pickleddcherries

I am going to keep my complaints targeted at a societal and systemic issue, as one of the people who sparked this thought in me is a person I am trying to successfully organize with and draw in to collaborate efficiently with. I understand I have to be patient and strategic as an organizer when engaging in discourse with others who may not be as exposed to ideas that I have been radicalized on.

I am an organized comrade in my city: I have been working with formal organizations since I was 15, and was formally inducted into one at 16. I am usually surrounded by comrades and people who are struggling under this wicked system. When you think of my city, I hope you do not think of the glistening buildings housing politicians who trample on the lives of the masses here and abroad: I hope you think of the people who are struggling to scrape by on rent for their apartments, showing up in the pitch black of the middle of the night to protest against ICE and the war on Iran. I hope you see the restaurant workers who leaned out windows to shout out support for the thousands of protestors marching by for Palestine. I hope you see the bus drivers who slow down and honk rapidly in support of the crowds waving Palestine flags.

But I do not live within the city. I live in the wealthy, affluent, privileged suburbia that surrounds it.

I have become so used to the luxury of organizing with comrades, comrades who would shout for Israel to go to hell in a heartbeat alongside the Palestinian Youth Movement at protests, comrades who are always thinking about the people of Cuba under genocidal blockade, who haven't stopped demanding for the release of Maduro, who haven't ever taken their eyes off Palestine.

Now I am faced with real challenges in being an organizer: working with the privileged in society who are not yet fully politically conscious. Trying to work with them, meet them where they're at, but also expand their mindset, progress their conscience, but at the very same time, not prioritizing an individual's development over the development of the movement, and making sure my efforts with individuals do not come at the expense of the movement. It's tricky. But it's work I am happy to do.

But my god: organizing as an anti-imperialist in the heart of the imperial core is emotionally, psychologically exhausting. I swallow it, hide it for the entire time I do my work. Because the words I would say through unfiltered emotions wouldn't be very effective or professional.

But I need to say them somewhere.

If you all have been keeping up with my recent saga of posts detailing my frustrating recent experience as a student organizer, you will know that I was betrayed by my white liberal co-organizer, who unilaterally went behind my back and agreed to all demands from authority without notifying me or consulting a single peer or member of the people she was supposed to represent. She then kicked me from our shared account and blocked me on it.

From what I can only assume is from either shame or folding due to scrutiny, she unblocked me on the account on the day of her capitulated protest. I scanned it. Every post I had created for our operation had been taken down by her. A post I had made detailing why we students were protesting was taken down. A post that I carefully designed to pull kids in using ICE and Trump as a common ground for all, and then carefully weaving in opposition to wars, criticism of billionaires, and finally ending with a firm anti-imperialist statement. It was a post with a firm ideological stance and political drive, it was made from the perspective of meeting people where they're at, but expanding and stretching their political conscience.

And it worked.

That post received what I recall to be hundreds of likes, and people from our school excitedly talked about the protest.

After she preemptively capitulated, she took down that post. In its place, a new post, with lazy font and bullet points, was uploaded by her. It loosely stood against ICE and Trump, and as a final bullet point, "Show disapproval of the US involving us in issues abroad."

The pictures I had included of the evaporated Iranian elementary school, the bombs deployed in West Asia (the Middle East), the Palestinian child starving to death before his mother's eyes. All gone. A firm connection of capitalist repression to imperialism, identifying the issue as systemic, and putting solidarity with the victims of imperialism in the foreground. All gone. Reduced to a bullet point that calls the toying with millions of lives as issues. Possessing the tone of an annoyed remark about why people ought to be involved with the drama of people outside this country.

Support for her posts and her protest flopped. People were angry. People stopped listening. In response, she made sure all comments were disabled on her posts and put out a statement telling people that her unilateral decisions are final, and to not "complain" to her.

