When you hear the phrase “radicalized youth,” what image comes to mind? Kinda depends on your politics: wherever we stand on the left-to-right spectrum, we usually worry about violent extremism coming from somewhere else.
Sure, some of our own ideas might be a little out-there, but… hold on… maybe we’ve been radicalized, and we don’t even know it yet! Yikes. Things have definitely gotten more intense now that we’re all living on the Internet*.
In this episode, we talk about where, how and why youth radicalization happens, and how to fix the worst of it, while sharing some of our own experiences down those dark online rabbit holes.
The podcasters:
- Joyeuse Muhorakeye (host), Aiken H.S.
- Brennan Jones, Finneytown H.S.
- Nandini Likki, The Seven Hills School
- Enock Sadiki, Aiken H.S.
- Alex Bentley, University of Cincinnati/Transitions & Access Program
- Jordan Shaw, Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts
Podcast originally recorded Sunday, March 7, 2021, via Zoom.
*Nathan Taylor Pemberton wrote about Gen Z radicals and their online spaces in The New Yorker; organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations are sounding alarms too, as in this op-ed for Newsweek. And for a more hopeful outlook, here’s a great NPR profile by Hannah Allam of two “young radicals”—one on the left, one on the right—who turned out to be distant cousins, were able to have respectful conversations on tough issues, and became friends.