This episode is an interview with Aiyana Goodfellow (he/she/they) about age trauma, youth oppression and youth liberation. Aiyana is an abolitionist, writer, liberator and delinquent. We discuss their new book - INNOCENCE & CORRUPTION: An abolitionist understanding of youth oppression. 

We explore how children are some of the most at risk, coerced, and oppressed people on the planet. Grounded in their experiences of youth oppression as a Black teenager in the UK, we talk about family structures, the school system, youth imprisonment and the prison system, their delinquent philosophy and so much more! Finally, Aiyana shares some ideas about solidarity and how we can organise so that youth are liberated, safe, and empowered.

Content warning - references to child abuse, prison

Links & resources from this episode

• Aiyana’s website - https://aiyanagoodfellow.com/
• DELINQUENTS - https://delinquents.noblogs.org/
• The Anima Print - https://www.theanimaprint.org/
• Neuromancers - https://www.neuromancersmagazine.com/
• The Radical Companionship Project - https://www.radicalcompanionship.com/
• Aiyana’s instagram - https://www.instagram.com/aiyana.goodfellow/
• Why You Hate Kids Workshop on patriarchy and abuse coming up on October 1st - https://aiyanagoodfellow.com/whyyouhatekids/
• Herbalism, PTSD & Traumatic Stress Course

Find them all at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast/

Support the show

Music from Sole & DJ Pain – Battle of Humans | Plant illustrations by @amani_writes | In solidarity, please subscribe, rate & review this podcast wherever you listen.

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism podcast with your host Nicole Rose from the Solidarity Apothecary.

This is your place for all things plants and liberation.

Let's get started.

Hello, welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.

I hope you have had a chance to listen to the first episode of this kind of series about trauma and addiction with my partner Rob.

I'm really curious to hear people's feedback.

I'm so excited to int to introduce this interview, like I think it is extremely moving.

It's with a friend called Aiyana Goodfellow, who's just published a book called Innocence and Corruption, an abolitionist understanding of youth oppression.

And they identify as an abolitionist, writer, liberator and delinquent.

And yeah, we explored this kind of delinquent philosophy in the, in the episode.

Yeah, I just, it was just really moving.

So if you haven't read the book, it's really amazing.

It's just been published and it explores kind of like how children are some of the most like, at risk, coerced and oppressed people on the planet.

And it explores themes like why people hate kids, for example, and how even if you don't have kids, like As in quote unquote of your own which they also kind of interrogate as a concept why we still need to have solidarity with children and young people and why we need to like send to them in our struggles for liberation.

Yeah.

And Aiyana talks about like their experiences of youth oppression as a Black teenager in the UK.

We talk about family structures, the school system, you know, our teacher screws, for example.

We talk about like youth imprisonment and the prison system and this whole like school to prison pipeline.

And yeah.

And finally, like to share like some ideas about solidarity and like how we can organise so that young people are liberated, safe and empowered.

I just wanted to give a content warning that we do talk about abuse and we also talk about prison.

But yeah, I think, I think everyone should hear it.

I think you should especially listen if you're an adult.

I think the book definitely like spoke to me and called me out in the sense of You know, understanding my relationship to children and to younger people.

And yeah, just kind of like our society in general, you know, like we have all these like NSPCC adverts about child abuse and stuff, but the reality is like, You know, children are experiencing like vast amounts of oppression and that is like very age specific and age trauma specific and age oppression specific.

So yeah, I think it's an amazing interview.

I've put loads of links and resources from the episode in the show notes like to Aiyana's like wide variety of amazing projects.

So please check them out.

They've also got a workshop coming up.

on October the 1st, which is really soon, called Why You Hate Kids About Patriarchy and Abuse.

So please check that out too.

And yeah, again, I would love to hear your feedback on the episode and yeah, how you found it and yeah, your opinions.

And again, like, please share it on Instagram and all of that stuff.

And please check out Aiyana's amazing work.

Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Yeah, please can you introduce yourself, your pronouns and like any kind of projects or political affinities or literally anything else that you'd like to include about yourself.

I'd love to, yeah, I'd love for you to share.

Hello everybody.

