I’ve been seeing this thread going around twitter about “what radicalized you”, and I was both radicalized and de-radicalized, and I just want to share both of these experiences. People may just write me off because I’m white and relatively well off but here’s my 2 cents.

What radicalized me is the obvious inequality in the US. The homeless population in New Brunswick has EXPLODED since I was a kid and is impossible to ignore. I was idealist and wanted to “be a part of history” and be the change.

I also had a personal story that I don’t want to share, but someone close to me ended up in jail and I saw the full evil of the prison system...the reasons to be radicalized are numerous and obvious.

What de-radicalized me was participating in the protest movement during Ferguson. People were saying the black cops are still “n-words” and chanting “off the pigs” and it was mostly non-black protesters and the cops were around 50% black. And I was just like wtf am I doing here.

For the most part, the protests were attended by ideological young people who were not black and really couldn’t give a fuck about black issues. They were resentful, narcissistic, and were generally upper-middle class people who hate rich people because they have more than them.

And these movements are being infected with a new ideology that I think is really dangerous and regressive. It’s a victim mindset that takes agency away from people. The chants “we are not ok”, or white people trying to be “allies”.

Black people have more than enough agency to help themselves and to suggest otherwise is actually racist. There are historical hurdles in place that prevent people from exercising this agency and that’s what needs to be removed. But that’s not what the “radicals” are about.

From my experience as a “radical”, radicals are motivated by resentment. They have this victim mindset that we’re all just warring identities and no one has any personal agency and all the problems in the world can be chalked up to capitalism or patriarchy or whatever else.

It destroys personal relationships and makes men and women unable to have romantic relationships. And it’s just a fight to the bottom that destroys rather than tries to build. Like I said earlier, the reasons to be radical are numerous and obvious.

But what I see is people falling into ideology rather than trying to actually address problems. It’s leaving an already atomized generation even more spiritually bankrupt. There’s no depth or trancendence in this ideology; just fighting identities based on physical traits and $$.

I’m not denying the need for fundamental change in this country; I’m fully on board with that. But I just see this new ideology making its way into the mainstream under the guise of social justice. Think for yourself! Reject resentment and build rather than criticize and destroy.