One of the folks over at @fthaction sent me this post and asked me to share my own story of how I got involved in activism. It's a long one, and this isn't every detail of it, but here's the main story. Scroll to the bottom for just the answers to the post questions (pink text).
Background: I grew up a neurodivergent child in a rural area. I'm 100% sure I have ADHD, but since I'm female, that was never flagged as a kid, and these days I'm kind of glad it wasn't because I developed good enough coping mechanisms that I very much like the way my neurodivergent brain works, and it doesn't cause me significant problems (though there is absolutely no shame in getting medicated for ADHD - if you think it could improve your quality of life, do it). Anyway. Rural area. Child who is different. You can guess how that went. I spent an entire childhood getting harassed by authoritarian adults who didn't like my doodling in class even though I could correctly answer every question they asked me about what they were teaching. I can remember being as young as nine and trying to explain "I don't think like other people. I don't think like these other kids do," to various adults. When I was young, my parents were very good advocates for me. Lots of teacher's meetings that came down to "She's an A student. She's not bothering anyone. Just fucking leave her alone." One of the funniest instances of this was in 1st grade when my HORRIBLE 1st grade teacher had done something, and I said "That's not fair." And she said, "Life's not fair." To which I, a Vulcan-level logical seven-year-old said, "It would be if there weren't people like you." Yeah she called my Mom, and my Mom said something to the effect of "Oh, I'm so sorry. She's completely correct! Hope that helps! Stop starting fights with my seven-year-old, and don't call me."
That being said, my parents weren't perfect. My dad is also neurodivergent and would leap to defend me from the asshole teachers too because he had the exact same experiences growing up, but he also had anger issues, and I was often the target of them. My mother loved me, but she was extremely controlling. I was monitored constantly, spied on, not allowed to go anywhere with anybody, etc. I grew up isolated in the country as an only child being constantly targeted and bullied by adults even though I was achieving all the results they asked for. When I was in elementary through middle school, generally speaking, I was a very quiet and obedient child. I tried to stay out of everybody's way, work hard, cause no problems, etc. I was objectively the perfect child. In middle school, I had teachers who were kind to me and accepted me as I was (more that with all the issues that go on in middle school, they had some perspective, i.e. this kid doodling is not a real problem. The kid who called the other kid a pussy and then got in a fight is a problem).
Still, throughout a mostly obedient, quiet existence, there were a couple of moments where it was obvious that that's not who I was and not who I was going to be.
When I was five, I went to my cousin's birthday party. We were the same age. We were doing normal kid stuff like making faces for the camera, when my abusive uncle said to her "Sit down. Hold still. And smile. Or I am going to knock you out of that chair." And I stood up and said "You better not knock her out of that chair" (ready to use every ounce of my 60 lbs to fist fight my uncle to protect my cousin). Room went very quiet, and my parents told me good job lol because they recognized him as an abuser (while not seeing any problems with their own behavior lol).
When I was 11, one of the boys in my class with anger issues was running after one of my friends yelling "I'm going to kill you." I wasn't going to let him hurt her, so after she ran through the door where we were lined up to switch classes, I stuck out my arm to casually lean against the door frame and clotheslined him. Knocked him to the ground gasping for breath and just said "Oops. Sorry. Shouldn't run indoors." He gave me a glare and from that point forward was always incredibly nice to me.
When I was 12, one of the boys in my computer class was trying to repeatedly pinch me in the ass while sitting next to him. I kept slapping his hand away. We were in the chairs with the bars between the legs. The minute our computer teacher looked away, I reached down, grabbed the bar, and yanked up as hard as I could. Threw him and chair into the floor and was sitting up acting shocked like this had just spontaneously happened by the time she turned around. Computer teacher asked what happened. I stared him down and said "He fell." He looked at her and said "I fell." We were friends after that.
Those were some of my first introductions to the idea that taking a discreet, measured action to defend yourself and/or what is right can be highly effective.
As I went on to high school, nothing about me really changed, but my parents just kind of decided they didn't like me anymore. I still don't know what happened there. I turned 13, and suddenly everything I did was because I was an horrible teenager. For example, I wrote a recommendation for one of my teachers for something and just never thought to mention it to my family. The school called my mother to thank me for my thoughtful rec, and when I got home, she screamed bloody murder at me for "making her look stupid" because she didn't know what they were talking about.