We had been friends before all this. I was politically persecuted during 10th and 11th grade due to my vocality for Palestine in such a Zionist area, so she avoided me just like everyone else for a good while. Then, at the beginning of this school year, once most of the world had come to the consensus that the genocide of Palestine was indeed a genocide, when people began to be apologetic towards me and ashamed of themselves, when I began to possess political credibility as a girl who stuck to what is right for years no matter the personal cost, she approached me to become friends.

"I mean, I've seen all the things you post and do, and what's happening in the news, but I don't really know anything about that stuff, so I don't bother to say much."

Recently, I have been working with a new student from another school. I am worried that he is put off by my anti-imperialist politics. He responded to other messages with lengthy paragraphs, but when I wrote a message exclusively about Palestine, he responded with simply "I see." The first faces you can see on my social media, other than mine, are Fidel Castro, Leila Khaled, Che Guevara, and Siham Hassan Hasballah. Half of my posts must be about Palestine, a good amount of the other half about Marxist and anti-imperialist politics. If he is put off by my anti-imperialism and radicalism, I am worried that he will not want to continue working with me.

I tried to convince him that we should use ICE and Trump as a hook to draw people in on a common ground they can all agree with, then slowly expand the message to oppose war and imperialism. He immediately dismissed my idea without even saying he understood where I was coming from, with "I don't think those subjects interest people." I was confused. When I marched with his school's students, they shouted even louder when chanting against imperialism and capitalism. How could he think there wasn't great energy to harness here? Perhaps he simply misunderstood me. I told him I completely see where he's coming from, but that I saw great reception to anti-imperialism and anti-war causes, and that people are fired up for this. "I just don't think people are attracted to these subjects. We should keep this about ICE and Trump."

He already sees me as a radical. I probably already came off too pushy. I'm losing him, I shouldn't push further, I can bring this up at a later time when he's had time to process everything else we've talked about. So I maintain a pleasant attitude and ask him if he could stay in touch with me, concerning the matters of the student organization. "I will tell you two weeks before I want a protest to occur." I disagreed with him on some logistics and desperately wished he would consult other students, but I knew that it was not possible to change his mind on this. I didn't want to come off as the pushy organizer who won't take no for an answer.

I thanked him for his time and reminded him to stay in touch with me.

I put down my phone and tried to process the bitterness I had swallowed for the entire conversation.

"Those subjects"? Subjects? Millions of people's lives are being toyed with, acid sleet is raining down on civilians, elementary schools are vaporized, hospitals are smashed, refugee tents are on fire, sanctions are blocking cancer medicine, and displaced people are being systemically slaughtered. Subjects?

The US has sent a clear message to Latin America: when the West came here, your people were systemically targeted and slaughtered in one of the worst genocides in human history. Now, we will force you to accept miserable conditions and for you to sell everything you have to our capitalists. If you refuse and demand better for yourselves and your families, then we will make life unlivable for you, and you will be forced to die or to flee. And when you flee, we will detain you and put you in concentration camps, and you will die. There is nowhere for you to go. There is no way for you to be.

That is what anti-immigration repression is. A continuation of a policy of capitalist exploitation, imperialist domination, colonialism, and ethnic cleansing.

How could one not even show concern for this connection? My stomach was twisting in vexation. How could you be politically active at this point in history and not be vocally supportive of anti-war, anti-Zionism, and anti-imperialism?

As an organizer, as I've stated many times before, it is your job to meet the people where they're at, but with the goal of expanding their consciousness and progressing the struggle as a whole. Otherwise, it's not organizing, it's a photo op. I feel stumped, like I'm facing an impassable brick wall, and I'm far too stupid to figure out how to make my situation work. Kids at this person's school are passionate about opposing this whole system at its root. There is absolutely no way this student organizer believes there is absolutely no possibility of weaving anti-imperialism and anti-war into the political messaging and program of this action.

Perhaps I am putting words in this young man's mouth. And so I will preface that I am currently venting; these are not my words as a professional organizer. But to me, what I saw was the implied message that, "I don't care much for these 'subjects.' These tens of millions of lives are 'issues' and 'subjects' to me. Reduced to 'foreign policy.' I do not value the lives of people outside the West equally to lives in the US."

