When I was 13 years old, I watched an airplane fly into a building on live television while sitting in Mr. Keener’s 2nd-period history class. As far as I can tell, that moment was the catalyst for my radicalization. I thought to myself “Why would someone do something this horrifying?”.
It seems fitting that said radicalization culminated last year with OBL’s “Letter to America” resurfacing in the collective public conscience, which (despite its clear bigotry towards a number of oppressed groups) highlighted the sort of oppression that US politicians NEVER like to bring up, let alone in televised, political events.
So that’s exactly the medium they tried to use to cover it up as best they could. Had it been an isolated incident of social injustice, it might have been ignored by many more than those who did turn a blind eye and I probably would have been among their ranks. Thankfully, fellow radicals from various social media platforms helped many of us avoid such a horrid fate as the further depletion of our humanity.
For the simple fact that I did not turn away from injustice in 2020 or any year since, I’m here (on this blog) to do 2 things:
To express my sincere gratitude to the revolutionaries who came before me, as well as my many contemporaries who’ve given so much education, guidance, and counsel on the long, hard road to a society of friends.
To put in the work, be it praxis or theory.
The white-supremacist empire that we call these “United States”, that has been (and is still being) built atop the labor and suffering of the global majority, must absolutely come to an end. It will come to an end. Perhaps not the end we’ve invisioned or even one that will occur in our lifetimes… But even just to witness the start of the end - and I do believe that’s where we find ourselves today - is the greatest privilege I can imagine and I would be morally remiss to not participate.
So this is a declaration of revolutionary action on my part… That I will, from this day forward, do what I can… While I can. That means to:
- engage in mutual aid, given the means.
- conduct direct action, given the ability,
- and constantly deconstruct the internalized mechanisms (first in myself and then others) that uphold the status quo.
And if this isn’t clear enough for the people only half paying attention to the world around them, here’s the TL;DR:
Free Palestine. Black Lives Matter. Trans Lives Matter. Abolish The Police. Decommodify Housing. Sieze The Means. No Justice, No Peace. NO GODS, NO MASTERS. 🏴