Fascism doesn’t usually arrive with torches and parades. It creeps in through culture, through habits of thought and language that make authoritarian politics feel normal. We explore Umberto Eco’s Ur-Fascism alongside today’s U.S. landscape, asking what we’re willing—and unwilling—to get used to.
How was this possible? The northern states were far more populous- at least in terms of those eligible to vote. But remember at that point, the criteria for eligibility was white, male landowners. But they wanted to have something available in the system to account for total population- women, children, ….and slaves.
I am not offering this list as any definitive “you should absolutely add this to your reading/listening/watching”. But I thought I would share with you all the resources I’ve been working through to gain a better understanding of the past, present, and future of us as a people, as Americans, and specifically of systematic, unwarranted, invisible white privilege.
It’s no wonder so many always wants to go back to “the good ol’ days”, because when we have it great, and we’re the ones riding high on power and wealth, the only things we see through our rose-tinted-backward-facing lenses are the high points. Not the individuals or people groups whose lives were destroyed to get there.
