Here’s a problem: reformists end up playing by oppressor’s rules, forming factions, and marginalizing minorities; revolutionaries become zealots who need to convert an army before they get anything done.
Here’s the underlying problem: change is slow, because people change slowly. Reformists want change that requires the consent of the very people responsible for why things are […]

We became aware of suffering. We knew we had to work to change things. The first step was learning. We read as much as we could, we started talking about how things could be different. We didn’t know what to do.
We became aware of power structures. We saw an opportunity to work towards change. We […]

There’s a pattern we can observe, it goes like this: naive enthusiasm, naive counter-enthusiasm, and wise release. Patriotism is foolish. Anti-Americanism is equally foolish. Nations seem to preclude some sort of world harmony, and yet to quest for their destruction is misguided.
Why celebrate the Fourth of July? The founders were intellectual elitists who forced their […]

There was a time when I was ignorant of oppression; a blissful childhood spent aloof to the suffering in the world. My eyes began to open in my adolescence, and my identity shifted. Naively, I thought we could use the system’s own channels to reform and ameliorate oppressive conditions. I slowly became disillusioned with this […]

Hip hop was born under oppression. In its infancy, it was the voice of the voiceless. In adolescence, it connects strangers, challenges authority, and echoes from coast to coast. As it grows, however, it suffers acute memory loss. It breaks down during mid-life crisis, buys cars and jewelry, degrades women, and abandons its humble roots. […]