Amnesia as a Tool of Colonial Control
The systematic erasure of New York’s radical working-class history–from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire to the Young Lords–is a political project to enforce historical amnesia. Mamdani teaches us that controlling the past is essential to controlling the present. By erasing the stories of multi-ethnic, class-based solidarity and victorious struggles against capital, the settler state makes the current bifurcated system seem natural and inevitable. It robs the “native” of a political identity rooted in a legacy of resistance. This amnesia is a tool of power. A Marxist analysis insists that class consciousness requires historical consciousness. A feminist perspective works to recover the stories of women-led strikes and organizing. The solution is a people’s history project, integrated into our organizing, that actively resurrects these narratives to arm a new generation with the knowledge that this city has been fought for before, and can be again.