How can I change this mentality? What can I do? Why is this mentality even so acceptable in the first place?

Two things can be true at once: the televised Israeli genocide of Palestine has created a generation of the West that is more disillusioned with Zionism than any prior generation of the West. And also, the issue of indifference towards the lives of the Global South, the placing of lives in the Global South as less valuable than those in the West, is far from being eliminated.

I feel as though I am going crazy. That I am seeing things that others cannot see. Being a Marxist anti-imperialist in the imperial core is psychologically exhausting.

It is times like these that I try to remind myself of what I have to come home to.

Either in this lifetime or through the existence of my ashes, I will one day be in a free and reunified homeland. The Yankees will be punished for shattering something that was never theirs to begin with, for fragmenting a culture with their bombs and border walls. I will sink into the humus of our land and become one with it. One day, when the border walls have been crushed, when every American soldier and every American bomb has been expelled from our country, we will taste liberation.

When I come home, I'm gonna love you--my people, our land-- so good. I'll pulverise my flesh and break every bone in my body to love you so good, and one day, when we are free, one day we--my people, this earthen land and seas and rivers and mountains, and I--will be married. I hold my love for you and all our sister nations who too know oppression and struggle in this cumbersome sack on my back, with every ache and sore reminding me just how much love I hold for us all. One day, it is in my eager heart's belief that we will all be free.

TLDR: Victory!

I decided that there isn't enough time to organize, so there can't be a class walkout this Friday. I thought to myself that today, I suppose a lunch walkout is better than nothing.

Leading up to lunch, I heard sentiments buzzing around me. Kids were infuriated at the traitor co-organizer. They angrily said this wasn't a walkout, this was capitulation to admin, the very administration we were meant to be protesting. People noted that someone, me, had tried to organize a 4pd walkout, but that admin was repressing it.

Most kids didn't show up to my traitor co-organizer's walkout. Only 20-30 kids showed up. Most boycotted, consciously or subconsciously, her capitulated walkout. Suddenly, a kid with her grabbed one of her megaphones and shouted, "Admin tried to repress our class walkout. So we're going to march anyway, no matter what they say." The kids got fired up and began marching. This was lunchtime. What issue could there be?

My traitor co-organizer had planned to march on the track around the field. You know, the secluded location nobody goes to except to vape beneath the bleachers next to them? Where trees block the view of the school from the roads, where nothing will happen. Secluded, on-campus, contained. It was the plan admin had approved for this lunch walkout.

Despite seeing the majority of kids, the few who were willing to give her an ounce of support after her endless self-centered arrogance and capitulation, wanted to actually march, out of what I can only guess to be shame or embarrassment, she quietly and silently slipped away with a small number of students (curiously including the kids who ruthlessly bullied me over Palestine in sophomore and junior year...), and separated from the main group. She abandoned her protestors and went to the track. She saw that I was leading the group of passionate kids, and she knew I will not abandon them. I will stand by them, hype them up, and march forward where everyone can see our small group. So if admin were to get upset, I would be the only one to face persecution.

And she was right, I didn't leave them.

Initially, we were a small group of kids. They were scared and nervous, mostly underclassmen who had that eager spark of hope and determination when you first begin to become politically conscious and aware of injustice in the world, kids who looked up to me. They had never protested before, and we were a small group, and other kids were watching us. They hesitated to chant, unfamiliar with hearing any protest chants before.

But they were passionate. Once I began leading them, they got the hang of it. Then the police showed up. Admin had called the police, when the whole plan that they knew of for this walkout was for a few speeches in front of the cafeteria (which didn't happen because actually passionate kids resented my traitor co-organizer and didn't want to speak for her), and then a march on the literal track. Not remotely off campus, not remotely near traffic.

