Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis: Many Black Americans are one generation away from formal authoritarianism. That's not how we often talk about policies like Jim Crow but that's what it was.

to clarify: life under authoritarians is often boring and normal for many people until it all of a sudden isn’t, and of course it’s that uncertainty that causes the corrosion.

Living under authoritarian regimes is both relatively boring and normal AND incredibly corrosive to the human soul. These things can absolutely co-exist. This is why everyone needs to resist authoritarians, even people who privately assume they’ll be just fine.

A lot of Americans do know what it's like to live under an authoritarian regime. My parents do. Many immigrants ended up in the US because they were fleeing authoritarianism (sometimes US backed). Offhand Haitians, Dominicans, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Koreans all know.

Many Black Americans are one generation away from formal authoritarianism. That's not how we often talk about policies like Jim Crow but that's what it was.

Many are survivors of it.

This is why I always got so f—ing pissed at left intellectuals who minimized Trumpism by pointing to Jim Crow and Nixon, as if that wasn’t *evidence * of the danger.

Segregation really wasn't that long ago. deepcuts.blog/2021/06/19/j...

Jim Crow, Science Fiction, and WorldCondeepcuts.blog No black fans had become active to any extent by 1957, but females without brothers or husbands in fandom became more numerous. The one who attracted the most notice was Lee Hoffman, whom everyone had...

past or future?

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