Online discourse once again shows its ass, but this time it takes form in folks misunderstanding what it means to be a settler and complicit.
For all the hollow conversation about privilege, they did not take the logic present and take it to its furthest conclusion. I’ll present the argument being made then I will attack it. I won’t name the twitter user since she seems incapable of handling critique and stress and its her argument that matters anyways. She was pissed at the site of a zine, calling it transmisogyny, and the trans author of said zine was merely pointing out that in the struggle for trans liberation we may lose access to necessary medications because actively engaging in resistance against empire would undermine your ability to access it.
That is a completely reasonable take.
This liberal rants “it is not okay to demand anyone sacrifice healthcare or go to prison for your crusade, esp those of us who are more at risk.” which having seen the zine, is such a leap considering that author was not demanding a thing, it was rather lowkey in its tone.
It is the typical gut check assumption that someone who would make such a claim cannot be one of the people more at risk because people who are more at risk are somehow never capable of a militant understanding of resistance, that desptie our health issues, disabilities, whatever, we would not be willing to jeopardize ourselves further for a cause because.. Why would we?
The logic only works if you assume reform is the only solution here which is clearly the case with the amount of white trans women playing counterinsurgent in the comments, referring to the author of said zine as being suicidal or lashing out on emotions. Nevermind reducing a trans author’s critiques of the current trans liberalism being invalidated, calling it emotional, that in itself isn’t transmisogynistic right?
We can only ever approach change as safely as possible in a way that does not disturb ourselves as individuals, which is so deeply tied to the status quo.
I’ll take a step further because I am meaner on this than the author.
If you are unwilling to risk yourself, not just in confrontation with police and military, but unwilling to jeopardize your health because your health is deeply connected with the maintenance of the violent settler status quo, then you have been offered a bribe of blood money and took it. This is not even exclusive to the topic of health, but of lifestyle, of food, the list goes on and is far from exclusive to trans healthcare. If you’re unwilling to get into trouble because trouble means a denial of “benefits”, whether from the state or corporation, and you want those “benefits” so you’re willing to avoid getting in trouble:
That is the essence of settler complicity even if you are one of the historically oppressed groups.
I use the term benefits loosely and only in the ways of which they are presented, but I’ll coin it as what it is. If you’re unwilling to get into trouble because trouble means a denial of necessities, whether from the state or corporation, and you want those necessities, so you’re willing to avoid getting in trouble:
The argument remains the same. They are paying you to not resist and you are choosing not to resist. You’re a settler taking blood money, even if you had indigenous ancestry.
People love to understandably condemn veterans participating in a regime and potentially committing violence to receive material benefits of the state, but you’re suddenly the bad person if you extend that logic to the everyday settler who materially benefits from its operations even if they disagree with it. It is the same logic that liberals seemingly condemn among conservatives, “You condemn it publicly, then enjoy it in private” that you condemn the violence of empire and yet reap its rewards?
“There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism” correct and a cop out, but there is also actual resistance and then there’s counterinsurgency that we call it reform. You are not speaking from a position of analysis, from a position of strategy, you are speaking because you don’t want to feel complicit when you are, and it is an insecurity you are unable to tangle with, a face you are unwilling to look at in the mirror.
Every justification to not immediately overthrow empire, every justification to reform, every personal reason to justify the violent hierarchy, whenever you say, “We can’t do this because it would endanger us” what you are really saying is, “Yeah, we are killing other people, but we can’t risk us too to try to stop it.”
It is a constant reminder that harm reduction, for many cases, is not a real thing. Sure, it is real when it comes to a needle exchange, but voting for Kamala Harris was characterized as harm reduction and we know it was not. No. It is harm displacement. You are presented with blood money and you become the most vocal proponent of displacing harm, not mitigating it.