| So… I came home from my first semester of college ready to explain to my parents how racist America is. | That really happened. Let me back up. | My parents came to this country from Soviet Russia. They left behind everything they knew because they believed America was different. They raised me believing that too. Then I went to college. | I was a computer science major, so I was mostly in STEM classes and didn't have to sit through a lot of the general education courses that tend to be the most politically charged. But I loved history. Always had. So I signed up for one history class. | The professor was brilliant. Charismatic, passionate, the kind of teacher who makes you lean forward in your seat. He was teaching about slavery in America, and I was captivated. I thought I was finally learning the real story of this country. | So I came home for winter break and the first thing out of my mouth was: "How come you never told me how racist America is?" I was repeating every talking point I'd absorbed in a single semester as if I'd discovered something my parents were too old to understand. | They thought I'd lost my mind. | My parents sat me down and told me that anyone in America can achieve anything they want, regardless of their skin color, as long as they're willing to work for it. That these claims of systemic racism and injustice are a victim mentality that keeps people down. And that politicians use these narratives to justify expanding government control over people's lives. | Then they told me they'd heard these exact same talking points before. The same promises, the same policy fixes I was repeating back to them. They heard them growing up in Communist Russia. And they'd seen firsthand what happens when a government convinces people to hand over that kind of control. | Overall, they didn't just disagree with me. They mocked me. In a loving way, of course, because they cared. And I'm thankful they did. | They didn't hand me a new set of answers. They snapped me out of the beautiful, idealistic worldview I had almost fallen into after one semester and one very persuasive professor. | Just this past week, I was talking to my aunt and found out my cousins had the same exact experience. They came home from college, told their parents they wanted to vote for Bernie Sanders, and our parents — who lived through communism and heard these same promises their entire lives — briefly explained how insane that was. She wasn't as calm as my mom was. | One semester. One charismatic teacher. That's all it took for smart kids from immigrant families to start repeating things their parents fled a country to escape. | And I'm not the only one at Upward News who went through this. Brandon, my managing editor, was a full-on Bernie Sanders supporter. No joke — front row at the rallies. He had to find his own way out of that worldview, and that journey is part of what makes him so good at what he does today. | I used to be incredibly naive about politics. I took surface-level talking points at face value. When I was in public school, I was taught that America was Islamophobic, and I believed it because nobody around me was questioning it. | Not everyone has parents from Soviet Russia to snap them out of it. And it's tragic that my parents had to live through what they lived through only for me to nearly fall into the same ideas a generation later. | That experience is a big part of why Upward News exists. Brandon and I wake up every morning and do the work of digging into what's actually true. What policies actually do to people. What politicians actually say and believe when you read past the headlines. | Not because we think we have all the answers. But because we both know what it feels like to get pulled in by a narrative that sounds righteous but doesn't hold up when someone tells you the truth. | That's what Upward News is here for. And that's what your paid membership makes possible. |
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| As a paid member, you get our full weekly coverage — the 40% of our most important reporting that free readers never see. Deep dives into what's really happening behind the headlines, stories the mainstream press won't touch, and the full context you need to understand the news and share it with confidence. All of it produced by two people with no corporate backers, no advertisers, and no one to answer to except you. | Right now, you can try it for 15% off your first year. | | If it's not for you, cancel anytime. No risk, no hassle. But if our story resonates with you, this is the single best way to make sure we can keep doing this work. | | Thank you for reading. | —Ariel |
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