I don’t think I had a specific moment but it happened over the course of college history courses and majoring in American Studies. One fact that really woke me up is how white supremacy was reinforced by creating division between poor white and Blacks, to maintain power for elite capitalists. People don’t understand how INTENTIONAL our ideologies and assumptions are. Once that is understood, everything else starts to click and make more sense. The way we live is not natural at all.
I don't consider myself radicalized. I have empathy. I think when I have more than I need, I should help someone who doesn't have enough. I've been in the position of not having enough. I don't want anyone else to go through that if I can help. If that's radical, then I guess I'm radical.
I got radicalized when I first learned that there were people *in the United States* living without indoor plumbing. I grew up around rural poverty in Idaho, and I thought I understood. But I was shocked to my teenaged soul to learn that people in the richest country in human history lived without the ability to defecate in privacy. It made me question everything I had been told about American Exceptionalism.
*I did have some US history, and I knew that horrible things had been done, but my education firmly implied that we lived in the best of times (the 1980s) and that all the injustice had been solved. I got radicalized when I learned how much injustice was ignored
I believe Nye Bevan had quite the fight with the British Medical Association and when asked how he finally persuaded doctors to come on board, he's quoted as saying, '“I Stuffed Their Mouths With Gold”'. I don't believe it was easy. We were lucky to have a representative at the time in power who actually understood firsthand what lack of access to medical care meant, coming from a Welsh mining community. Sadly we dont seem to have real people in our politics in enough numbers these days.
I got radicalized when I was 12. My sister was adopted from India when I was 2 and I had to witness her being physically, psychologically and emotionally abused on a daily basis for 10 yrs by then. My parents neglected us whilst volunteering for the organisation who adopted my sister. They did 'development' work for them in India and took dozens of children to Western Europe for adoption by white ppl. I couldn't understand why that organisation was all about children, whilst the children themselves had no say or organisation. So age 12 I decided to set one up. I believe it still exists, although adopting children from colonised countries is now banned where I am from. But by how things are right now, I wouldn't be surprised if they'll resume state organised child trafficking and trade again.
By the time I was 15, my parents decided it would be good to show us what India was like, resulting in my further radicalisation. They traumatised us by visiting the children's home my sister was left in by her mother, meeting the nun who looked after her and met her mother, all the while my sister was convinced she'd meet her mother. She was 14 at the time and no talk about how that would be impossible could convince her, because off course she was too young to actually understand and process that visiting those places does not mean your mother will be there. Then the life changing moment for me was when we visited Mother Theresa's children's home in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The poverty and deprivation in the 1980's there was, to me, at medieval levels. The street was filthy, buildings run down, and in front of the gate there were dozens of people in rags waiting for food. We waded through while they begged us, touched us for anything. We entered a courtyard where a big pot of food was being cooked, it was literally the size of a small hot tub. We went in the building where we were led through a big room filled with cots with crying babies, desperate for any physical touch.
A horde of children was mobbing us, touching us, begging us for attention. It was totally overwhelming and I was in shock. I came outside on a patio where an approx. 7 yr old boy, without arms or legs, was propped up against the wall on a stool. He pleaded with me in Hindi, like the others. I picked him up and held him the whole time I was there. I was in complete shock and turmoil. I didn't understand this situation, my position as a (white) child myself, a very rich child, in this run down building, with no resources and only very basic furniture. Where everyone is hungry and severely neglected. I just sat there with him, holding each other, actually, until I had to leave and literally tore myself apart from him. That I had to leave him there like that was the most painful experience I have ever had. For me from that moment on I could no longer accept my life of luxury and privilege.
The guilt that is crushing me, from having to witness my sister's abuse whilst I was ignored and neglected and now having to go through this has made me a lifelong anarchist cripple. I feel I have to act on my guilt but I can't because the trauma has disabled me. It is a living hell. And now I am middle-aged I am raging with anger but I am an outcast and criminalised over my disability and completely isolated, like that little boy without limbs.
