Socialist Progressives
In reply to the discussion: What led you to socialism? [View all]joshcryer
(62,270 posts)...and to some extent, it's true, but only if you're a white, straight, male with nothing to hold you back. That's when I realized. Here I am, a poor person, surrounded by other poor people, and I'm getting my way while the black guy or the woman or the gay person doesn't. I've seen it with my own eyes. Guys getting ID'd at the store because they're black, handing over a twenty right after the black guy in front of me has his twenty checked, and my twenty goes straight into the cash drawer without it being scrutinized.
When you live in that sort of environment and if you're observant you see the inequality all around you, and then you wonder, why am I different? I'm the poor guy. The kid who shared potatoes with his family and eagerly reached for the last one even when busting from near starch poisoning!
I discovered the Anarchist FAQ back when it was version 2.0 or something, it was still in a relatively new stage. I read What is Property? since it was being quoted extensively, and then Eric Fromm's To Have Or To Be, and that was it. I was an anarchist. I was always an anarchist.
Being poor (I have but my dreams), I was never a materialist, I never had "stuff." I didn't have toys or anything of that nature. It was just me and mother nature, a stick or rocks, seriously, it sounds cliché, but I did make bows and arrows and I made walking sticks, and they're damn good walking sticks. I still have one propping my window up right now next to me!
And what was interesting is that I never wanted toys. The only toy I ever recall getting was a yo-yo. I played with it, became skilled at it, and when it broke, that was it, no more toys for me (I did later discover video games, but I didn't get back into them until my mid-twenties, when I discovered "file sharing," shall we put it).