They called the police to intimidate these children. I was infuriated. The cops began screaming at the kids that they are not allowed to stand on public sidewalks, yelling "move, move, keep moving, stop stopping" at the top of their lungs and screeching at these poor kids. They began shouting at us and trailing us and berating us with the speakers on their cop cars, things they use when pursuing someone on the road. I yelled that the cops can and will lie to you, that they're lying right now to intimidate you guys. I shouted to know their rights, that they never have to talk to a police officer alone, and they can refuse to answer questions without a lawyer being present. Once the cops saw me as an organizer, they slowly stopped.

I was beginning to get stressed, this was such a small group of students, my traitor co-organizer left, I am not in the loop for this protest, I felt like I was failing.

Then, in the distance, by some miracle, a wave of students, dozens, for sure, it was a whole crowd. I was confused, they were coming in from the main road over the large highway, could they have been kids from my school? But how, I don't recognize a single face.

It was [redacted] high school. The high school down the road from us.

This high school has a much higher non-white student population, and they are much, much less affluent. So how can they be in such close proximity to such a wealthy and white school like mine? Well, the building they are currently in this school year is a temporary location for them. My school district constructed this new building; it was so new that it was actually actively under construction for the better part of the school year, kids were attending class in rooms with visible pipes, construction blasting next to their windows, and dirt and debris around their campus.

SBS, or sick-building syndrome, is an increasingly problematic condition, especially in new buildings. We are using more and more synthetic plastics and other harmful materials that let out fumes and VOCs when constructing buildings, so long-term occupants of new buildings experience a mirage of health issues, known as SBS: nausea, headaches, respiratory issues, dizziness. We do not yet know the full long-term health consequences of SBS.

The district is using a lower-income, non-white school as guinea pigs. Because the students' families cannot fight back.

So I saw a wave of kids coming towards us. I couldn't believe it at first and finally gasped and said it really is [redacted] high school. They were fired up, shouting into megaphones, flying banners, and yelling that [my school name], your people are here, and our protestors started yelling back "Our people are here! Come, come to this side of the road!" The light turned finally, the cars stopped, and the wave came crashing towards us.

This school marched the 30-40 minutes to my school. To march with us.

The kids were excited and there was a lot of energy, so I decided to start leading them in chants. I started with basic ICE chants, and they followed. I tested the water and chanted against capitalism and billionaires, imperialism, US intervention: they chanted even louder.

Finally, as lunch neared an end, I had to turn around and head back, as admin would absolutely persecute me to the ends of the earth if I didn't. But some kids from my school continued to march with [redacted] high school kids on their march back to their own school. From what I heard, when I handed off the megaphone to other kids, they picked up where I left off perfectly.

I set them up for success, and successful they were. My heart is so proud.

One kid excitedly talked to me about socialism and Marxism. Many kids from this other school were pro-Palestine and vocally anti-imperialist and connected ICE to issues abroad. We technically defied admin without breaking enough rules to get me nuclear wiped (I agree breaking the rules should be part of protesting, however, this time around, we didn't have enough organization and strategy to execute this without putting me, the main political organizer of my school, in legitimate jeopardy). We marched in a way that got people to notice, cars stopped to honk in support for us, we are on a major road next to an interstate.

I organized kids, got their contacts, had productive discussions, radicalized kids more, got a gauge of the political tension in my area.

I represented Palestine as well. And we won today. Today, in this small, intimate corner of the belly of the imperial machine, there was a victory for Palestine, for the students.

My comprador traitor co-organizer may have gotten away with double capitulation. But she has lost all credibility: people do not trust her politically (people can tell when someone doesn't actually stand for anything). People do not trust her as an organizer (she collaborated with admin more than with any single student, in fact not a single other student, and capitulated multiple times pretty preemptively). People do not trust her as a person (she betrayed her friend and played dirty when there was zero warrant for such behavior, and she abandoned the opinions of literally the vast majority of my school's student body).

