negative space

Think about what neg­a­tive space does. 

Like a black and white im­age. What peo­ple don’t say can pro­vide the con­tours and shape of what they be­lieve and who they are. 

So if their con­stant si­lence about po­lit­i­cal and so­cial is­sues is only bro­ken up and punc­tu­at­ed by de­ri­sive talk about an an­tifas­cist move­ment then you don’t need them to post a full throat­ed en­dorse­ment of fas­cist acts to see who and what they are. 

In a time of vi­o­lent acts, what makes the (of­ten pur­port­ed) vi­o­lent acts of An­tifa – which isn’t re­al­ly a thing so much as an idea – such a mo­ti­vat­ing boogey­man for these peo­ple? What is it about that that pulled them off the sidelines? 

Peer group pres­sure and me­dia are cer­tain­ly fac­tors but it’s hard to get some­one to co-sign un­der some­thing they don’t at least most­ly believe. 

If the threat (even if mere­ly an ap­pari­tion) pro­vokes a re­sponse then that re­sponse it­self is a state­ment and you have your answer: 

These peo­ple are clos­et fas­cists or at the very least as­pir­ing to be.

—ja­son malmberg

Flom­mist Ja­son Malm­berg is a sim­ple man who be­lieves in brown liquor and small dogs. He also makes art some­times. Copy­right © 2020 Ja­son Malm­berg. Pic­tured: Kaz­imir Male­vich, Black and White, Supre­ma­tist Com­po­si­tion (de­tail), 1915, source.

MOR D’ARTÍCULOS  MOR FLOMM !

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