Assorted Things That Radicalized Me
On hundreds of tiny heartbreaks.
Age 15. I make my first Muslim friend. She tells me that when her father came home from work on September 11th, 2001, he told her she couldn’t wear her hijab anymore.
Age 16. I make even more female friends. They tell me all manner of secrets, from how much periods hurt to the ways their teachers and peers discriminate against and sexually harass them.
Age 21. I’m at my Mexican friend’s apartment. A tape has just been released where some reality TV star, who is running for president on a platform of mass deportation of Mexicans, brags about raping pageant contestants. Christians still love him. My friend, a rape survivor herself, is deeply worried about him becoming president.
Age 21. I’m at my Mexican friend’s apartment. He did become president. I hold her while she cries.
Age 13. The economy has functionally collapsed. Some banks lied to each other about how much houses cost, so my dad lost his job. I do not understand this cause-and-effect relationship. The world stops making as much sense.
Age 15. The Citizens United ruling has come out. Is democracy a lie?
Age 17. I learn about racial gerrymandering for the first time. Is democracy a lie?
Age 19. An unarmed Black man is shot by police. I read The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone & Peter Kuznick on my living room couch and learn this is not new.
Age 20. An unarmed Black man is shot by police. I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates on a trip to Washington, D.C. and learn this is not new.
Age 25. An unarmed Black man is shot by police. Americans were on lockdown but America had already gone back to work. I’m called to post my first ever online video about “politics”.
