*deep breath* If the antifascist (esp. American-centered) art you make or consume refuses to acknowledge the truth that framing this time period as the "sudden rise of fascism" along with its supposed volatility (i.e. "it can't last; that's not how its built") is just a comforting construct to keep white Americans from reckoning with their literal centuries of active and passive participation in this country's fascist, genocidal violence against Indigenous and Black people, your art isn't just wrong...it's worthless. How can you imagine dismantling unjust systems without seeing the blood on your own hands? How do you comprehend the size of the fight for mutual liberation without seeing that the scale of the threat is exponentially larger than your personal experience of the danger of state violence; or is your envisioned win condition only as shallow as the return to your previous sense of safety?
Ignoring the complexities and well-established enmeshment of fascism in Western culture for the sake of simpler stories to inspire rising to this moment in history only builds fair-weather fighters ill-prepared for the rigors of revolutionary action. It also widens the rift between those newly awakened to the struggle and their neighbors that have lived it for generations (and have built and maintained systems of community support and resistance that have protected them for just as long).
If antifascist art doesn't first demand you turn the eye inward, it is only escapist fluff.
