Let This Radicalize You
Let This Radicalize You
On Taylor Swift, making connections, and Thanksgiving dinners.
There’s a sentiment I see among some Very Online White Leftists that trying to onboard people into fighting for social justice causes is a pointless endeavor. Ex: “If you still believe in capitalism at this point, you’re a lost cause.” Throw in a complete bastardization of the term “educational labor” and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a black pill: it’s all broken, nobody wants to fix it, may as well LDAR.
This doesn’t sit well with me, probably because I’ve now devoted my life to education. When my process control students get a homework question wrong, I don’t say “welp, you’ve failed to make this connection, I guess you’re a lost cause”; I help them get to where they need to be. It’s my responsibility.
Now, educating students in a college classroom isn’t the same as educating people out in the wild. For one, my students pay money (far too much money) and consent (however coercively) to learn my course material, and in exchange I receive a small fraction of that money (whatever isn’t spent on redoing the grass on campus every year, lining the pockets of unelected Board of Trustee members, etc.) I also have a wealth of resources at my disposal to help me design my course, which includes selecting which topics are covered and in what order, creating ways for students to receive feedback on their learning progress, and curating presentations for my lectures, which students attend (or view recordings of later) for at least 3 hours per week.
If only educating your racist uncle at Thanksgiving was the same.
Now don’t get me wrong: a robust anti-racist, pro-LGBTQ, liberal-leaning public school education is possible and worth advocating for. (In fact, here’s a great anti-racist action plan worksheet put together by my colleagues at UConn, complete with a list of scaffolded readings for wherever you are in your anti-racism learning journey. You’re welcome!) But in the meantime, learning about social justice is currently nothing like a traditional school environment. Nothing about our day-to-day life prompts us to check in with our learning about class struggle, there are no weekly country-wide Kahoot quizzes to make sure you can identify misogynistic rhetoric in mass media, no semi-annual final exams to let you know that you should be doing more to help decriminalize sex work. The only thing keeping us accountable to our learning—and our action—is ourselves. And more often than not, it falls on the marginalized to administer pop quizzes.
This is the real problem with “educational labor” that many white leftists bemoan: the fact that educating white people about racism continually falls on Black people (and how educating transphobes about cissexism falls on trans people, ableism on disabled people, so on and so forth). The solution? Whatever privileges you have, take on that load of labor on behalf of those you call yourself an ally for. Leverage whatever social capital you have into making change. I’m white, so it’s incumbent upon me to educate my racist family members, not just at Thanksgiving but year-round. It’s my responsibility.
Since Thanksgiving is this week, here’s my personal homework assignment to you, dear reader: when you see your loved ones on Thursday, slide in some pro-trans and/or anti-capitalist talking points over dinner (or lunch, or whatever in-between event you call a 3pm guzzling of stuffing and cranberry sauce). Do it for me, won’t you? <3
Need a conversation starter? Why, they’re all around us…
On Tuesday, November 15th at 10:00am EST, Ticketmaster began its presale of tickets to the Taylor Swift concerts taking place on the east coast of the United States. Being the most popular artist in the world, this led to…let’s say, issues.
I was there at the scene of the crime; the words “2000+ PEOPLE AHEAD OF YOU” staring at me in the face for the better part of an hour, and when my time finally came, the presale code sent to me via text (that I needed to unlock the ability to buy tickets) didn’t even work, almost certainly due to site failures.
So, I don’t get to see Taylor and Phoebe Bridgers on my birthday weekend next Spring. Boo hoo, woe is me. (Ok maybe I am a bit bummed about this.) But more presciently, this is a Big News Event with which we can easily make a connection to why capitalism ruins everything. More specifically, the monopolization of an industry, the limitations of girlboss feminism, and what the government could do to stop this. Rest assured, there is some “supply and demand” at work: there are more people who want to see Taylor than available seats at all the combined venues. But scalpers, bots, a failing website, and the fact that Ticketmaster is the sole platform through which tickets can be purchased are not inevitable features of the universe: it’s the exploitative nature of capitalism, baby.