Hi Nicole.

My name is Aiyana Goodfellow.

My pronouns are he, she and they.

You can use them interchangeably.

I have been involved in activism for, I think, like, over a third of my life.

But I'm terrible at math, so I don't know if that's true.

But around about then I consider myself an abolitionist.

I describe myself as a writer, a liberator, and a delinquent.

And I am the founding director of Neuromancers, an organization formed by neurodivergent people.

I am a co founder of The Anima Print, which is a Black led micro publishing house that just published my first book.

Oh, no, my second book, actually.

We published our first book, but it's my second book.

And I am also the creator of the Radical Companionship Project which is a pro animal theory and anti speciesist study group.

And there's probably something I've missed out, but we can start with that.

Yeah, no, that's like a very impressive list already.

Like, it's amazing, amazing, like, variety of things that you're organizing around.

But yeah, for this interview, like, I'm obviously doing a series about like kind of trauma, like more, more broadly and what that means.

And I know you've recently published a book, like you said, it's your second book.

So yeah, a lot of our questions will be about kind of like what's in the book.

So for people who don't know what it is and what it's about, could you share what it's called and what it's about and like finally kind of like why you wrote it?

So the book is called Innocence and Corruption, an abolitionist understanding of youth oppression.

pretty much what it says in the tin.

But through a variety of essays, I explore youth oppression and youth liberation from my perspective as a Black teenager in the UK.

And I look at the family institution, I look at the school system I look at what it means to be a delinquent, which is a philosophy I coined as well as many other things.

I started writing this book maybe when I was 15.

And I'm very excited that I achieved my goal of publishing it before I turned 18.

The reason that I wanted to write this book and publish it was because I didn't see anything like it.

I think when we talk about youth liberation in like abolitionist anarchistic kind of circles, everyone's like, oh, have you read No Adult Supremacy?

And then the list kind of ends there.

And there's not much writing out there written by young people.

And I think that if the youth liberation movement is going to build and if understanding of ageism and an understanding of patriarchy outside of just gendered hierarchy is going to be acknowledged, then it needs to come from the people who are experiencing this kind of violence.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

And yeah, I'm going to ask you a million and one questions about it.

But yeah, like, I think one of the things you wrote was that how children are some of the, some of the most like at risk, coerced and oppressed people on the planet.

And that really kind of hit home with me.

And I was just wondering if you could give some examples of what you mean by that.

Yes.

I just mean by that statement that our autonomy is completely ignored and denied at every possible aspect of society.

I think that there is a hierarchy of the state, the school system, and then the family, which aim to kind of indoctrinate children into the, you know, all those shitty systems that exist today but also indoctrinate children into not being able to understand or recognize their own autonomy or sense of self.

And we are the most oppressed because, or one of the most oppressed groups because, this is very rarely, if ever, Acknowledged on a significant level.

And of course, nowhere near equal to the weight of the oppression, if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent.

And yeah, you, you talk like explicitly about kind of ageism and like anti child ageism.

And I just wondered for people who haven't read the book, like what do you kind of mean by those terms?

Ageism, in my definition, is a fear towards our own interdependence and mortality.

I think that the people most affected by ageism, so young people and old people, are reminders of the fact that humans are learning, are growing, are also aging and dying, and that Life is cyclical.

I think in a capitalistic society, there is this focus on generating wealth and on, like, in my book, I, I term it as eternalism, but it's basically a culture of not wanting to die not wanting to change, not wanting to evolve.

And I think that young people and old people are a reminder of the fact that's within human and animal nature.

But, put more simply, it's just the oppression of old people and young people, and I specifically used the term and created the term anti child ageism, rather than use pre existing like childism.

I think there's another one as well that people use, but I forgot it off the top of my head.

Yeah, anti child ageism to specifically explain the fact or emphasize the fact that our world is against children.

I think there's this false narrative that there is an element of kind of welfare or care that society has towards children, but it's very superficial.

And we're not respected as we are as children.

We're just kind of forced into adulthood.

So I wanted to help people hold the frame of mind that patriarchy and patriarchal society is against children in and of ourselves.

I feel like today my brain is really not working and that was bad.

