by Aerin Agyei & Sarah Salomonsky
A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO AMERICAN ROOMMATES IN LONDON
A: It’s like hypocrisy just doesn’t matter at all anymore, which is really crazy. Like obviously in, in everyday life, humans are hypocrites, but I don’t think there should be this much hypocrisy in politics.
S: What’s so dangerous about it – and the reason why people are trying to normalise it is because then you don’t know what’s true and what’s not. And if you have no sense of reality, you can’t realistically fight something.
A: Yeah, no, I actually really think everything that’s been going on in the world with technology and stuff has really set up, unfortunately, a perfect scenario for what’s going on right now politically. Because I think that especially since the turn of the century people are just losing grip with reality, which makes it a perfect climate for someone crazy to rise to power because there’s no sense of misinformation. People will believe anything, you know, and now with AI…
S: Oh my god. I definitely think AI is a huge concern. Like, yeah, the way that it’s already being integrated into everyday life, and it’s becoming so normal is insane. I feel like I don’t even know anything about it. We’re just scratching the surface. It does make it so hard to know what’s real and what’s not.
A: Yeah, it definitely stresses me out. And I think even not on a political level, like, just going on TikTok or Instagram or whatever and seeing AI regularly, I feel like it really messes with your mind. And especially like, let’s talk about young people on these apps, they’re growing up already accustomed to seeing a distorted reality.
A: What are you most scared of?
S: What am I most scared of in this exact moment?
A: Yeah.
S: Probably World War Three.
A: Yeah… I, I feel like what I’m most scared of changes literally every day, actually.
Styled by Sarah Salomonsky Hat: Uptown Yardie Corset: Sarah Salo
Styled by Sarah Salomonsky
Hat: Uptown Yardie
Bodysuit: Sarah Salo
A: I can’t believe it was even five years ago, but remember in 2020, when it was the cool thing to be super politically active and to be an activist and stuff like that. And then all of a sudden, that’s just like completely gone. It’s so crazy to me. It’s wild that the whole world managed to convince everyone that they cared and then now it’s just like, nevermind. Yeah, we actually don’t care and actually we hate you.
S: Yeah, I think it was like, everybody cared so much. And then it transitioned into this thing of, well, nobody knows what to do. So now we just hate everyone.
A: Yeah. I actually bought this book that I haven’t read yet, because I’ve been so busy, but I really want to read it. It’s called After Black Lives Matter. It talks about some of the flaws with the Black Lives Matter movement and lot of the like, kind of surface level type of conversations that happen around race and even any movement like LGBTQ+ rights or whatever, they don’t really focus that much on long-lasting solutions. It’ll be like, okay, right now, go and protest. And then, nothing really happens. And everyone’s like, wait, that’s all we knew that we could have done. And really, there’s things that need to become embedded and continued processes, not just like let’s do one thing and hope everything changes. And yeah, people are not talking about that. Because those are the hard things to do. To actually change the system.
S: Yeah, institutional changes. And I think a lot of that too, is like, in order to change the institution, you have to get involved in the institution. And that’s really difficult because there are barriers to entry, different levels of education that are required. Like, I don’t know jack shit about the law. I can go out and hold a sign. But like, I can’t do anything about actually changing the legislation. I don’t know anything about that. Which is why I feel like political education is so important.
A: Yeah, yeah. On that note, I remember when Trump was first inaugurated, or even when he was voted in, the thing that I was most scared of, and honestly still am, is the war on education. The way that he’s, you know, penalising schools for teaching about critical race theory and queer identity and stuff like that. Like, it is happening. I saw something that said the state of our children and teens is a way to tell what the state of the country is. And I feel like if you look at them right now, they are not doing well, you know, like they’re really unwell, they’re not educated, COVID happened, and they had years of gaps in their education, they have agoraphobia, they don’t know how to communicate with each other, technology is like, taking over their brains, it’s really bad out there… we need strong education.
A: The thing is it is impossible to erase the existence of a group. Like it’s literally impossible. All throughout history, even if it was completely taboo, queer people still existed. And so it’s a battle that inherently is gonna be lost. We will never be wiped out. There are already strong communities, but they’re just not really being covered because, you know, obviously, there’s an agenda here. And I also do think that there are people who actually do still care, and those are the ones who are building those long lasting solutions. And another thing is a new generation is coming up.
S: Yeah, yeah, I think that it is very difficult to move backwards once you move forward. I feel like we have a lot of people in the US right now who are desperately trying to move backwards. Like girl, you can’t. Yeah, you can’t, sorry. At the end of the day, society just cannot move backwards.
IT’S TIME TEAR IT
TIME TO IT DOWN
