James Baldwin writing to Angela Davis, “if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night” is the truth. However, I feel that many people have taken this to mean because they will eventually come for you, you should resist and fight back. Because you know they will make their way through the line, you should fight back, as it will soon be you.
But that is not it.
Notice there was no “because” in Baldwin’s statement. Instead, as I understand it, it is that by the time they come for me, they have already come for you. When they come for anyone, everyone should already be fighting back. By the time they come for the first person, everyone should already be ready.
Because of racist ableist capitalist colonialism that breeds individualism, people often only react when they believe are immediately impacted. But what everyone should understand, and what those that are the most oppressed already understand, is that me being attacked is you being attacked. Anyone being attacked is already everyone being attacked. Everyone’s struggle being connected is simultaneous, not temporal or linear. As soon as the first person is attacked, everyone’s liberation is also being attacked at the same time. We are connected by simultaneous interdependence.
When we begin understanding the world not as how the oppressor created the hierarchy, but as one of simultaneity and multiplicity, we can be better equipped to understand that interdependence is not merely a concept that we bring forward to oppose individualism, but it is the very path to building community, to understanding our inextricable connection to each other, and to collective liberation for all of us.
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