Selling Out & Tuning In
I don’t plan on leaving. The idea that you can is an illusion. From the U.S. to the UK, Ghana, Bangladesh, or Tokyo, there’s nowhere to go—because it’s already here.
A girl somewhere across the world calls a plot of land home. I have a plot that I claim too. We find humor in watching the greedy portray borders as more than a fiction of the imagination. We know that there is no such thing—when viruses travel, or when economies bound to global food systems collapse, or when history replays on different shores and people require the same tools.
I’m every woman, even the one who thought fascism would never find her front door, or that the fires were over there, or that suffering could never be here. I don’t plan on leaving. The idea that you can is an illusion—and the girl somewhere across the world knows it too.
This week, I succumbed to the movement and sipped my matcha while pondering the headlines: “Global Collapse. Here’s How to Survive if That Happens,” and “U.S. Added to Global Human Rights Watchlist.” What has been construed as the authoritative and barbaric “other” is no longer—and has never been—next door. This isn’t COVID-19, and there’s no “normal” waiting on the other side. There are only mounds of young Ukrainian and Russian men dying under the guise of national powers. And rising Palestinian death tolls—including toddlers under the age of 2—which elite universities are willing to ignore in exchange for funding. This week, we learned what it looks like to sell out. We saw the shape of fear when it consumes the body.
Sellouts thrive on scapegoating. They treat marginalized people as tools to fix broken systems that those in power have no real interest in changing. Palestinian people are not the source of rising living costs. Communities are not poor because I’m Black. People are poor and oppressed either because they don’t know their oppressors—or because they lack the means to resist them effectively. The beauty of the Trump administration lies in its blatant declaration that whatever rights you think you have are ultimately subject to elite interpretation. In other words, despite the dislike or distrust you might hold towards Black or trans people, your rights hang in the balance of theirs. And if the ambassador of South Africa is not free here, neither are you.
Evil takes shape in many forms—but I find it most visceral when it can’t handle another point of view. This week, it came in the form of the Mayor of Miami Beach, Steven Meiner, who threatened to terminate O Cinema’s lease for its screening of No Other Land, a 2025 Oscar award-winning documentary on Palestinian displacement. It also showed up when the Department of Veterans Affairs decided to dissolve transgender healthcare. Hints of censorship are evident in the removal of Joy Reid from MSNBC, the voluntary exit of associate editor Ruth Marcus from the Jeff Bezo-owned Washington Post, and—most blatantly—the suspension of four pro-Palestine accounts on Instagram.
Let’s not forget what money can buy, even from educational institutions committed to intellectual pluralism. When the DOJ, HHS, ED, and GSA announced the immediate cancellation of $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University on March 7th, the separation and detention of Mahmoud Khalil from his pregnant wife followed—along with the expulsion of Grant Miner and other students whose degrees were revoked. Columbia PhD student Ranjani Srinivasan was targeted by immigration officers on March 7th, and her visa was revoked on March 5th. This week, she fled to Canada. Profound intellect and academic prowess were, similarly, not enough to prevent Yale Law School from placing Helyeh Doutaghi, a pro-Palestinian international law scholar, on leave.
To those of the future—those who have always been resisting, those who are no longer asleep—there are no exits. There are only those who are selling out, those who are tuning in, and what will be left tomorrow. The present is frightening. But what scares me more is a population conditioned to abide by rules that the global elite discard when convenient. The illusion of the sellout is that there is no choice. That resistance is futile. That things are how they will be.
I see Starbucks workers unionizing, and I beg to differ. Every day, people hailing from multiple communities find ways to resist that work for them. There are artists committed to fighting deportations. Politicians like Zohran Mamdani who are committed to making New York more affordable. There are women willing to put their bodies on the line to defend affordable healthcare, and Jewish people willing to stand against repression. Even while being detained, immigrant mothers are finding ways to speak out.
These people are hungry for a renaissance—and have made peace with the dangers. Creation is risky. Toni Morrison reminds us that the repression of artists has often been bloody, “because dictators, people in office, and people who want to control and deceive know exactly the people who will disturb their plans— artists.” She says you must know this before you start. She says you must create intentionally under these circumstances—because it’s one of the most important things that human beings do.
History has known renaissance, and the myth is that resistance is binary. That you are either an activist getting arrested, or someone watching headlines from the couch. Resistance looks different for everybody. Like evil, it can take many forms. It can be having a conversation. Boycotting companies that don’t share your values. Buying from ones that do. It doesn’t always require intense sacrifice—yet overlooking its potential consequences is to forget the lessons of history.
The illusion is not that it will be easy, but that we are helpless. It’s the idea that there aren’t grassroots mutual aid networks springing up from the ground. Or direct actions and teach-ins you can participate in every week. There are ways to resist. Teaching people how to make vegan meals is political. Art is political. Music is political.
Removing Black and LGBTQ artists from museums doesn’t mean there won’t be creation—or that people won’t be listening when musicians decide to play. Creation will never be without the rise of fear. But I’d rather suppress despair than wear it. When the choice to sell out or tune in comes knocking, it will not be me you give up in the end. It will be you.
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