Since this went so well last week…. What is YOUR complaint of the week? No matter how big, small, or insignificant it may feel, shout it to the void!!! (Be supportive and nice✨🙂‍↕️🤍)

i really like how this chapter shows the journey of radicalization so succinctly. Assata parroting US propaganda, and having friends around her who are more radical educate her. the way she portrays questioning everything is so realistic

when you realize the truth about the systems we live under, about capitalism and racism and patriarchy and imperialism, there is a feeling of having the world drop out from under you. the way Assata describes almost listlessly moving through life without any real grounding, as she tries to untangle what she thinks she knows and relearn reality. and the biting way she views people around her who still play into the "old beliefs", those who cling to inclusion and optics and believing that the system can be reformed. it's such an isolating experience, to be the only one in the room that thinks deeply about the world and the US political system

it's why having people, like her African friends, is so important. people who can be your sounding board, who will let you be wrong and give you things to think about, who will think out loud with you and figure the world out alongside you. also, i love how this section connects back to her early years after leaving home, being more or less adopted by queens who showed her a different perspective in her formative young adulthood, it definitely helped set the foundation for her being open to dismantling the US propaganda further

it's oddly reassuring to know that Assata experienced this? like, someone as intelligent and impactful as Assata experienced the radicalization, the alienation, the loneliness, the grief, the trying to understand how to move forward. it gives a sense of an almost timeless collectivism, i think? like, my radicalization is my own journey, but it's one that many people have walked, survived, and turned into power in their own way