“‘We’ is plural, meaning more than one. Appropriate because, as individuals, we interact with other individuals and, regardless of our designs, do not live in a vacuum. Since that is the case, who we are with is part of the answer to where we are, and the answer to what we are doing with who we are with is part of the answer to where we are going.”– Kuwasi Balagoon

With every pressing disaster that takes headlines by storm, it becomes more apparent that the U.S. is a country overrun with selfishness. Capitalism encourages it societally, and social norms like wasteful consumerism and celebrity worship reinforce some of its worst features at the microcosmic level. It’s not surprising that this is a place where the wholesale destruction of people in avoidable crises gets neglected. We can observe this with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, attacks on reproductive health, and the U.S.-backed genocide in Palestine. Though some might look shocked or confused at the state of things, it makes complete sense. While resisting the established terms that maintain the status quo, we must recognize how it all conditions the public to reject collectivity. Those who don’t accept that rejection become targets. Despite the widespread popularization (and misrepresentation) of the term “mutual aid,” the reality of what’s unfolded in recent years is a call to action. 

Before 2020, many of us would have had a hard time believing that more than a million people dying in the U.S. would be of little to no consequence. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed some of the worst aspects of people’s disregard for others domestically and internationally. After initially denying a novel disease was even a threat by reducing it to “just a flu,” much of the public refused to quarantine to stop its spread. With no universal healthcare, existing medical infrastructure was pushed to near collapse. The U.S. then proceeded to hoard medicine, while U.S. companies rushed to patent vaccines, treating the rest of the world as lesser. Preventative acts like vaccination and masking were also misrepresented by partisan politics instead of being treated as a common-sense public health response; the latter has now become, or is at risk of becoming, criminalized in many places, too. The political establishment and the administrators of the state have treated us all as disposable. Still, there isn’t a substantial enough movement to defend our well-being with healthcare for all or even honor those lost during this period. 

Another horrific development in the realm of healthcare has been the assault on reproductive rights. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a tidal wave of problems has been unleashed. The anti-abortion states immediately took advantage of the opportunity to create total bans and restricted lifesaving medications like misoprostol because they can be used for abortions. The right-wing political establishment plans to implement a national ban through a prospective Republican presidency using the Comstock Act of 1873. However, in the meantime, there’s been a spike in pregnant women being turned away from hospital emergency rooms, and ProPublica recently reported that at least two women in Georgia died after they couldn’t access legal abortions and timely medical care in their state. And again, collective-minded people working to restore care and help others access abortion are being targeted. The pattern emerges again at the international level when we consider the active genocide the U.S. is sponsoring against Palestinians. 

The most simplistic analyses of U.S. foreign policy have reduced the systematic annihilation of Palestinians to a mere election issue. It’s even become a point of contention that has led some Black commentators and devoted liberal constituents in the U.S. to trivialize the internationalist aspects of the Black radical tradition. The widespread us versus them tides sweeping the country are not new, but the far-right currents washing over all sides of the political spectrum are conditioning it. Perhaps this is why even liberals have more openly embraced xenophobic anti-immigrant politics and excused the Biden administration’s support of Israel. Genocide happening in front of our very faces is being dismissed in favor of a transactional, capitalist approach to solidarity. The relationship between how this is playing out domestically and internationally tells us more. 

Death and destruction are fundamental ingredients in the recipe for empire, not aberrations from it. Therefore, those of us who are challenged with fighting against this might ask how we get people to care more.

There is a sacrificial way people within the U.S. empire approach the desire to maintain their comforts. This isn’t surprising either when you consider how the devastation of the Democratic Republic of Congo is driven by the consumption of wealthy countries like the U.S. It’s of little to no consequence for apathetic, self-defeating, or uncaring masses. Anything can become the norm in a place that regularizes the wholesale slaughter of children in school shootings or imperialist perpetual warfare. Death and destruction are fundamental ingredients in the recipe for empire, not aberrations from it. Therefore, those of us who are challenged with fighting against this might ask how we get people to care more. 

One of our priorities should be promoting selflessness over self-centeredness. It’s very important during a time when desperation and cutthroat mentalities prevail, nourished by a fascist political environment. That’s not to say we don’t matter as individuals, but to say we are the models for what we hope to change. It’s not a dictum for self-professed leadership over people who aren’t conscious or involved. That’s also not a call to pacifism because, frequently, care requires unrelenting force to preserve ourselves. However, it’s certainly an indictment of the current state of the left, which has monumentally failed in many regards on the issues I mentioned above and others. Sectarianism, sloganeering, and dogmatic repetitions have not met needs. We’re inundated with a left culture of spectatorship and endless content creation that divorces us from reality. 

The New Afrikan anarchist Kuwasi Balagoon once wrote, “There is no one act an individual can perform that can change these things in an instant and nothing that a small group of people can do except begin to create ways of defending themselves and, more importantly, organize and initiate organizing of large groups of people in the neighborhood and area; as in all the neighborhoods and areas. The main thing is to focus on your lives collectively, rather than accept the definitions and descriptions of others.” This doesn’t necessarily mean just joining any organization or mindlessly following past models of what worked in different conditions at different times. Balagoon continued, “The things that you can confirm through your experiences must be more creditable than those things that you cannot … there is no book that will liberate anyone. A book may give ideas, but it takes people to apply, adapt, and if they don’t work disregard and develop and find new ones.” 

Novelty may be an illusion. What’s new to some may not be new to others and may have been tried before. That doesn’t change the fact that we should be attending to the overlooked and underappreciated tactics laid out by many who came before us and lesser-known living amongst us now. Look around and ask where the model is. Are the radicals, organizations, and self-proclaimed left vanguards at war with things of no consequence or the repressive state? Pay attention to who’s trying to help others and who hopes to promote themselves. A struggle that involves those who gain nothing from the state of things and suffer the most won’t be made up of people who don’t know what target to fire. The oversaturation of petty armchair content creator radicalism and punditry needs to fade. 

Seeing what lies ahead and being right about it isn’t the victory we might think it is. Being prepared means coordinating our efforts as much as possible to protect the people we care about. As much as we could have foreseen what’s happened with the pandemic, reproductive health, and much more, we should be working to circumvent what lies ahead. We can maintain our autonomy while collectively addressing the issues around us directly. When we do, we exemplify the foundation it takes to build the power needed to force wholesale change in this society.