When I was in my 20s and just getting started in activist anti-racist feminist politics, I remember very clearly attending community meeting with people in their 30s and 40s and what I remember of their experiences and what they shared was not positive. I want to be honest here and share my thoughts, as I had an experience recently that has made a number of questions rise up for me.

My thoughts and responses were, wow, these folks are cranky and bitter and negative. Always shooting down our ideas and not being supportive. What’s their problem? I’m clearly right and they’re clearly wrong.

Some may have said some of the following things, that I know now are Bad Things To Say to a Young Activist

“I used to think that too when I was your age”

“You’ll learn soon enough what reality is out there”

“No we tried that, it didn’t work”

…. you get the idea.

Me and my comrades were left feeling isolated, unsupported and chided.

Flash forward twenty years.

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