The Fightback May 2025 Part I: Emerging from Historical Erasure
‘Hey! I’m going to be dead in a few hours, so before I go, let’s have this out, you and me, once and for all. Winning? Is that what you think it’s about? I’m not trying to win. I’m not doing this because I want to beat someone, or because I hate someone, or because, because I want to blame someone. It’s not because it’s fun and God knows it’s not because it’s easy. It’s not even because it works, because it hardly ever does.’
I remember receiving a message on one of my social media platforms last year (2024) calling me out because I had chosen to support Kamala Harris. The messenger took issue with my choice because she felt I was only supporting her because of some desire to see a black woman in the White House. There was no question as to why I had chosen to put my singular voice and position behind her, no request for an explanation. Just a judgement and an assessment based upon what they felt was the right reason. Then they blocked me (always an interestingly cowardly one that).
The reason why is now blatantly obvious; it was because for all Harris’ flaws (and there are a great many), for all of the mess the Democratic Party had made of things in their last four years, I knew what was coming. I knew full well that without some kind of political stumbling block a Right Wing, nay neo-fascist nearly-dictatorship, would arrive and wreak havoc on the United States, and then on the world.
What I had not foreseen though, what even I had not been aware of, was the speed and efficiency of the dictatorial movements which have taken place over the first four months or so of this new regime. The changing of names of historical monuments and centres, the removal of anything or anyone seen as Woke, the removal of anything to celebratory of the struggles of minority groups. These are all facets of white patriarchal supremacy, facets which are many and thorough.
These blogs titled ‘The Fightback’ will look at in turn some of the ways in which the rise of this fascist form has started to embed itself into the pages of our current day, or future history books, so that we can learn from the past and the present and be better prepared for when this cyclical pathway of self-destruction inevitably repeats itself again in the future.
‘I do what I do, because it’s right! Because it’s decent! And above all, it’s kind. It’s just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long.’
The first area of consideration is what is called Historical Erasure. The first thing to notice though is that HE is one of the core facets of White Supremacy and always has been. The aim of historical erasure, is to keep history white by removing any efforts or attempts by women, persons of colour, the LGBTQ communities, those who might be neurodivergent, etc, to position themselves as in anyway on an equal par to those who adhere to the tenets of white supremacy (Turner, 2023).
The removal of any aspect of history which might be taught in schools and which might also be seen as challenging of a dominant ideological position is a part of this erasure. Any part of the present or the past both written or spoken, within which whiteness, and in particular white, wealthy, men, are not seen as unimpeachable and incomparable, is therefore erased in its attempts to distort history and elevate one group over all others.
That this is nothing new is obvious, and there are numerous examples of fascist regimes which have worked hard to disrupt or discredit the excellence of those whose racial or religious backgrounds were seen to be too threatening by those in power. Of two simple examples, the burning of Freuds books in the 1930 and 40s, and the removal of Martin Buber from his position as a professor at the University of Frankfurt, both by the Nazis were examples of the attempts to erase both them and their superior position in the present and therefore future historical narratives (Ferrari, 2023; Jacobs, 2003).
‘Hey, you know, maybe there’s no point in any of this at all, but it’s the best I can do, so I’m going to do it. And I will stand here doing it till it kills me. You’re going to die too, some day. How will that be? Have you thought about it? What would you die for?’
I feel like I have been especially quiet these past few months, but I have not been inactive on these fronts. I have been waiting, watching and waiting, sitting patiently as the enemy, my enemy, our enemy, lays out the early stages of its plans. For this particular blog, these are some of the things I have realised:
Firstly, that Historical Erasure is one step away from historical containment and imprisonment, nee Mandela, and only two steps away from the actual death and erasure of say an M.L.K. or a Malcolm X. Historical Erasure is insidious in that it clearly states that mediocrity wins and that any challenge to the racial status quo must be eradicated. HE is the unbalancing of a racial playing field righted by DEI and Wokeness. It is the deadening of the potential of a collective (and I mean of all of us as a species) as it fails to learn that growth comes from all of us, not just from those It has deemed as better than. HE at its core is the child which enviously destroys that which threatens to tear it free from the grandiose fantasy of its own superiority, a specialness which when removed leaves it not only with its own guilt and shame of its actions against an other, but which would realign it with its own existential and fragile humanity (ironically presenting the very Freudian roots to HE).
Secondly, Historical Erasure is an attack on a particular type of freedom. The freedom to identify oneself outside of the white patriarchal gaze. An attack on the right to be seen as other than the stereotypes they need us to code switch into in order for them to feel, and therefore to believe, they are themselves superior. HE becomes an attack on us being mirrored by those who came before us. An attack on our potential to continually become more, to be more, to grow beyond the narrow cultural confines’ adherent to the existence HE.
This battle might seem like it is only stateside, but with a World Wide Trade War currently raging, and the rise of the populist right across Europe as well, this is a war which involves all of us; every ally, every person of difference, ever Other. No matter where we are. No matter how powerful we might feel or seem, or not, there is something each of us can do, a role each of us can play.
Historical erasure in its fabricated elevation of white supremacist fascism over all others aims to force so many of us (including those who thought the leopard wouldn’t eat their face but are now scrambling around for a transplant) into positions of ignorance, and therefore easy supplication.
Like these quotes in bold from an episode of the serial Dr Who, even though things might seem quite bleak, we keep fighting. I fight to be seen. I fight to keep writing This is why I read, why we keep reading, we keep remembering. We read the texts they want removed from schools, from libraries, from bookstores. We read the books they want to burn. As we struggle for our humanity, we remain despite their attempts to erase us.
‘Who I am is where I stand. Where I stand, is where I fall. Stand with me. These people are terrified. Maybe we can help, a little. Why not, just at the end, just be kind?’ (Talalay, 2017)
References
Ferrari, F. (2023). Resistance and Reconciliation: Martin Buber’s Stance towards Nazi and Post-War Germany. In R. Forkel & B. P. Pick. (Eds.), Literarische Interventionen im deutsch-jüdischen Versöhnungsdiskurs seit 1945 (pp. 83–104). Unknown. https://www.academia.edu/109460783/Resistance_and_Reconciliation_Martin_Buber_s_Stance_towards_Nazi_and_Post_War_Germany
Jacobs, M. (2003). Sigmund Freud – Key figures in counselling and psychotherapy (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.
Talalay, R. (2017). Dr Who: The Doctor Falls. BBC Worldwide. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6340142/
Turner, D. D. L. (2023). The Psychology of Supremacy. Routledge.