Radicalization

By: Maanasi Shyno

Hello world, it’s me, Maanasi. I’m calling to tell you I’m a radical. Yeah, really. I decided you are far too cruel for me to be anything else.

My parents wait with me in ICE for a whole day They say we can’t just leave to India for the funeral without permission I don’t understand why the US won’t naturalize me already

My old classmate tells me our acquaintance is five months pregnant She’s starting to show and she visited the nursery teachers I wonder where all the pregnant girls at my school go

My leader for the City District program asks us to dress up He takes us down to a session of City Council and cameras are everywhere I am pulled into a publicity stunt without consent

My global politics teacher shows us 13th the year it comes out He teaches us what evil looks like outside of fiction I stop pledging allegiance to the flag

My patients in Long Beach tell me about their pain They teach me more about oppression than I learn about medicine I think I’m interested in healthcare, but that’s not what draws me there at all

My manager tells me to keep going when my shoelaces snap He says it may be the last day of the campaign, but every vote counts I still believe politics has to be about picking between two evils

My friends and I head downtown on my birthday They marvel at the number of unhoused camped around City Hall I am not able to stop staring

My lab partner groans when we’re stopped by canvassers at the corner He doesn’t know that I also ask for signatures in my freetime I can’t engage in politics any other way

My old boss sends me an article about the candidate we got elected He is caught up in some gambling mess I laugh in disbelief because of course he is

My professor teaches us about foreign aid in Afghanistan He asks if anyone knows anything about interventionism I realize how frustrated I am with American terror

My university with a six billion dollar endowment says that it won’t lower tuition It claims it can’t pay employees without collecting the same amount I can’t even act surprised anymore

My sister listens to a podcast about Tara Reade She weeps and plays it again I see her scowl at Biden on the television screen

My employee needs a break after a xenophobic phonecall He forgets to turn off his camera and grits his teeth I wonder how I never noticed all the racists in California

My mentor tells me about the student union She recommends radical texts colleges don’t assign I start reading and have never felt so awake in my life

My sociology textbook says 20 to 40 percent of the houseless work It tells me that minimum wage is not a housing wage I stick a note to my wall so to remind myself everyday

My peers ask me what party I’d belong to if I was a citizen They guess I’m liberal, but really I’m too far gone I am moving left on a spectrum that seems to get lonelier the further you go

My first-gen mentee thanks me for helping figure out her aid She is the epitome of the child left behind, four years post-Obama I don’t know how to tell her she is changing my life

My soul echoes Davis’ advice to imagine revolution It says dream of a different future, or there’s no point to abolition I try to imagine, but it feels like I haven’t done that in years

My trippee tells me she isn’t worried about inaction Because she knows she will do good work after law school I wish my hands didn’t itch so much

My classmate responds to my anti-capitalist critique during discussion He builds on it in ways that make me smile I note that I am in good company

My advisor is cautious when I tell her I’m dropping premed She asks what I want to do instead I ask myself why doing good is so hard and pays so little

My pseudo-older brother is honest about wanting fast cars He tells me not to close any doors with my bleeding heart I understand, but I don’t know how else to live

My mind tells me to move move move It also wonders what I should be doing I read, cry to Tracy Chapman, and wait.

I am moving left on a spectrum that seems to get lonelier the further you go.