Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) appeared at the South by Southwest Conference (SXSW) in Austin Texas. The Intercept Briahana Gray interviewed her.
A young woman asked her a simple question. She wanted advice about young girls of color who desire to get into politics. AOC’s answer was simple and yet profound.
“The advice that I give,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Stop trying to navigate systems of power and start building your own power.”
Most Americans feel wedded to our current power structure and economic system as if they are divine. A young woman of color who has beaten all odds, who has taken out a formidable incumbent who was a part of the power structure, makes that advice believable and empowering. They are not empty words because she is building her power base.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks with profound but straightforward concepts which are politically empowering to many. That is why the power structure fears her.
In the short snippet, AOC points out the absurdity of conformity. It is corrosive as the requirement as she says is to do “the impression of power.”
“It is down to how you are forced or encouraged to speak,” AOC said. “The idea that some ways of speaking are less legitimate, the idea that some ways of dressing are less legitimate or — we don’t say legitimate, we say unprofessional, and so that if you say ‘hey’ or you say ‘my momma’ or whatever, it’s unprofessional. But even if you are producing the same results or the same quality of work, you are somehow seen as less than.
And then she admonishes those for which the system was never intended to serve.
“Stop trying to navigate those systems,” AOC said. “They weren’t built for you. We need to build our own systems and recognize the other.”
That push for real independence I am sure creates fear in the Plutocracy. Empowered masses are tantamount to their justifiable demise.