This behavior towards me escalated as I went to and progressed through high school. The awful teachers returned this time too, and my parents still defended me to them on the surface, but then when I got home it was all "If you would just..." "If you just wouldn't..." etc., etc. My dad's anger escalated. I joined extracurriculars just to not have to go home. I started working my ass off to graduate top of my class because I wanted out, and I knew the only way to immediately leave home and that town was to go to college. I was sleep-deprived (4 hrs of sleep a night), bullied, and abused. I was stitched together with OTC medications to deal with the pain and nausea, the sores that formed on my gums from stress. I was so depressed, sometimes I didn't go to school more than two days a week. They started threatening a straight-A student with truancy. And as it got worse I realized that no matter how good I was, no matter how good my grades, no matter how "out of the way" or obedient I was, I still got shit on. So one day I just thought it out, and I was like, well, every day I wake up and wish I didn't. If I do everything everyone asks of me and never complain, I get shit on. If I do whatever I want, I also get shit on. But either way I get shit on, so sounds like I should just do whatever I want.
I caused every problem imaginable for every person who had ever been nasty to me. Teachers who were mean to me but would call on me in class? They all got "I don't know." "I don't know." "I don't know." to every question even though I had stellar grades. I had "meetings" with the principal where she tried to psychologically manipulate me into thinking she was trying to help me when she wasn't. Saw through it, called it out in very articulate language, and said "You're not trying to help me. You're trying to manipulate me. And this meeting. Is over." Left her calling after me, "I would like to discuss this further," with 16-year-old me responding "A follow-up meeting will not be necessary." I was so sick from working and so angry that I started to scare them. Got to the point where teachers would come to try and say something to me, I'd shoot them a vicious look, and they'd sit back down. Suddenly me doodling or listening to music while doing independent work wasn't a problem as long as it kept me quiet. At the same time, no one had the guts to really really punish me because I was one of their top students, I was raising the test averages they needed for accredidation, and if they kicked me out, they knew it would make the news. That's how I learned that if you build legitimacy in the eyes of the people around you, that's power. I also learned that the best way to get people to leave you alone for existing is to make interacting with you so painful it's not worth it. In every classroom where I was treated kindly, I was a model student. I participated, helped with everything, always showed up. In the classrooms where I was abused, I wreaked havoc. One of my (in hindsight) favorite memories from that time was the day I came in early and taped printed landscapes that I had printed at the library over the fucking boarded up windows of my math classroom. Because they had boarded up the bottom half of every window so that you couldn't see out from sitting in the classroom desks. They wanted control of you mind, body, and soul while you were there, and I loudly said no. I'll stare into my own flat, washed-out picture of the mountains just to piss you off.
I graduated. Never thought I'd get there. Had a rough time leading up to it where my life was in danger. I got through the summer and went to college, just to meet even more nasty administrators and professors. The degree was miserable. I was away from my family (who had by that point, come to terms with the fact that they were awful to me and apologized), so I no longer had that stress, but you know, same shit different day, and I was like "Fuck it, we do it again." I live by my principles, and I didn't tolerate cruelty before, and I wasn't going to then either. However, as you might have seen from my college activism posts, the game was slightly different because I'm a big proponent of "make sure you know what the REAL issues is," and whereas in high school, it was genuinely malicious people/authority figures, in college, there were some of those, but a lot of cruelty was passively passed along by the culture or people who weren't intentionally being mean but still hurting people. That's why my activism shifted to fighting the culture. There were a few instances where I got into it with individual professors - even reported one for discrimination against the disabled - but at that point, my campaigns were largely literature-based. I was distributing my fliers on how not to talk to students to every professor, I was distributing my pamphlets on how to set boundaries with the system to students, I was putting plants in shared spaces to cheer people up, I was getting student art on the walls and using the art contest I organized as a platform to highlight that science students benefit from having non-science hobbies (and having time to pursue them).
At college, however, I found that a lot of people were actually capable of logic and understanding the benefits of the things I was advocating for, and suddenly I had professors changing their policies and backing me. That was very validating.
So high school taught me how to wreak havoc against authoritarianism and how to position myself in a place of power to do so.
College taught me that sometimes shitty systems exist, and literally all you have to do is point it out to get people to change it. That you *can* assume good intentions with people, talk to them about issues, and change their minds.
College also taught me that the vast majority of people live in a general fear of getting in trouble, even when they can't identify what that trouble is, or it's as trivial as being in conflict with another person, which is just a part of life. I learned to stand up for myself by being so beaten down, I felt like I had nothing to lose. But I would tell people who haven't been moved to action by a similar trauma that you can "get in trouble" and survive. You can be in conflict with other people and not be in danger or considered a bad person. If you logically think through the possible consequences of your actions, educate yourself on relevant law/policy, and take measures to keep yourself safe (like anonymity), you can really shake things up while still minimizing your risks.
