, read rad books, say, or chat with anarchists instead).
“We are all antifascists” should be on the lips and embodied in the practices of everyone (who isn’t a fascist), or else you’ve implicitly chosen a side: the wrong, hateful, authoritarian, deadly one.