Let’s go back to my process control class once again. Usually, when a student doesn’t understand how to solve a problem, it’s because they haven’t made a necessary connection between course concepts. For example, in class I may show them how to use an equation in one context, and on the homework I expect them to use it in a slightly different context. (This is a vast oversimplification, but) in class I might give them y=mx+b and provide m, x, and b, and then I ask for y. Then, on the homework, I give them m, x, and y, and I ask for b, except I don’t tell them to use the equation from before. It’s on them to go, “I’ve seen something like this before”, remember that equation, and apply it in a new way.
So much of leftist education is just making connections that you’ve never made before. And maybe my brain is just wired differently (see: being neurodivergent), but I am obsessed with making connections. Sometimes I like to play this fun (okay it’s maybe not “fun”, per se) game where I take a problem and then trace the the steps to assign that problem to some combination of capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. Imagine “six steps to Kevin Bacon” but instead it’s “how does the profit motive incentivize this awful thing?” You’d be surprised how often this works.
Let’s look at another example: the imminent collapse of Twitter at the hands of Elon Musk. On one hand, the past few weeks have been very, very funny…
I think we all deserve to laugh at the richest man in the world every now and again. Eat the rich, and all that.
On the other hand, we should also be pointing out to people that Twitter is a way for marginalized people to educate people and organize themselves, and that we very soon might not have it anymore because of the unchecked power of billionaires. Also, while we’re all Retweeting and Liking our favorite memes, the man we’re laughing at may very well be compromising all of our personal data. Previously, the only thing stopping Twitter from selling, y’know, our location data to advertisers was Twitter’s own ethics board.
The ethics board has now been fired.
Let’s not lose sight of the power of propaganda. During the two days that anybody with $8 could make a verified Twitter account, many legendary tweets were penned, but none more legendary than the fake Eli Lilly. Somewhere, some hero pretending to be a pharma giant tweeted out that insulin would be free, leading to a massive stock drop for the actual corporation.
Somebody spent EIGHT DOLLARS, and not only was national attention brought to the idea that life-saving health care should be free, but a wealthy, immoral company lost BILLIONS.
I’ve talked at length about algorithmic suppression, but this proves that with a little creativity, we can get our message out to whoever needs it. We just need to be willing to educate a little.
So don’t lose hope, dear reader, there is still so much work to be done. Go forth, and radicalize your normie friends. They’ll be grateful that you did.
Currently Reading
Today is Trans Day of Remembrance, and thus a day of mourning for the trans community and our non-trans allies. Familiarize yourself with the names of those we’ve lost (so. far.) this year to anti-trans violence. For more advanced reading, this article by Sarah Lamble describes why we shouldn’t let this day become another way for white people to perform advocacy. Put your money where your mouth is.
Erin’s newly-updated anti-trans bill tracker.
Related: conservative attempts to demonize us has had mixed results. All and all, most cis people just don’t give a shit about us; which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good in that they’re not actively malicious, bad in that we have so much more to achieve and we need people to care.
Watch History
Abigail Thorn released a fantastic essay covering something I talked about last month (and a lot in general, really); institutional violence against trans people in the medical system. While her video is about Britain, the same basic ideas apply to American health care as well.
Thought Slime came out with a great essay about how anti-trans rhetoric takes hold. Nobody actually cares about the new purple M&M; it’s only a means to activate the conservative base.
Anna Akana, my namesake, coming through with a video about how to calm yourself down.
Bops, Vibes, & Jams
The new Dream Wife single is scary good.
Living legend Nas just released KD3 and it’s been on repeat for me!
And now, your weekly Koko.
That’s all for now! See you next week with more sweet, sweet content. Don’t forget that there is now a paid version of the newsletter; for supporting my creative work, you get even more access to the vivid internal life of Anna Marie, your favorite STEM educator!
In solidarity,
-Anna