Obvious CW for SA
I've gotten a lot of amazing support and advice on my previous posts about the unfolding situation with my political persecution as a high schooler in the US.
I think a lot of comrades here weren't familiar with who I was on The Deprogram subreddit, so my incredibly brutal experience with admin repression isn't well known here, and I feel like the context is important and could help another comrade in a similar position.
In 9th grade, I was sexually assaulted by a boy in my grade. Admin prioritized keeping the boy "safe from cyberbullying" (aka preventing me from talking about what happened) and told me not to ruin an innocent until proven guilty boy's future and educational experience over allegations I can't prove. They repeatedly harassed me to the point of tears and slut shamed me for how I dressed. I was 14. Since this incident happened right after I was involuntarily committed to one of the only completely privatized mental institutions in my city when I was 13 after a suicide attempt, and suffered a lot of abuse while hospitalized, and was exposed to the sexual abuse of my 11-year-old roommate, I already despised the system with my whole heart.
10th grade began in 2023. Some day in mid-October, the principal came onto the loudspeaker to tell everyone that "despite the fact that some sad things have happened in a region of the world, I don't want to hear anyone giving other students a hard time." I turned to my friend in our AP Physics 1 class and shrugged. What could even be so serious?
That week, I became educated about a nation called Palestine.
The truth shall set you free. And Palestine set me free.
He would watch me at the back of class, he needed tutoring, he was failing this stupid honors chemistry class, and I was just oh so, so smart. The library should be fine, but actually he can't focus at the library, so his house should be fine since his parents are home but the house is empty, and he would study and just focus on that quiz tomorrow, but these stupid equations and enzyme names won't stick in his head because my chest is too tempting, and it's just one kiss it won't hurt me but then why are you on top of me and why won't you let me get up, why can I not breathe, and why are you holding me down, if just one kiss wouldn't hurt then why did you not stop until you finished, I think you said "I love you" but when I tried to push you off you forced me down, how do kids already know what happened, why am I being called a whxre, why is nobody standing up for me, if I date you then will I be happy and will the gossip stop?
He said I was pretty, my body wasn't to his standards, but my face was incredibly appealing. He said it was something about the way I dress, especially when I look like a child school-girl. I'm watching a video essay about theory, he says I'm boring and grabs my face and kisses me, he pulls me to his room, his door won't open from the inside, he would have to pick the lock to free it, this doesn't feel right, I can't look at you, I curl up into a ball on the floor, you try to pry me open, I rock back and forth as best as I can and mutter under my breath, I tell you I don't want to do anything, but it's just one kiss it can't possibly hurt, but now you're on top and I can't breathe, I'm putting my arms out but you're just so much stronger than me and my limbs tremble and cave in as you force yourself on top of me, I'm pushing and scrambling my legs but it's useless, I can't speak or scream, I suddenly back into the wall and shake my head no as my mute mouth opens and closes trying to make a sound, now you're dragging me to the floor and it hurts, when I'm fully conscious again, it's dark, it's been hours, you brag about how many times you did it with my body, and you pick up a wire coat hanger. Skrrt, clik, clik, shhk
You pick the lock. And the door opens. The light floods into the darkness.
Stupid. I am so stupid.
I didn't realize that all these things--my suicide attempt at 13, my sexual assault 14, my sexual assault at 15--would come back in the form of weapons used against me for condemning a televised genocide.
A week or so later, you left me. I wasn't making it easy for you to assault me again. I have no use. I'm devastated. I decide to hop a train to the city and wander around aimlessly.
There was a vigil for the children of Palestine. I looked solemnly and kept wandering on my invisible path forward. Suddenly, I stopped and turned back around.
I scooped a candle into my arms and stepped forward into the vigil. By some stroke of luck, I was allowed to give an impromptu speech. I felt like an imposter, I wasn't the most educated back then, all I knew by that point was that this is a genocide that is bankrolled by the Western imperialist class and Israel is a bullshit settler colonial project.
The timeline became a blur. Protest after protest, staying out until it was dark, marching, public speaking, organizing. Everyting happened so quickly: at 15, I began organizing and working with a socialist party. I was the youngest recruit by a mile, no other youth recruit or youth member existed in the chapter of the party. I attended protests, organizing meetings and events, panels for Palestine and cadre training every week. I began becoming vocal. I would animatedly tell my friends at school about each protest, the history of Palestine, I had all the grandeur of a child cadre member, bursting into classrooms after finding out the bombing of Yemen, sobbing uncontrollably after the bombing of Khan Younis, breaking down to the floor after the self immolation of Aaron Bushnell. After a few months, I was inducted to the party and began attending cadre classes.
I go to school in the wealthiest city of the 20th wealthiest county in the US. My school had one of the highest Israeli populations even by national comparison.
What began was a non-stop administrative campaign against me. They told me I am not allowed to say the word Zionism in the school building. I told them that they were enabling genocide and should be ashamed of themselves for censoring me, and that I'll fight to the last inch of ground I have. They began pulling my family into meetings that ran on for hours. My chronically ill mother would sob from phsyical pain due to over-exertion during meetings, and the administration did not care. They pulled me from class using security officers, opened administrative investigations against me, stalked my social media presence 24/7, threatened me with permanent records, and expulsion.
