A Love Letter to Lexington’s “Activists”
The emergence of activism—or a more general sense of social consciousness—into the late-2010s youth culture has been peculiar and certainly nuanced. VSCO-edited nature photos flood Instagram stories on Earth Day. Every Women’s March, one can certainly expect to find their feed saturated with photos of grinning girls in pink hats, holding up posters with at least one pun. Even the caricature of Tiktok’s VSCO girl is a sustainable one; she uses metal straws in reusable water bottles and has an oft-reiterated concern for the turtles. It has become cool to be civically engaged—and all the more cool to be an activist.
Student and essayist S. Nageswaran Ravi recently examined the influence of the Trump administration on the growth of a commodified youth activism “cult” following ignited discourse on Twitter concerning the use of the term “activism.” It all began when self-proclaimed activist Ziad Ahmed made a TikTok criticizing some of his fellow Bernie supporters for vowing not to vote for Joe Biden. Ahmed went viral a couple of years ago for getting into Stanford with an essay that consisted of #BlackLivesMatter typed one hundred times, though that is not his only claim to fame; he is the CEO of Gen Z consulting firm JUV. If something about a capitalist progressive preaching to others in his multi-million dollar home (his father is a former CEO of Citibank) strikes you as wrong, you’re not alone. Backlash came swiftly and without mercy: Twitter users parodied Ahmed’s exaggerated gesticulations and cadence of a slam poet, satirically adding “the activist” to their usernames. They found his mansion in Princeton, New Jersey and accused him of creating an image to further his career. The term “cloutivism,” a portmanteau of “clout” and “activism,” was thrown around constantly. Ahmed, now a junior at Yale, quietly changed his handles on social media from @ziadtheactivist to @ziadahmed, recognizing the failure of his performative activism and the need to rebrand. He is, after all, the head of a consulting firm.
The parallels between Princeton and Lexington are many. Both are among the most academically high-performing school districts in the nation (unfortunately, we cannot brag about being an Ivy League town—though rest assured, Harvard is just a few T stops away!) Both have an infamously competitive and stressful school community. And both, as it turns out, breed youth activists.
Lexington has always been looking to fulfill its revolutionary upbringing. It has always been more liberal-leaning, more progressive—and more expensive—than counterparts in its vicinity. It was one of the first eight towns to implement the METCO program. The Lexington Human Rights Committee hosted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the auditorium of Lexington High School on March 11, 1963. In 1967, a series of protests against housing discrimination were arranged on our hallowed Battle Green. And, in recent years, LHS students participated in a March for Our Lives protest and a climate strike.
The climate strike was incredibly curious to me. It was not like the school-ordained walkout for gun control of (two) years past, but rather less dependent on the approval of school—and from there arose the concern about consequences for missing class.
“Your teachers will respect you for [striking],” reads the email sent by the organizing team the day before the walkout. “A teacher will write you a better recommendation letter if they respect you for standing up for the cause that will affect the vulnerable the most. Saying something interesting in class during C Block will not impress a teacher as much as showing them you care about the world around you.” To be fair, this “point” was made, as the email explains, because students were worried what their teachers would think. So, as it follows, even “[Principal Stephens] knows the importance of activism and wants our strike to be real activism.”
This is what it promised: your activism—which, rest-assured, is real activism—will earn you admiration and standing. Your activism will help you get into college. Your activism will have no true repercussions. It’s more of an indictment on Lexington’s problematic academic culture than it is on the sincerity of the climate movement in Lexington itself.
But that is the problem. From the academically-oppressive, hyper-competitive environment in Lexington arises an insincere, personal-gain-focused “activism.” Organizing has had to be marketed as a tool to help advance the individual, repackaged into something that will help you get into college or gain you the recognition of your peers. Maybe you can be the next Ziad the Activist!
Is there any earnestness in the Lexington organizations that have popped up in the last two years, in your Lex Says Enoughs and Lex Climate Strikes and such? (Curiously enough, Lex Says Enough went inactive around the same time as students flocked to the climate movement—maybe gun control wasn’t cool anymore).
At the local Panera this past Super Tuesday GOTV weekend, I found myself surrounded by middle-aged women. They were incredibly welcoming and gracious to me—though my politics were more left of theirs for the most part, we bonded over our admiration for our candidate and frustration with the contentious primary. As we signed in the volunteers trickling in for a door-knocking shift, these women had a lot to say about the young people who came. “Have you met _____?” The white woman beside me beams. “They’re doing incredible things for the climate. Changing the world, this one.”
And I wondered—what exactly could someone do to change the world right here in Lexington? (For my purposes, I am ignoring the Revolutionary War). What can one privileged youth really accomplish, in a bubble of the wealthy and white? What can come out of suburban liberalism? Can organizing in privileged communities ever really be effective?
I suppose it is derivative to cite the revolutionary movements of our history, to say that real activists didn’t want to be activists, to think about how they are often fighting for their lives and livelihood. To recognize that change—real, radical change—always comes from the marginalized and seldom from the ruling class.
We need to fundamentally reshape the way we approach the climate movement in Lexington. The fight against climate change is a fight for climate justice, which starts first and foremost with us recognizing that the movement needs to be centered around the most vulnerable and the most affected—the hundreds of low income or primarily Black and brown communities across America that suffer health conditions due to pollution from factories, or the indigenous folks fighting for their land and water rights. By reframing the environmental crisis as a crisis of human rights as well, we can begin to build a diverse coalition. How do we proceed with the organizations in Lexington? The work is important; keep doing that. Use the funds you’re raising from the checkbook-heavy folks in Lexington not to make stickers for the members but to contribute to the communities in greater need around us. Divest yourselves from the idea that your work will help you on your college applications. Recognize the immense privilege we hold, and make sure you’re doing what you’re doing for the right reasons.
This is all to say: please do not call yourselves activists. I commend the work you’re trying to do. I am sorry that we live in a community that has pressured us to turn the work we’re doing into something that looks nice on a resume or college application. But please—don’t take yourself too seriously. Ours is a good, righteous cause (Nota bene: I said that in a very righteous way). But much like this work cannot be used to further the self, we must not be self-righteous or aggrandizing about it.
But this is a love letter. Which is to say, I have so much love for those who want to effect change in their communities and beyond. There is a way forward. Our voices, now, are more important than ever.
by KELLY HUI