035: On Speaking Up and Speaking Out

outliers, 'hillbilly epidemiology' & Michael Lewis's "The Premonition"

I'm tired of being so fierce
I'm tired of being so friendly
You don't have to be a supermodel
To do the animal thing
You don't have to be a super genius
To open your face up and sing

—Ani Difranco

The first time I sassed someone on principle, if my mom’s telling is to be believed, was when I told the woman who supervised the toddlers in the church nursery to keep her hands off of me because she wasn’t my friend. In first grade, when injustice was happening around who was allowed to play on the big yellow tire, I skipped telling the playground monitors, and instead marched back into the school and up to the Principal’s office where I informed him of outrage taking place on his playground. In high school, I made the case for such compelling issues as open campus (so we could go to SuperAmerica to get $1 hamburgers at lunch) and a pop machine in the student commons.

In my twenties, I started to care about slightly more meaningful things such as sexism in Christian churches and inequity in the wo…