Then the stack of papers hit. Stacks and stacks of papers of pure stalking, a snail trial of evidence that I did the unspeakable: vent about my sexual assaulters and warn other girls who to be careful around. Clearly this showed that I am a liability to the safety of the student body and I am mentally unstable, and so I should not talk about serious matters such as sexual assault and Palestine. Then a document rolled in. Since my past suicide attempt two years prior showed I am clearly mentally unwell, they were attempting to mandate that I be forcibly taken to a crisis center mental institution. I was mentally unfit, clearly my advocacy for Palestine is a sign of hysteria.
What I always find peculiar is I never even considered capitulating. There were inevitably moments when I was scared or anxious, but I never even viewed giving in as an option. Admin bemoaned and groaned, "In my 24 years in this career, I have never encountered a student like her." Every time a new threat rolled in, even when the threat was a weaponization of my sexual assault and suicide attempt, I never wavered. If anything, it made me more determined to never give in.
The two boys I mentioned were the two that most impacted admin's decision making, but there were other incidents as well, such as a long term relationship where I was hit and raped, sometimes to the point of tears. In order to continue my work as an organizer, a cadre member, an anti-Zionist, I had to bludgeon the girl I was in the moments of rape and assault. She would only be hoisted out from under the floorboards as a political chess piece by a managerial Zionist administration, she would cry too loud and the sobbing pierced my ears, I couldn't focus on my work, my goal, my organizing. So I bludgeoned her again and again untli the screaming stopped, the corpse of who I was laying at my feet. Who was I? I don't know, maybe it was never important. I walked over the lump on the floor that was my corpse, and I marched forwards.
Admin will not win.
I was only brought up in conversations to either scrutinize my anti-Zionist politics and then slxt-shame me, or to slxt-shame me then scrutinize my anti-Zionist politics. I was a third rail subject. People began to isolate and alienate me. My (white) partner broke up with me out of fear of being associated with me. Despite the social isolation, I still never considered wavering. Despite getting heckled on the street by Zionists on my way to just grab lunch on a weekend, despite death threats ("I just want to grab her and strangle her, I could physically overpower her if I really want to"), and boys becoming awfully comfortable with sexually harassing me ("every time I see her, I want to rape her" "try to look up her skirt" "I wonder what's under her skirt"), my thoughts throughout the days always remained the same: "Should I take the metro or the shuttle bus between cadre class and the rally?"
And my thoughts throughout the nights always remained the same: "My babies, I'm a failure, I can't do anything, I am so sorry, please forgive me--my babies, sisters and brothers of my people, you are dying and all I can do is cry on this hard floor and beg for your forgiveness for my ineffectivity." Not a week went by when I wouldn't violently sob, sometimes to the point of vomitting. The fact that I was witnessing the annihilation of a people before my eyes and was being stalked, harassed, investigated, threatened, and isolated for it made me sick to me stomach. Not because of what it did to me, but the rage at people's willingness to treat certain "types of people" as less human. Some days the tears were purely out of mad grief for the Palestinian people. Every death pierced my soul like a shard of glass, I heaved my rising and falling chest in gasps of air as I beared witness to the crimes committed against an entire nation.
Another week, another threat from admin. They want to expel me, again. They're calling me a whxre, again. They're bringing up my sexual assault story as an excuse to silence me about Palestine, again.
I am not sure exactly when, but sometime late 2025, Zionism began no longer claiming the firm title of the status quo. I could wear my Keffiyeh to school without trouble. Kids began to also question Zionism, and people began to treat me with good faith curiosity rather than condemnation. I didn't realize it back then, but it was the beginning of my final impact on this school.
I will end this very long post here, because the next time skip is my current situation, and I want to assess what happens through the end of this week before writing an analysis.
But yes, this is my background as a political organizer.
I have now been a political organizer for 2+ years. All of this may seem just simply awful, traumatic, and horrible, but if some higher power out there in the universe were to ask me if I would do it all over again, I would say yes in a heartbeat: it's practically a non-question. If I had to relive it a hundred times over, I would say yes, because today and tomorrow, fuck Israel, fuck Zionism, and fuck imperialism.
It's the victories in between. A Palestinian freshman spotting me in my Keffiyeh as a senior and coming up to me to excitedly tell me he noticed my Keffiyeh and that he's Palestinian. Encamping with college students for Gaza and seeing a child in the displacement tents personally thanking the student protestors at the specific university. Being inducted to the party as the chapter's only youth member. Laeding a protest forward successfully despite being kettled by police.
The victories may feel scarce, but they do come.
And the goal isn't ever based on any individual comrade: it's the movement. The people, united, will never be defeated. Palestine will be free.
As I said to my administrator on my way out the door today, loud enough for the lobby to hear: free Palestine, no matter what.