I don’t think I had a specific moment but it happened over the course of college history courses and majoring in American Studies. One fact that really woke me up is how white supremacy was reinforced by creating division between poor white and Blacks, to maintain power for elite capitalists. People don’t understand how INTENTIONAL our ideologies and assumptions are. Once that is understood, everything else starts to click and make more sense. The way we live is not natural at all.
I don't consider myself radicalized. I have empathy. I think when I have more than I need, I should help someone who doesn't have enough. I've been in the position of not having enough. I don't want anyone else to go through that if I can help. If that's radical, then I guess I'm radical.
I got radicalized when I first learned that there were people *in the United States* living without indoor plumbing. I grew up around rural poverty in Idaho, and I thought I understood. But I was shocked to my teenaged soul to learn that people in the richest country in human history lived without the ability to defecate in privacy. It made me question everything I had been told about American Exceptionalism.
*I did have some US history, and I knew that horrible things had been done, but my education firmly implied that we lived in the best of times (the 1980s) and that all the injustice had been solved. I got radicalized when I learned how much injustice was ignored
Great story. Love the T’challa quote.
I believe Nye Bevan had quite the fight with the British Medical Association and when asked how he finally persuaded doctors to come on board, he's quoted as saying, '“I Stuffed Their Mouths With Gold”'. I don't believe it was easy. We were lucky to have a representative at the time in power who actually understood firsthand what lack of access to medical care meant, coming from a Welsh mining community. Sadly we dont seem to have real people in our politics in enough numbers these days.
I got radicalized when I was 12. My sister was adopted from India when I was 2 and I had to witness her being physically, psychologically and emotionally abused on a daily basis for 10 yrs by then. My parents neglected us whilst volunteering for the organisation who adopted my sister. They did 'development' work for them in India and took dozens of children to Western Europe for adoption by white ppl. I couldn't understand why that organisation was all about children, whilst the children themselves had no say or organisation. So age 12 I decided to set one up. I believe it still exists, although adopting children from colonised countries is now banned where I am from. But by how things are right now, I wouldn't be surprised if they'll resume state organised child trafficking and trade again.
By the time I was 15, my parents decided it would be good to show us what India was like, resulting in my further radicalisation. They traumatised us by visiting the children's home my sister was left in by her mother, meeting the nun who looked after her and met her mother, all the while my sister was convinced she'd meet her mother. She was 14 at the time and no talk about how that would be impossible could convince her, because off course she was too young to actually understand and process that visiting those places does not mean your mother will be there. Then the life changing moment for me was when we visited Mother Theresa's children's home in Calcutta (now Kolkata). The poverty and deprivation in the 1980's there was, to me, at medieval levels. The street was filthy, buildings run down, and in front of the gate there were dozens of people in rags waiting for food. We waded through while they begged us, touched us for anything. We entered a courtyard where a big pot of food was being cooked, it was literally the size of a small hot tub. We went in the building where we were led through a big room filled with cots with crying babies, desperate for any physical touch.
A horde of children was mobbing us, touching us, begging us for attention. It was totally overwhelming and I was in shock. I came outside on a patio where an approx. 7 yr old boy, without arms or legs, was propped up against the wall on a stool. He pleaded with me in Hindi, like the others. I picked him up and held him the whole time I was there. I was in complete shock and turmoil. I didn't understand this situation, my position as a (white) child myself, a very rich child, in this run down building, with no resources and only very basic furniture. Where everyone is hungry and severely neglected. I just sat there with him, holding each other, actually, until I had to leave and literally tore myself apart from him. That I had to leave him there like that was the most painful experience I have ever had. For me from that moment on I could no longer accept my life of luxury and privilege.
The guilt that is crushing me, from having to witness my sister's abuse whilst I was ignored and neglected and now having to go through this has made me a lifelong anarchist cripple. I feel I have to act on my guilt but I can't because the trauma has disabled me. It is a living hell. And now I am middle-aged I am raging with anger but I am an outcast and criminalised over my disability and completely isolated, like that little boy without limbs.