Solidarity is Hard
Let’s talk about a word I use a lot. Solidarity is a fundamental concept in Marxism, socialism, and all worker-focused left-wing tendencies. Without solidarity, you can have no socialism, no communism, no leftism. You cannot win.

Solidarity fundamentally means standing together with others. It means recognizing your shared struggle. You do not need to have solidarity with your coworker, doing the same labor as you for the same wage. They are in the same position you are in. When you stand shoulder to shoulder with them, you are fighting for your own rights as well as theirs.
Solidarity is, instead, for those who are not going through exactly the same thing you are. Solidarity is for your striking brother, while you are sitting comfortably with a good contract. Solidarity is for people of color murdered by the state, when your whiteness protects you. Solidarity is for the LGBTQ community, when you have never faced discrimination based on who you love. Solidarity is understanding that we all face the same opponent, and though the oppression enacted by that enemy strikes us all differently, it all springs from the same source.
Solidarity can be difficult. On the one hand, there can be a temptation to fight your own battles. If you are fighting for your life against people who want to strip away your health care or your livelihood, it can be hard to empathize with a struggle whose stakes are less than life or death. On the other hand, allies, even committed ones, run the risk of making the struggle about them. For those who do not understand the stakes, protest becomes a form of LARPing; the goal is to see and be seen making a moral stand, not to effect lasting change.
Even if you go into the movement with the right attitude and the right goals, solidarity is hard. Let me tell you a secret: sometimes, the oppressed and marginalized who must fight for their rights are not good people. I know! It’s shocking. The defining characteristic of capitalism is that it presses down on the noble and ignoble alike. It doesn’t care how good or evil you are; either you are in the capital class, in which case you are protected and comforted, or you aren’t, in which case… you aren’t. Capitalism pretends to meritocracy, but even if it truly did reward the virtuous and punish the sinful, we still would want to smash it. We reject the idea that comfort and happiness are privileges to be doled out to the few; we believe they are rights, which belong to everybody. We do not want to replace unfair capitalism with fair capitalism, because such a thing cannot exist; it is socialism or barbarism.
With that in mind, sometimes you will have to stand with unpleasant people. Rude, ungrateful, small-minded, perhaps possessed of outdated attitudes or biases. Let me be clear here: I’m not talking about the Nazis that marched on Charlottesville and Boston, or the myriad of other fascists even now pouring out of the woodwork. They serve the forces of reaction and seek to strangle socialist revolution in its crib. I’m speaking more about people who want to do the right thing, often workers and the most marginalized, who are not perfect, who are not well-read on theory, whose praxis could use some work.
Solidarity is hard. It means remembering that you’re standing against one of the most powerful, destructive forces on the planet, and keeping that goal in mind. It means meeting people where they are, not where you want them to be. It means seeing all struggle as connected. Though the capitalist hydra has many heads — racism, imperialism, exploitation — they all sprout from the same root, and they all must be sliced off together. Creating a better world for all of us will take all of us.
Labor solidarity means striking together. The most extreme form is a general strike, where all organized industries strike together, paralyzing capitalist society. There are other kinds of solidarity: when the DSA and IWW protest alongside BLM against state-sanctioned murder, that’s solidarity. When antifa protecy clergy from beating and murder at the hands of Nazis, that’s solidarity too. When DSA chapters fundraise online to go to the convention and chapters across the nation donate, that’s solidarity: you recognize your comrade’s struggle and take it up yourself.
The simplest, most basic form of solidarity there is is simply recognizing the shared nature of our struggle. That’s important too! Don’t forget it. Spread that awareness if you can. Just understanding that your fight for a higher minimum wage is the same fight as ADAPT’s valiant attempts to block the BCRA/AHCA in Congress. Both fights are important, because both strike at the inequality that lies at the heart of capitalist society. When your neighbor goes to protest the closure of a local women’s health center, go with her. When you go to sit-in at your Congressman’s office against health care cuts, invite your neighbor. Solidarity is our weapon. Our only weapon, if we’re being honest. They have the money, the power, the influence, the media. We have numbers and right on our side. That should be enough… if we can leverage them.
I stand in solidarity with my brothers and sisters across the nation and the world. When I can, I march. When I can’t, I donate. When I can do neither, I write. Everywhere and at all times I try to center the notion that we are in this together, and every step towards liberation for some is a step towards liberation for all.