No, no, you're doing amazing.

Like, honestly, like, I think, yeah, like, I think when I read your book, like, I was really kind of like, stunned into silence almost somehow of like, Just being kind of like, yeah, just like, Whoa, like, you know, like my head spinning around, like reflecting on my own childhood and also like my relationship to children.

And yeah, just that kind of, I feel like anti child ageism is like incredibly invisibilized.

Right.

And Yeah, I know you also talk about, like, age trauma in the book, and I just wondered if you could, you know, share a little bit about what that means, because, you know, this podcast series is looking at trauma I just, yeah, wondered, you know, what kind of, what, in what ways is kind of.

Are we experiencing trauma like as children?

And how does that like explicitly relate to, to age?

Yeah.

100% age trauma is a term that I created to describe essentially the impact of ageism, anti-child ageism, anti-child ageism is the system.

It's a type of oppression.

It exists underneath the umbrella of patriarchy and age trauma is the kind of

internalized or personal result of this system of oppression, kind of in the same way that racialized trauma or gender trauma might exist.

But also, I think that Age trauma, to me, emphasizes the fact that what we often call childhood trauma happens and exists because of the system of patriarchy.

There is, unfortunately, this understanding that abuse is and violence is kind of just an interpersonal thing to do with individual flaws, rather than a form of...

oppression, a form of violence, a tactic of patriarchy and childhood trauma that would be a result of childhood abuse or even systems like adoption or schooling or the foster care system etc etc or just the family system in general.

This isn't just about the individual adults who harmed children, this is about the system of patriarchy that created the environment it happens, and where it's okay to happen, and where it's socially acceptable, and where it is, as you said, invisibilized.

I think that a lot of people focus on inner child work, and sort of healing techniques like this.

And I think it's really great, but I think we need to do more to investigate why it is that so many people are reaching adulthood with childhood trauma and not just focusing on our individual selves and our individual traumas.

Not that that's not important, but to do it outside of the context of patriarchy and to do it outside of the context of anti child ageism just means that more of us are going to continue to be traumatized and these cycles are just going to continue on.

Yeah, totally, like, in my herbalism PTSD and traumatic stress course, like, there's a module which is all about, like, collective responses to traumatic stress, because, like, I didn't want people to just, yeah, like, have this, like, individual kind of, like, navel gazing, like, journey, but really to just look at, like, the structural things that are contributing to trauma, and then how can we challenge them, like, with, you know, collective power and how that is healing.

And I think that's why, yeah, like, I was so moved by what you wrote about, like, abuse.

Because I think for me, like, Yeah, like you're saying, like we, we kind of see it as this like interpersonal thing of like, okay, this bad person did this thing to this, you know, innocent child.

And you, you know, you really like look at the concept of innocence as well in the book, like really articulately, but yeah, it's like very atomized, right?

Like it's just, you know, and if you're the person who has been abused, like you also internalize that of like.

Oh, that happened to me because of this, because I was like talking back to that guy.

So he, you know, would hit me or whatever.

So it's like, yeah, I just found it really moving.

Cause I think it's just like really empowering to like have a structural lens on like understanding why you might experience like neglect as a kid.

Like my mom brought me and my sister up on benefits basically after our dad left.

And.

you know, like went through a lot of clinical depression and all sorts of things.

And it was like a hundred percent like poverty related, if that makes sense, like her mental health struggles and the kind of abuse we were subjected to because of her, the people she was going out with.

And that was, you know, blah, blah, blah, patriarchy.

But anyway, I just want to say that, like, what you write about abuse is like so validating and like.

politically inspiring and also obviously like unsettling like you know, you speak in the book about abuse and abuse apologism as well as like how like oppression is formalized and systematized like abuse and trauma.

And yeah, you also share some really disturbing statistics about levels of abuse, you know, the amount of children who are sexually abused, for example.

Which, you know, didn't surprise me in any way, but at the same time were like super enraging.

And yeah, I'm still kind of like untangling like the impacts of stuff in my childhood and then how that manifested in prison where, you know, you have abuse in like a structural way in terms of from screws, you know, from officers.

But like you share in the book like teachers are also like screws, right?