We showed out against admin, and marched with [redacted] High School, joining forces. And when it comes to my school, we showed something: we only get successful protests when we unite and refuse to bend a knee to powers that be. [Redacted] High School was threatened with expulsion if they walked out. They did it anyway. They're the reason this protest was successful. Kids at my school can now see that not being organized and determined as a student body will result in failed protests. That being too nervous to take a stand while allowing more disadvantaged communities to burden all the weight, just waiting around for one courageous student at their school to take action, will always fail: that one courageous student will be shot down by admin, as an easy target, and the demonstrations will always fail.

Kids are already talking, I can hear the talk buzz around me: we need to be organized. We need to unite and organize, that's the only way we can progress the cause and also protect her [me]. Otherwise, individual corrupt and privileged students will betray the cause, collaborate with admin, and destroy the movement and destroy the political autonomy of our students. We can do this, we are on the right side of history.

We had a protest that made actual motion.

We furthered the consciousness of students in my area.

I helped plant the seeds of future organizers.

The struggle is not over. But today, I can say for certain, we won.

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.

I am being barred from attending class until a meeting with me, my parents,and admins "resolves the conflict" (until we cooperate).

I'm so sorry for coming onto this platform to vent about my failures as a student organizer, I've spoken to irl comrades and created a plan, but I want to hear more advice.

I am a senior in high school in the US. I have been facing persecution from my administration for over 3 years now (since freshman year) over sexual assault and Palestine. Recently, a (white liberal) girl at my school organized a school walkout from class against ICE. She wanted to do it again. I helped her.

I provided all the resources: graphic design, sound system (speakers megaphones mics), armbands, masks, media presence (photography and videography). I did the majority of the work to plan this walkout (was planned to be this Friday)

Admin was all right with her planning a walkout the first time around, protesting ICE actions. However, I gave a speech at that walkout. I vocally supported socialism, was covered in a Keffiyeh with Palestinian flags, and extended US repression to US imperialism and Zionism, and screamed to not retrain ICE but to entirely abolish ICE and the whole system, to the cheers and support from the 100+ students who attended the walkout.

Admin changed their tune. The walkout, due to me and my comrades, gained national attention. Admin became scared.

This other girl "planning" the walkout (in air quotes because I did all the work) collaborated with a liberal student organization that adamantly was against the abolishment of ICE (just stop a few "bad officers") and wanted to hold walkouts across the state during lunch to make it as easy as possible for administration.

I told her let's plan the walkout during class anyways, we need to take a stand. She agreed with me throughout the whole process for weeks. I told her to put out a poll where 200+ students voted, with an overwhelmingly majority saying to hold the walkout during class, not lunch, and to not cave to admin demands.

She went behind my back on Monday. She met with admin, entirely capitulated to their demands without even notifying me, and kicked me from our joint social media account for the walkout and blocked me on it. She initially lied to me and said she just had to change the password and Instagram was being glitchy and that's why I couldn't sign back in. When I asked why I can no longer see the profile even on my personal account, she lied and said it must be a glitch when in reality she had blocked me. She told me she agrees with my opinion to hold the walkout during lunch and not capitulate to admin. She promised me she'd take down her post switching the time to lunch, and promised she'd reupload the correct time, but made sure I couldn't access the account so I couldn't do it myself.

Despite the outrage from students asking why she capitulated to admin, she did not care. She told me we can talk it out during school on Tuesday, when in reality she was planning on skipping that day anyways and knew she wouldn't be there. When I texted her for why she's gone, she told me flat out she will listen to admin and she refuses to listen to me.

I was enraged. I realized white liberals will never see the value in our labor, and they will have no problem siphoning the labor and resources of POCs and get away with stealing it and forcing us to take the fall.

So I pulled out. I told her she will not get my resources anymore, and she should be ashamed of herself for behaving this way when Iranian children are coming home from school in body bags.

She was never very supportive of my vocality for Palestine and anti-imperialism. We were friends before, and she told me "I always saw the things you were protesting for with Palestine and what was happening in the news, but I don't know anything so I don't want to say anything or bother with it."

So I decided, why should this white liberal or my sexist, Zionist administration tell the students what to do? They were not only unilaterally going against me, but what the student body wanted. I have support, this isn't like the time right after October 7th when I was a political taboo, people support me now.

