IN 2025, fascism is rapidly being consolidated in America. Along with gutting the rule of law, the military occupation of cities, unbridled violence and cruelty, the support of Palestinian genocide, overt racism, the suppression of dissent, and the shameless substitution of propaganda for truth, this US fascism relies on nationalism (including the division of society into those who belong as Americans and those who do not) and unquestioning patriotism.
I started making work that directly addressed political issues and American patriotism as a young art student in 1987. The US had recently invaded Grenada and had supported military intervention in El Salvador. Greed and selfishness were considered virtues. America was waging a war on drugs, which was really a war on poor Black and brown communities that ended up warehousing a generation of young people in prison. Through it all, President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush packaged their policies in the American flag. I was radicalized by Reagan’s America.
“American Newspeak . . . Please Feel Free,” 1988, was a series of installations that featured photomontages and encouraged the audience to write their responses in books that were part of the artwork. Some of the montages included phrases from George Orwell’s 1984, such as WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. Throughout, I deployed the American flag as a recurring image to tie the oppression that was the subject of the work to the soul of the country. War, police brutality, racism, the targeting of immigrants, and the use of surveillance and propaganda to support this oppression were not aberrations; they were intrinsic to America. In addition to depicting oppression, this series highlights people fighting back—via images of Palestinians in the First Intifada, people in the Detroit Rebellion of 1967, South Koreans burning US flags, and uprisings in South Africa, as well as in quotations from Malcolm X, the Clash, and Public Enemy.