Like it's not just the police or prison officers inflicting abuse on people.

You know, there's so many examples like in all areas of life.

And yeah, I just wondered if you could like speak to that around like abuse and how that relates to children and, you know, the kind of focus of that in your books.

I think it's like really important.

I'm sure many people listening will have, you know, experienced all sorts of things like when they were, young and old, but I just, yeah, I'm just interested to hear what your perspectives are.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, because abuse is a tactic of systems of oppression, it can be used by the agents of systems of oppression to reinforce hierarchy.

So an abuser will, like, an abusive adult will abuse a child for threatening their authority, for threatening the hierarchy that exists within society.

They will, and that's not because of the actions of the child, obviously, that's just because of their own insecurity in their status as an abuser, as an adult, as an oppressor.

In this case, I'm using adult as synonymous with oppressor and abuser, but obviously it's not inherently so, but within, like, a you know, patriarchal, child adult binary, that is the case.

I think it's just important to acknowledge that childhood trauma or the experience of childhood trauma is the experience of ageism and happens because of ageism and is reinforced because of ageism.

The harrowing and probably inaccurate, like, you know, the statistics are probably inaccurate in that they're higher that these statistics represent so many people who try to, or struggle to, or were unable to express their pain, express their abuse and what they were going through, when we live in a society that systemically, as well as interpersonally dismisses the voice of children.

As a community those people are quite frankly like left for dead and left to be abused and left to accept abuse in adulthood.

And this is reinforced through the school system, which is very comparable to the prison system.

And in my understanding, there's an extension of the prison industrial complex because it uses a lot of the same values and tactics.

For example, obviously the whole set up of prison is like, if you break our rules, your time and your whole, like, fucking life doesn't belong to you.

And that same logic is kind of indoctrinated into us through detentions.

And...

the idea that we can have our lunchtimes or our break times taken away from us in the school system.

Our time, our leisure, our play our joy is deprived from us and is seen as an appropriate punishment.

I mean, even within schools, like, physical abuse was legal until not very long ago and it's still legal across various cultures and various countries.

But they don't call it physical abuse in schools, they call it corporal punishment because they like to use...

Euphemism so they can hide what it truly is.

I think abuse is one of the most significant parts of anti child ageism because it's so present.

I mean, everybody knows somebody who has had a traumatic childhood whether that person is themselves or other people in their lives.

So I think it's important to acknowledge it both on the interpersonal abuse level, as well as the structural level that I see others focusing on.

Yeah, a hundred, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

And you know, talking about the prison industrial complex, as you mentioned, like most listeners are probably aware that I'm always talking about prison and like most of my organizing focuses on sort of challenging state violence, like especially in the prison system.

Yeah.

And I was really chuffed to see some of my research when I used to work for Corporate Watch, like a few years ago about prison expansion and youth prisons.

Being in there, like, and yeah, I value like how you write about carceral logics.

And I made a note of one of the things you said, which is if a child is innocent, adults can argue it must be protected through controlling them, the things they get to learn and people they interact with.

If a child is corrupted, they must be disciplined into submission.

We are not given the dignity of neutrality.

And yeah, I just thought that was like a really kind of stunning sentence.

And yeah, you write a lot about childhood is like, you know, like this kind of socially accepted period of surveillance.

And you talk about like disempowerment, ownership and punishment.

And I just, yeah, I just wondered if you could speak to that and share your kind of connections between like youth oppression and the prison system.

Yes.

Well, Innocence and Corruption is the title of the book and it is something that I talk about a lot.

Basically children are seen through a lens of innocence.

Or corruption.

Most people theorize around childhood, whether they're philosophers or psychologists or whoever, that we are born as a blank slate, or we're born as inherently innocent, or we're born as inherently sinful, if you maybe take a more religious standpoint.

But obviously some people are more likely to be afforded innocence, and others are more likely to be labelled as corrupt.

And we can apply what we know about other systems of oppression.

For example, white people are more likely to be seen as innocent, and Black people are more likely to be seen as inherently corrupt.

And that is obviously applied to children and you know, children experience marginalization in that political identity of being a child, but then it also intersects with their other identities.