So I created a separate account and announced that no matter what, if students still want a class walkout, it will happen no matter what admin says.

Admin has harassed me and my parents until 8pm today.

My parents and I have a complex relationship, and so initially they lashed out due to fear from trauma that admin gave them the last three years, harassing all of us non stop due to my experiences being sexually assaulted and demanding justice and being a firm advocate for Palestine. I have been hysterically sobbing all afternoon.

I took down the posts announcing the walkout. My family told admin this, and that since we have listened to their demands, there is no need for a meeting tomorrow.

Instead, admin demanded that I meet them first thing in the morning tomorrow before school even starts, for no other reason than to harass me.

They are also demanding that I send them photographic proof of a post officially announcing a cancellation to the walk out, by the end of this evening.

I want to just curl into a ball and cry until I shrivel up. I am so exhausted. Last time admin had a problem with my politics, they weaponized my history of sexual assault to force me to be silent about Palestine, and they weaponized my medical history (I was hospitalized in middle school due to a suicide attempt) to threaten mental institutionalization if I don't stop talking about Palestine. I'm so scared for tomorrow (ig it's 12am so today technically), I'm so scared I'm going to have to relive my assault and my traumatic time in the hospital, I don't know what to do, I'm completely alone.

I don't know anything anymore.

I feel like I've done nothing. All this struggle and failure from me and Palestine is being sieged, bombs are raining on Iranian hospitals, Israel is ethnically cleansing Lebanon, Cuba is under blockade, Venezuela's sovereign leader is in shackles while Epstein pedos walk free, men and women are committing suicide in US concentration camps, and I can't even stand up against admin.

I'm a failure of a comrade.

Note: couple edits here and there to tweak semantics and such :)

Greetings comrades and hello to my lovelies! I apologize for having been incredibly inactive despite my promises to continue posting my silly little essays onto this platform. I've been recovering from an intensely sexually abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend, but I wanted to come out and write this short piece as the struggle of Venezuelan diasporic socialists spoke to me very heavily.

As I'm sure many comrades here have witnessed, our mainstream media in the imperial core is being flooded with Venezuelan diaspora who are celebrating the US kidnapping of Maduro and intervention. The ruling class here is attempting to manufacture consent for imperialist endeavors in Venezuela by citing these voices as the voice of Venezuela, attempting to portray a demonized depiction of Maduro, socialism in Venezuela, and the Bolivarian Revolution.

As a political organizer in the belly of the beast, I have spoken to many diasporic Venezuelans at our demonstrations, venting their frustrations with how the media is portraying Venezuelan public opinion and the US forced regime change. I wanted to write a word of strength to these comrades and reassure my comrades directly in the Global South that a revolutionary diaspora of oppressed peoples exists, for I am proof in the flesh.

First and foremost, let us establish a truth: as we speak, Venezuelans have flooded and will continue to flood their streets in vigilant opposition to the United States' illegal kidnapping and overthrow of Maduro. This is the narrative and the facts that the mainstream imperialist media will not show to the public here, but as many comrades here have uploaded and as you can follow on the social media of the PSUV (Venezuela's socialist party), you can bear witness to the truth: the Venezuelan revolution is a people's revolution.

Secondly, what on Earth could my Korean heritage have anything to do with what is happening in Venezuela?

I am a Marxist-Leninist, a communist, in the Korean diaspora. On my mother's side, I am descended from the last of the Korean ruling class aristocracy, those who collaborated with the Japanese imperialists, those who refused to yield to the DPRK's people's revolution. On my father's side, I am descended from the farmers who have worked the soil of Korea. I am the first in my entire lineage to be born outside of Korea, in the United States.

I grew up on anti-communist, anti-Korean (anti-DPRK) propaganda, just like every other child in the diaspora. What I find so intriguing about anti-DPRK propaganda is that it is not simply annoyingly liberal jokes in poor taste, it is incredibly, explicitly, unbelievably racist. Virtually all portrayal of the DPRK, our decolonial revolutionaries, and people is a depiction of yellowface; every single propaganda lie told about the DPRK is not only inaccurate but clearly Orientalist.

