RADICALIZERS
Mrs. Brisby Taught Me How to Be Brave
Learning the secret of NIMH changed my life forever
How did I get here?
We’ve all asked ourselves this question. It’s the kind of question that can sneak in during the best of time — like the first time your baby falls asleep in your arms, or when you get your dream job. But most of the time this question comes from that little voice inside your head that is thoroughly freaked out at the mess you’ve found yourself in.
Back in 2004, I found myself barefoot, in nothing but a pair of prison pajamas, handcuffed to a pipe in a jail cell in Jackson, Mississippi. Charged with disturbing the peace and indecent exposure, I’d been arrested at a PETA demonstration promoting veganism. It wasn’t my first time being arrested for activism. It wasn’t even the worst experience I’d had with police (no zip tie cuts on my wrists or tear gas like at the WTO protests in ’99). But it was the first time they’d taken my sign, my clothes, even my glasses, and left me with nothing but time to think about what I’d done. Being legally blind without my glasses, I spent hours with my eyes closed making small talk with the other women in my holding cell, who’d been picked up in a prostitution sting at a truck stop the night before. They told me jokes. Some of the jokes…
