I’m a shy person. I don’t like talking about politics. I really am. Throughout middle school and high school I gained a reputation as a composed, thoughtful person who didn’t pipe up much during political debates. I relished my role, listening to my friends debate politics, knowing that when I chose to speak, people would listen. They knew that I took the time to think both sides through. They trusted my judgment.

So much for that. Is it really a neutral act to refuse to rebel at the presence of evil? The America depicted in high school history texts is very different from the America we live in today. The genesis of this society was predicated on the genocide of the red man. The riches of this country were grown with the blood of the black man. And the woman? Don’t even get me started. We were promised an America embodying the realization of the Enlightenment, a land of tolerance. A land of freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom from want. Freedom of expression. Instead we got Empire. Instead, we’re handed a kleptocracy.

Fuck. That. Shit. I don’t want to be an activist. I want to be an academic. I want to tinker with computers and curl up with a book in front of the fire. I don’t want to be painted as one-sided, angry, or needlessly didactic. Yet what choice do I have, when one political party systematically destroys America and the other is too cowardly to stop them? No choice. No time to waste.