the terrorists we are

People often talk about what radicalized them on podcasts and whatnot and ever since reading Pirate’s radicalization moment (in the left direction) a few months ago, I’ve been thinking about my own moment which I believe I’ve finally identified: It was the start of the current Palestinian genocide. My belief in the universalism of human rights (that they would apply to me) was shaken occasionally by the “Suliman, the terrorist” jokes, but those were just jokes, right? Whereas the genocide presented a rupture for me. I’ve (crudely) written about the response to it in the former Nazi countries on the first anniversary of the genocide here which felt daring at the time—abstract as it is. Yet here I am, three years in, and still writing about the machinery of White and Jewish supremacy because it hasn’t ceased crushing people who look like me under its gears for the grave crime of being Arab or, worse, Palestinian. I’ve started my political journey in my teenage years as a social…