This is an idea that I could and likely will flesh out much more deeply at some other time: being raised in the Korean diaspora, under the wing of anti-DPRK propaganda, was being raised to hate ourselves. In learning to hate the DPRK, we were learning how to hate ourselves. In learning to hate communism, we were learning how to hate ourselves.

"North Korea" was a very scary word for me growing up. The Korean diaspora is ironically some of the most eager to perpetuate, diffuse, reiterate, and further anti-DPRK jokes, not realizing that we are essentially making crude jokes about our own faces, our own features, our own heritage, our own history, our own people.

I grew up around white people. Growing up in predominantly white Evangelical churches, I also had a fair share of religious trauma. I cried at the thought that the will of God saved me and birthed me into a devout family, and by extension, I cried in awe at the thought that I had been born into Korea of democracy and paradise, not the Korea of "authoritarianism" and hell. Anxious to please my white church, the vastly white community, and my anti-DPRK parents, I grew into an uncomfortable, oppressive, and restrictive box, the same box that the imperial core forces all the children of Asia to climb into at our expense. We must be smaller, and smaller, and smaller. I find it a hilarity looking back on it now, the white people convinced me that my own country's history was too complex for me to understand! That war is war, and our people went feral as all the peoples below the white man do at one point or another. I used the slurs white people used against my people, not out of reclaimation, but out of spite for my own people and my own self, as the majority of the Asian diaspora has done at one point or another. Being Korean was such an agonizing reality, yet the pain was not searing. It rotted in the back of my psyche as a static and dulled pain, as if a hammer had been rammed into me until I became numb. Unable to even confront this pain in my consciousness, I, like many diasporic Koreans, learned to live with the pain that came with no explanation and no pinpointed location on our bodies.

Although "North Korea" was a scary word for me, oddly enough, communism was not. Socialism was not. Before I had ever read a word of Marx, I thought of him as quite a wise man. My elder brother, a Marxist from a young age, left his copies of Das Kapital lying around, of which I skimmed a few pages when I was in elementary school. I was young, but I knew that something was being hidden from me by the empire I grew up in.

This self-hatred that the imperialists fester in Korean souls, in the diaspora, and in the occupied ROK, it's a simply awful contradiction that contradicts the very soul and history of our people. It's a bitter thing, something that creates a burning sensation in our arteries, that lingers and burns until many of us die under imperialism. Colonialism is poison to the mind. There is nothing more poisonous to the Korean soul than capitalism.

Even after I had taken on the label of a communist, I still knew little about the colonization of my homeland. It wasn't until I learned of a nation named Palestine that I, after fifteen years of life on this earth, learned the truth about imperialism, and thus, the truth about my homeland.

"The truth shall set you free." Palestine set me free.

I have become quite a vocal Korean, especially when it came to anti-Zionism. I think the shock that an Asian girl who had previously been known only as a fourteen-year-old exotic removed, as the rumors gossiped about me after a series of unfortunate assaults, was suddenly a booming political voice that stopped at nothing to diametrically defy orders from authority, who was decolonial, anti-imperialist, and communist, well I think that shock caused quite some offense for many.

The disgust from white folks was amusing to me, but never caused me dismay. What truly broke my heart, what was the greatest heartbreak of my many lives, was the fact that my peers of the Asian diaspora, the Korean diaspora in particular, treated me just as horribly as my white peers did. Many found my vocality for Palestine repulsive; they saw my communism as a monster, and they saw me as a national traitor. I can firmly recall many times where I held back my bitter rage and contempt when Korean peers of mine claimed to be opposing my politics out of a concern for human rights or whatnot when they were the same people who angrily abandoned me when I prevented Zionist politicians who line the pockets of the Israeli military from speaking at our school, at the expense of a bullet point on their college applications.

