i was raised by two radically left parents who worked in the labor movement, & have adopted a lot of their sociopolitical views in adulthood.
i never remember them teaching me anything about politics as a kid, though. of course they discussed their jobs at dinner & occasionally expressed their feelings about elections in front of me, but they never sat me down & told me how the world was, why they feel the way they feel, or why i should feel the same as them.
i do remember them teaching me empathy. i remember them teaching me to think about how i might make someone feel before i said anything. i remember them teaching me to invite the kids who normally ate alone to come sit with me & my friends at lunch. i remember them teaching me that hurting somebody else is never going to help me.
from this basic education in human compassion, i came to believe that nobody should ever have to go hungry. i came to believe that nobody should ever have to sleep without a roof over their head. & when i learned that the ruling class was forcing masses of people to do those things, boom, there was radicalization.
Jan 25, 2025
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1. Meeting my now husband, who self-identified as communist. The first one that I knew in said bubble.
2. 2016 when trump won and I realized how different other people felt to me, causing me to start wanting to fundraise and advocate, but also feeling a great divide between me and people in my life.
3. The ongoing COVID debacle and the response from the US government, continuing today where there has been so much misinformation and lack of regard for people.
4. Having children and realizing just how alone we are in the US. I had no idea how nonexistent any safety net was in our society until I had them.
5. Trump winning again and realizing that fearing others and making lines in the sand with them has partially caused this mess. I am now folding in resources and help for people who are not politically aligned with me. I am working to build community with the people so that they eventually realize that we’re actually against the powerful instead of each other. I am done with infighting.
Jan 26, 2025
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as someone who works adjacent to higher ed i often think about this. but i also always recall this toni morrison quote:
“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
as someone who wants my career to be rooted in my ethics, i def have a very “be the change you want to see in the world” sort of outlook. it may be a bit corny but it def helps me navigate all these opposing issues alongside my personal beliefs. i think the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” idea is often be used by others to be dismissive of working toward change, but i also think, in your case, this phrase applies.
May 18, 2024
Aesthetics were the first thing that won me over to socialism. When I was a kid, I chanced to hear the Soviet national anthem used ironically in youtube video (likely a youtube-poop of which I was and still am fond.) I had never heard anything so beautiful, so powerful. I could not imagine a feeling more triumphant than that expressed in the chorus of a million voices singing out in red square.
I didn’t know anything about the Russian revolution, nor of socialism - all context, I learned in retrospect. But that first encounter stuck with me and served as a bulwark against the barrage of anti-communist propaganda the Florida Education System tried assailing me with.
Now, a decade and a half past that point, I’m a member of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. And whenever I get whipped up into my feelings about that moment, I feverishly take to photoshop and try to make some propaganda of my own, hoping that it may stir up similar feelings in another.
Nov 19, 2024
Top Recs from @annaguline
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she’s pretty much the only youtuber i regularly consume nowadays, & ‘regularly’ is probably an overstatement because i’m still trying to kill my addiction to short-form content.
anyway, she mostly makes fashion/style content.
what separates her from other ‘fashion influencers’ is that her videos aren’t about over-consuming the new trend of the week, they’re about how to tastefully style what you already own, build a quality & reliable wardrobe, & have fun with practical fashion.
i feel like she’s genuinely helped me spice up my wardrobe without doing a ton of shopping, but rather just by styling items in new ways :)
Jan 21, 2025
i’m lucky enough to see the boston public garden from my window, & today the snow made all the trees look like little eggs :)
Jan 20, 2025
Jan 25, 2025