09/14/2026
We used to learn symbols and phrases by talking to people. Face to face. At a table, after a march, in someone’s kitchen, in jail, on a farm, at a distro, anywhere community existed and folks could pass along their experiences.
You’d see a patch or a banner and ask “what’s that mean?” And you’d get a story. Sometimes 5 different stories. You’d hear where it came from, who used it, who fought under it, who died under it, how it changed over time. You learned the context, not just the definition.
Now most people learn by googling, seeing a meme, or reading one social media comment from someone who’s also learning from memes. That’s how decades of history gets cut out of our collective memory.
Take "No war but class war."
That was never a class reductionist phrase. It was an anti-war phrase. It came out of people who were sick of watching working class kids get shipped off to die for bosses, oil, and flags.
Saying "no war but class war" never meant race didn’t matter. Never meant gender didn’t matter. Never meant disability didn’t matter. It meant we refuse to kill each other for them. We’ve got a different fight, and it’s with the people who profit off all of it.
But because we stopped saying it out loud and explaining it, now the class reductionists are using it. The people who do think everything else doesn’t matter. And when people hear it from them, they assume that’s all it ever meant.
Or take the three arrows.
For decades that was just a general Antifascist symbol. You’d see it at punk shows, on banners, sprayed on walls from Berlin to Miami.
It didn’t mean you were pledging allegiance to 1930s German dem socs.
It didn’t mean you were anti-communist.
It just meant Antifascist. It meant we’re against them, whoever "them" is in your town.
But because we stopped passing that down, now anticommunists are using it. People who use it to draw a line against other leftists. And when people see it from them, they assume that’s what it always meant.
That’s what happens when we don’t speak up.
We’re not just losing the history. We’re letting as****es take our words and our symbols and use them for the opposite of what they were for.
The problem isn’t the internet. The problem is we stopped passing it down in person.
If you care about the symbols, talk to people. Ask the old timers and organizing veterans. Ask the people who were there. Say the meaning out loud. Correct it when you see it twisted. Argue about it.
Otherwise you’re just getting the meme version. And the meme version is always smaller, thinner, and ends up in the wrong hands.