Since college, I've been very active in various community organizations. I donate to national-level causes, but I mostly stick to volunteering and negotiating at the level of my community because that's where I can have my greatest impact. I write. I make protest art. I go to protests. I'm involved with the Dems and donate to causes for civil rights, minority issues, etc. I do a lot of organizing, arguing, and finding loopholes in systems, and I cut my teeth in those areas in school.
Not all conflict is danger. Conflict is necessary. It's never risk free, but personally I find it a lot riskier to hold on to a conflict-avoidant mentality that leaves me constantly at the mercy of everyone around me. There's a point where you have to take a stand and decide what you can and cannot, will and will not, suffer.
P.S. I'm handing off the real whole story of me growing up to a writer friend who has the time to listen to me and put it into words. She's just started a blog but hasn't posted anything yet.
1) when did you first get involved in activist/community work, and what motivated you to do it?how did you get started? how did you find your niche?
I got involved in activism in high school. I'd volunteered in the community (library, food pantries, etc.) since middle school, but high school is where I learned to wreak havoc like the anarchist I'm now known to be because I'd been bullied by adults for being neurodivergent my entire life, and I realized that even when I did everything asked of me and more, I still got screamed at and belittled, so I may as well do whatever the hell I want. I was sleep-deprived, sick, and angry, and I channeled every ounce of that rage into getting revenge against the adults who were harassing me, always doing it in ways they couldn't stop and leveraging the fact that I was a top student with no prior behavioral issues UNTIL people started harassing me to make my points and not get kicked out of school.
2) what was something you struggled with early in your activist work, and how did you learn to manage/overcome it?
Lack of support. Like I said in the story above, though I had the support of my parents as a kid, by the time I was a teenager, they'd support me in public just to save face, but then I'd go home to get criticized, yelled at, and guilted. I had to decide that either everything about me was wrong and collapse under the weight of it or decide I was being treated wrong and fight it. The latter was the only way to survive, so that's what I did. The whole time people told me I'd get in trouble, lose this or that prospect, etc., but I graduated in the top ten of my class and went to college, so none of those imaginary consequences ever occurred.
3) what's a setback you've faced, and how did you make it through?
Sometimes it gets really hard for me to think the things I do will ever make a real difference. I'm my own biggest critic. Then I remember that it's kind of a numbers game, and I can never know if any one of my projects will be meaningful or if I just wasted hours on writing/making art/working with ___ group, but I know for sure nothing will happen if I don't try these projects. So I write and draw and draft proposals that might ultimately go straight into the void with the knowledge that what matters is that some of them might escape the void, and the more I create, the better the chances.
4) what are the unexpected joys or benefits that activist work has brought into your life?
In high school, college, and now, I'd often get people DMing me or pulling me aside to say something along the lines of "Thanks for doing what I've been too scared to do." To know I have silent supporters in every audience who are scared but behind me 100% is an honor and a privilege, and it keeps me pushing forward. On the reverse side, I've had some people on the upper side of a power balance look at me and be like "Wow you're a real tough son of a bitch. Dying breed. I don't agree with you on everything, but I respect the nerve," and that is also very validating.
5) what's the one thing you really want to say to people who are thinking of getting involved?
The world loves to frame pushing against the status quo as "YOU CAN'T DO THAT, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING!!!" And the fact of the matter is, in most cases, you won't. Know the law and policy relevant to what you're doing so that you have a good defense if anyone does try to come at you with consequences. Know what the consequences of something may be in a real sense. Not just "You can't do that, you'll get in trouble!" What trouble? You need to be able to define it. Are you risking losing your job? Are you risking losing important connections? Are you risking losing financial support? Are you risking going to jail? Then you have to move to "how do I minimize the chance of these consequences (anonymity, plausible deniability, making things harder to trace, escape plans, contingency plans etc)?" Then you have to ask, even if the worst consequences did happen, would it still be worth it? Ex: If something has you so upset, you're thinking of doing something that may lose you your job, is that job worth having more than any other job out there? No? Then go on the job hunt, get something else lined up and locked down, then send that scathing anonymous letter about your old workplace to the local paper. Ex 2: Are you risking losing an important connection in your field by criticizing or confronting them? Is it really worth it to have that little extra bit of help from a dumpster fire of a person? No? Then consider that sometimes when you tell off a powerful asshole, a whole room of people who have been silently tolerating them go "HELL YEAH," and suddenly one powerful connection is substituted for 100 people's respect and admiration. Don't let some vague notion of consequences (that may be entirely theoretical) stop you from doing what you feel is right. Know what you're doing, protect yourself as best you can, have back-up plans, and push forward. ❤️