The Korean diaspora is incredibly anti-communist. I cling to the writings and speeches of the few communist diasporic Koreans I have found over the years. I anger very quickly when I hear the racist lies about my people's self-determination, and I get angrier when I hear that it is faces of my own people egging on the sons and daughters of imperialism.

Colonialism is violent and all-pervasive. The oppressed masses cannot truly be free unless we also decolonize our minds, decolonize at the psychological level. At every point in our socialization in the diaspora, we have been taught how to hate ourselves, how to hate our liberation, to submit to the claustrophobic boxes that the empire forces us into.

Over my radicalization as a communist Korean, I have become familiar with struggling and fighting with, as well as feeling betrayal from my own people. I have become familiar with being a first-hand witness to what the poison of imperialism and capitalism does to the mind. I have become familiar with facing an entirely falsified depiction of your people's revolution and anti-imperialism. I have become familiar with the communities immediately around you (in the imperial core), being so pathetically uninformed about your people and acting as if a blanket anti-Trump or anti-empire statement while simultaneously invalidating your people's resistance is close to enough.

The reason why I find myself so incredibly angry with the mainstream media's portrayal of Venezuelan opinion and reaction to the United States' illegal intervention is that it strikes a chord very near to my heart. It elicits an emotion I am painfully familiar with.

Oh Venezuela,

You have my heart in this very moment. Although much of the imperial core does not know the true heart of your resistance and revolution, you have my ears and my set of eyes and my heart. Rest assured that there is a wing of the diaspora of the colonized masses in the imperial core that is radical, that seeks revolution, that is decolonial, that are scientific socialists and Marxists.

I understand your pain and suffering. I understand how the empire's media will misportray our voices. I see the brave children of the revolution on the streets. I will be one of your many witnesses. Our martyrs fly high and live onwards, the communist Korean diaspora loves you so, and you have our hearts.

In revolution, in resistance,

Your comrade of the radical Korean diaspora.

(Apologies, initially posted in wrong community by accident)

I'm livid with rage. I'm absolutely paralyzed with anger

The link I've provided is Associated Press, but I believe there are other sources that talk about the shame and guilt these women feel, and it shattered my heart

One of the outlets that actually covered this was the Times of Israel, feel free to find it yourself but I will not be platforming them even in the slightest because this outlet reported these horrifying exploitation of Palestinian women and then immediately juxtaposed it to the Orientalist portrayals/accusations of sexual crimes by Palestinian men on October 7th, showing complete insensitivity and unwillingness to allow the victims of genocide to have a voice of their own.

Free Palestine. See you in the streets this weekend, comrades.

I was wondering if any comrades had more information about this? Here's what I have right now:

-Trey Reed was a black student at Delta University (Mississippi) who was found dead recently

-His cousin said that Trey was found with broken arms and injuries, but the police told the public that there was "no evidence of foul play" and they were leaning towards ruling it as a suicide and that it was "self done"

-Some Mississippi residents have said that the university has a history of racial violence and that the state has covered up lynchings in the past, but it is always ruled by the cops as "no evidence of foul play"

-TLDR: the cops are saying that this was not a lynching, there was no foul play, however, according to Trey's cousin and Mississippi residents, there is a very low chance that this was a suicide and a high chance Trey was racially hate-crimed

My thoughts: yeah this is suspicious as hell, he was found hanging from a tree. A tree near the school's pickleball courts. I find it incredibly suspicious, especially due to the cops being so swift to counter Trey's cousin's remarks about Trey being injured and from Mississippi residents' stories about how frequently racial violence has been covered up. If any comrades have more information, please let me know.

News articles I read over: https://www.wapt.com/article/delta-state-classes-cancelled-after-someone-found-dead-on-campus/66105035 https://www.mississippifreepress.org/delta-state-university-students-body-found-hanging-in-tree-no-foul-play-suspected/ https://www.livemint.com/news/us-news/who-is-trey-reed-delta-state-university-student-found-hanging-from-tree-11757980386604.html Tiktoker dmetri30 is also speaking out about it on his account

Rest in power Trey Reed.