Golden Retriever GF@GoldenRetrieverGF@blahaj.zone
History time and getting to know me a little better. Today I answer “What radicalized me/Why am I a #leftist ?”. I am old enough to remember the USSR being mentioned as an active entity. So when September 11th happened I was already 14. I remember it very very clearly. I also remember watching as the actions of one terrorist cell resulted in watching missiles drop all over Afghanistan. One man and America pays him back with destruction of a country he’s not even in. This was not that moment.
I was sitting on a trampoline with my best friend. We’ve known eachother now for over 20 years. He came out of the closet about a year before I did. It was sundown and I made some support of Bush Jr that my parents had told me and his immediate reply was “Bush is an idiot”. NOBODY that was ANYBODY in my family questioned a Republican. Democrats were the antichrist and Republicans were our only saviors in a world full of sin. Or so my family said.
I’d watched as America started calling French Fries and French Toast “Freedom Fries” and “Freedom Toast”. I’d watched as Mosques burned and was confused by this “unity” they spoke of. All I saw was racism and Islamaphobia. I saw the destruction of cultures that the USA had propped up. Watched the mounting deaths of thousands of innocents. I’d been disturbed but my family had always comforted us with propaganda and Christo-fascist lies that are so easy to see through with any logic at all. The answer was simple. No work arounds or ridiculous logic required. The far-right are a problem and all it took was permission to see reality for what it was.
I was an anarchist at first then a communist but by the time I was 18 I was a socialist. I have remained there now for about 17 years. I’ve seen all matter of fucked up since. I was a TA and we had a big ol meeting because a white christian male student looked a Muslim woman in the eye and said to his friends “I wonder what it would feel like to strangle a [Muslim woman] with my bare hands”.
And if my friend had not given me permission to feel like I do now I might still be like my parents who needed a year to find out if they would accept a queer kid in their family. It took them not being able to deal with the amount of recommendations from other church goers of what they would do to make sure their daughter would be their son. They were so tired of recommendations of abuse and cruelty of the most loving child they actually raised that my mother texted me weeping, asking how I make it through every day when she can barely go to church anymore for the hate.
My life changed on that trampoline. Two queers madly in love and unable to admit it until we were both much older talking about Leftism, politics and life. Giving me permission to feel and see reality for what it is instead of requiring propaganda and neoliberalism to justify my world view. Story time over. My Characters are about up. #leftism