Safety, Solidarity, and Symbols
“There is a woman who doesn’t hate me.” — Christopher Penczak
Before the election you saw a curious phenomena of people who supported Trump—his most radical supporters—band together and use a set of common symbols to prop themselves up and to show their allegience.
One of these, to the confusion of everyone, was Pepe the frog. Showing up in Twitter avatars, on facebook, on message boards, and on images behind Trump at rallies. It became a rallying symbol.
Another was the word “deplorable.” I don’t think using this label was a mistake, but rather an accurate reflection: We are, after all, dealing with actual white nationalists.
“Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.” — Will Rogers
After the election we saw a strong need to rally together. We saw the need for solidarity and especially as the number of hate crimes started to tick upward and become very visible against members of our own communities and in our own neighborhoods, some people came up with the idea to use the thing that started in Britain: Using safety pins to represent solidarity with the cause. To communicate “I am here for you.”
But of course, we are liberals, so we if we can’t be perfect we are going to argue about it, and we’ve spent a lot of time arguing about it.
Is it proper allyship to wear them? What if the people who are wearing safety pins aren’t quite willing to take a bullet? What do you mean safe? Could we pick a different symbol? Is this strictly a white thing? What about these PoC who are using it, don’t mind it, or do/don’t like it and are speaking for themselves about it? Do we need a symbol that is more difficult as a shibboleth so that white nationalists somehow can’t mimic it? What about a different set of symbols? Is it sufficient to just wear a Black Lives Matter pin? Why doesn’t everyone just co-opt the #BlackLivesMatter symbols to say the same thing? Is that more or less problematic? Could they at least donate to a cause? Maybe they already have? Does the ACLU count after Skokie? Have you met this checklist to see if you actual qualify as a safe person? Have you ever in your life not been a perfect ally? Is it really necessary to have a symbol or set of symbols? Do these symbols mean anything anyways? Do they need to work for everyone or is it okay if they work for a subset?
Seriously now.
The ACLU and SPLC both adopted it briefly for their twitter avatars—along with several Congressmembers including several who are also PoC—but saw immediate backlash from liberals, inclusive of a bunch of white liberals. PoC and Queer people who were defending the safety pin were being attacked and having their identities erased (or treated as if their concerns didn’t matter in the case of Queers especially), people who were speaking out against the safety pin were also being attacked in utterly horrific and inexcusible ways.
We have been using thousands upon thousands of words to basically argue whether it is appropriate to show solidarity. As Anoosh Jorjorian wrote:
We are not now and will never be a monolith. We are never going to agree on every single philosophy, action, and strategy. That’s OK. Disagreement and opposing points of view are good and can strengthen us. But harsh policing, rigid discipline to an orthodoxy, and litmus tests of righteous purity or standards of “wokeness” can destroy our movement as surely as an autocratic regime can.
Meanwhile, meanwhile…
We have a presumed President-Elect who is openly lying and questioning the validity of an election he is presumed to have won. Something that is likely to lead to further voter disenfranchisement.
We have a presumed President-Elect who is appointing a bunch of white nationalists to important positions. After running a campaign founded on white nationalism, bigotry against Muslims, and fear of immigrants (usually all in the same package).
We have a presumed President-Elect who shows every sign of being unstable and holding personal grudges.
We have a presumed President-Elect who has made a series of fascist statements.
We have a presumed President-Elect who has vowed to throw out a bunch of the policies that are helping people right now for what amounts to purely ideological reasons.
We have a presumed President-Elect who is talking about basically just opting out of climate treaties and diplomatic progress around the world.
We have a presumed President-Elect with investments in the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline.
We have a SCOTUS appointment from the current sitting President that is not likely to receive a vote, in violation of all precedent and possibly law.
We have the potential of flipping a Senate race in Louisiana.
I can go on.
We have people on the left, inclusive of Bernie Sanders, who are trying to distance themselves from marginalized groups and maybe pick up some of those white nationalist votes for themselves:
When They Say Stop Doing “Identity Politics,” They Mean Stop Fighting For Civil Rights
The nationalists and the fascists across continents and timespans adopt symbols to help define them and unify them:
These symbols help show that they are not alone. They help provide a symbol of solidarity and that, even if they agree on nothing else, they have certain core principles in common.
We use symbols in other contexts similarly: Ribbons, Armbands. Our opposition uses swastikas, a stoned frog, and the word “deplorable” in what I’m sure they think is ironic.
But evidently we would rather argue about whether someone “gets to stand in solidarity” than accept help. We devolve into fighting between marginalized groups rather than addressing the scope of the fear:
“Home isn’t home anymore, it turns out, and public transport is a waking nightmare of not meeting anyone’s eyes while making sure i’m near other people of colour because at least we can maybe have solidarity in numbers.
“Seeing a safety pin is a nice little reminder in this weird scary new world that actually, maybe it’s not everyone.” (On Safety Pins, Tabassum Rasheed)
A lot of discussion around how to be a good ally is warranted and criticizing when people aren’t is also warranted. Talking about reasonable behavior and expectations is great, as well as the limitations of virtue signaling. By all means, let’s have those discussions. We have a long history of problematic allies and “ally theater,” and that’s something we still need to talk about.
Wear one or don’t. Think it is a good idea or not. Even continue to say that it is a good idea or not and the reasons. Please, however, see the value in showing solidarity, even if it is a minimal step. We need to see the value in those symbols for personal reminders, even if they don’t work for us. We also need to not be attacking people who don’t share our symbol set.
We are not a monolith and that diversity is part of our strength, though it is sad to me that we are so not a monolith that we can’t even seem to let people rally behind the flags (or not) that are meaningful to them (or not).
Regardless, can we keep our eye on what is happening outside of our various methods of showing solidarity?
To close with a quote from Ste Kinney-Fields:
Please don’t stop people from connecting.
Please don’t stop people from taking the burden off of those who always carry it.
Please don’t shame people for not already being a good enough ally.
Instead, teach people how to step up, so they can be ready.
Instead, tell people they are expected to share this work.
Instead, show up for people when they need you.
It will be hard; do it anyway.
You will mess up; try anyway.
Show that you are working on it.
Don’t wait until you are “good enough.”
Just keep doing the work to learn how to be better prepared.
But don’t wait.
Please.
