I have always been a big fan of Clementine Morrigan. I found her work in a Toronto bookstore and it significantly changed my understanding and approach to trauma. I appreciate her writing around Attachment Theory, discussions around basic human needs, kink and feel that her zines, Love Without Emergency, Fucking Crazy and Fucking Girls are helpful and unique resources. However, she made an Instagram post that I have been struggling with since its publication. The post reads: “A homophobic christian is not our enemy”, “A xenophobic conservative is not our enemy”, “A right wing conspiracy theorist is not our enemy”, “these are all exploited people living on a dying planet forced to give the majority of the fruits of their labour to a parasitical class who is happy to provide them various scapegoats for their anger and despair”, “If we turn them into scapegoats we are playing right into the hands of the ruling class who want to make sure we stay locked in a culture war and never discover our common interests and the power of the numbers if we band together”, “The anecdote to bigotry is solidarity”.
When someone disagrees with her post and comments, “This reads like the mantra of middle of the road liberalism to me. Like the aim of benneton ads in the 1980s. I don’t think we can reasonably expect to achieve true solidarity with people who want us dead”. Clementine responds with, “Look up lesbians and gays support the miners, which is a great example of what I’m talking about here. This is not liberalism. This is the path to a united working class against capital. Homophobes and other bigots are scapegoating. But their real anger and despair comes from the way they are treated under capitalism. It has been shown that unions, for example, decrease racial prejudice by building real relationships and creating a common goal to struggle toward. We absolutely can and should find solidarity with other exploited people who have been convinced to scapegoat us. Not only is it good for everyone involved but it is literally the only chance we have against capitalism. We simply don’t have the numbers otherwise”.
As someone who has experienced homophobia and violence by rightwing religious individuals, including my biological parents, I struggle with the idea of, “turning the other cheek” that Clementine seems to be alluding to. That because of the reality that we are all inherently struggling under a capitalist system, we need to strive for solidarity if we want change to occur. Even if the groups we are seeking solidarity with, have caused us or others harm.
I believe that within situations in where our material needs are similar, such as the example of LGTBQ+ folks supporting miners, solidarity can make sense. Having unions develop benefit the working class people, despite what their individual values are. However, having similar material needs and working in solidarity for a specific outcome where the desire of the outcome is the same, does not make opposing groups allies overall. Certainly not enough to change the system of capitalism. Taking the far end of a group of people and expecting them to fight for larger systemic change which would include change for a part of the population they wish to be dead, doesn’t make sense to me. I will say, that I believe there is a spectrum within bigotry. I believe there are the people who are “gettable” and people who are not. There are people who will fight alongside us for material gains, but will not fight with us for all basic human rights. In fact, much of the time they are a barrier to these types of development. Their political stance is one that is motivated by fear of change.
Joshua Khan Russell is a social movement facilitator. He discusses that when it comes to tangible social change, resources need to be prioritized not towards those who are on the far opposite of the cause, but those who are somewhere in the middle. He describes these groups as active allies, passive allies, neutral, passive opposition and active opposition.
The people in the middle are those who hold values and beliefs open to shifting with resource and information sharing. I feel that these are the people that would recognize the capitalism trap Clementine speaks to. These are the people who I see the act of solidarity extending beyond material and niche needs. I do not believe that queer people working in solidarity with alt-right religious fundamentalists for the purposes of a union, would lead to solidarity in fighting for gay rights. In addition, I believe that in saying “Capitalism made me do it”, bigotry and hate towards others is deemed excusable. Clementine has shared her views on accountability and is openly anti-cancel culture. Most, of her views on these topics, I disagree with. In my opinion, If we are going to join forces to fight for larger systemic change, repair needs to happen between groups. This is most likely to happen with the people in the neutral or passive opposition stance. Not with the active opposition groups.
In order to connect with the people in the passive opposition and neutral stance, we cannot attack them. If this is what Clementine means by “they are not our enemy”, I think there needs to be clarity around this vague statement. While I would not call every christian a homophobe, I would undoubtedly called a fundamentalist anti-trans christian a homophobe and frankly, not want them to be a part of the movement for socialism and human rights. If the inherent values of the persons we are trying to recruit for change, are actively in opposition with what is being fought for, I do not understand why we would spend capacity on including those individuals.
Vivek Chibber, a social theorist, speaks to this well when he discusses the inclusion of the white working class. We need the number of the masses, who are the working class, to impact change. In order to appeal to them, we cannot alienate and criticize them as a whole group. We can educate them and hope that their values shift with education. He brings the example of how Bernie Sanders approached conservative leaning voters. The individuals who will never fight for change with us, are the elite and capitalists. In addition to focusing our efforts on the neutral and passive opposition, we need a core ideological value system. This is something that I do not inherently believe the active opposition would bring in regards to an anti-capitalist society. Lastly, there needs to be an organizer, which to date there is none.
We do not need everyone to make change. The civil rights movement is an example of this. The queer movements of the 60s and 70s are an example of this. These movements did not have the support of everyone in order to impact the great level of change that occurred which impacted systems of oppression. I do not believe that people who inherently promote and act in support of capitalism, will fight against it.
Solidarity with people who continue to cause harm, is not true solidarity. This is not to say that we condemn those people without the opportunity for redemption. However, the time it takes for repair to occur depends on the amount of harm caused and the attempt to repair made. There is also a significant difference between class solidarity and social solidarity. The homophobe may not be my class enemy, but they certainly are my enemy against the action needed to make the world a place where queer folks have equal rights and access to safety. Making a blanket statement about solidarity is a disservice to the fight for socialism and change itself as it does not properly educate people about how to focus resources and capacity to recruit for a different society. Rather, it gives the illusion of justification for harm and a false sense of hope that the people on the side of opposition, will one day fight with us. I argue, they wont. Furthermore, I argue that we do not need them to.
This is so well argued. Thank you for speaking against this very harmful idea. Trying to extend olive branches to people with machetes who will cut my hand off when I do is not fucking helpful. I'm so tired of centrism and this idea that minority groups have to somehow become more appealing to hateful bigots in order to "earn" a place in society. I think that capitalism is a shit show, for sure, but only because it is so aggressively coupled with meritocracy. I don't think capitalism is as much a mutual enemy of the christian white working class and marginalized communities as meritocracy is. If we can begin the work of shifting our social core values away from this toxic idea I think capitalism would fix itself. But as you said... we need a powerful, recognized, and respected organizer in order to even BEGIN this process.