How I Went From ‘Sure’ To ‘Meh’ On Affirmative Action Over 20 Years

What does it mean to oppose discrimination?

Me 130 years ago.

The first real political act of my life was volunteering for a pro-affirmative action campaign. It was 1998, and I was a freshman at The Evergreen State College. I signed up for the “No On I-200” campaign, and oh what a coup that must have been for the campaign! They got a know-nothing, 18 year-old Evergreen student with long hair and a wardrobe full of torn-to-shreds Nine Inch Nails t-shirts to represent them to the people of Olympia, Washington!

Why did they accept my help? Why didn’t they say “back to the mosh pit with you, freak”? I’ll never know.

I knocked on doors in support of affirmative action for the same reason I did anything back then: as a reflexive “fuck you” to my conservative, southern high school. Feckless, performative dissent was my stock and trade back then. Here’s some stupid shit that I did: I went to Open Mic Night at Barnes & Noble and read a moody poem about, like...society, ya know? I put the final nail in the coffin of the Third Reich by scrawling “DEATH TO FASCISTS” on my trapper keeper. Without a doubt, my magnum opus of dipshittery was when I took the letters I received for academic performance -- a yellow “GB” for “Great Bridge High” -- colored them black, and hung them on my bedroom wall next to a hand-drawn-sign that said “SUX!!!” What an atomic dumbass I was.