It's very different.

experience of anti child ageism as a white child, as it is a Black child.

It is a different experience as a Black girl or a Black boy or a Black non binary person.

And then there are further and further nuances within that.

But I think the innocence and corruption is applied kind of generally to humans.

And I think that's where the logic of the.

Prison system comes in because the prison system labels people as bad inherently bad, or sometimes situationally bad, depending on who we're looking at.

Like a, an abuser, if an abuser's abuse, an abuser's abuse is recognized.

It might just be seen as, oh, but just in that moment, or that person made a mistake.

They're not seen as inherently corrupt.

Whereas a survivor of that abuse might be.

So it's interesting to acknowledge and understand the framework of innocence and corruption with regards to all kinds of experiences and all kinds of oppressions.

But for me it's very particularly Connected to the prison industrial complex.

And I think in order to label children as innocent or corrupt, there has to be that level of surveillance.

And we are surveilled by everybody around us.

Children are taught to watch other children for their mistakes and pull them up on it.

And, you know, snitch to the adults around us, so that we are safe from the violence of being disciplined.

So it's not just like surveillance from adults and institutions, but also from each other.

And in order to make us able to be surveilled, we have to be disempowered.

Nobody who's empowered will be surveilled to the extent of someone who's disempowered, because an empowered person has autonomy.

An empowered person can say, I don't want people to watch me right now.

An empowered person has access to privacy, has access to neutrality, has access to personhood, to humanity, to animality, neutral animality.

Yeah, I think that was everything I was thinking of.

Yeah, no, that's amazing.

And like, it's just, yeah, it's so interesting, like.

In prison, because like, like, you know, like there's all this narrative right in the media of like, you know, like anti child abuse stuff, you know, and you know, you see these like an SPC adverts and stuff like this.

And then you also get all this like vitriol against people in prison, you know, like, Oh, bring back the death penalty.

And like, oh, it's like a holiday camp for people and blah, blah, blah.

And then it's like the reality is like most people in prison have been abused, like, as children.

Like, I worked as a listener with the Samaritans for, like, 18 months listening to, like, suicidal women and trans friends, like, in prison.

And, you know, I couldn't, I couldn't find anyone that hadn't been subjected to some kind of like, horrific sexual or physical abuse as a kid.

And then, like, they're ending up in prison, but then people are like, oh, you know, we need to support survivors of, of abuse.

And it's like, okay, well, we're just locking them up, you know?

And yeah, but anyway, the other thing I love about you and your work, especially because you always put it in caps locks is like about your philosophy of delinquency.

I just wondered if you could speak to that briefly.

Yes, I do love putting things in all caps.

Delinquent is all in all caps.

Innocence and corruption as a title is in all caps.

I've already seen people putting it in.

In a sentence case, tut tut.

I'll remember that for the podcast show notes.

Oh, okay.

No, yeah, I'm just really attached to it.

Someone was like saw that I was putting lots of things in all caps and they were like, oh, so you saw bell hooks and you were like, I raise you all caps.

But anyway, I almost forgot your question.

Oh, delinquency.

So delinquency is a philosophy that I created to to kind of articulate how misbehavior has been weaponized against young people.

We are seen as misbehaving when really we're just communicating, when we are resisting adult supremacy and adult oppression of children and anti child ageism.

Anything that we do can really be interpreted as misbehavior and used as a reason to experience discipline for our corruption, but I think there's something valuable and beautiful in that.

I think, you know, delinquency is just synonymous with resistance to oppression.

And so a delinquent is somebody who misbehaves in alignment with youth liberation.

And anybody can be a delinquent.

You don't have to be a young person.

a person of any age and delinquency might be something that you're already living in alignment with if you believe in youth liberation and you take action for it and against our oppression.

But I created a website delinquents to kind of collate some of these philosophical ideas, so you can always have a look at that if you want more information.

I thought it was a nice approach as well because I think I've taught courses on being against ageism, basically.

And I think it's a really helpful philosophy for adults who get comfortable in their adult privilege to consider, well, am I being a delinquent in this moment?

I feel like it's kind of hard to be like pacifist or like liberal in your actions if you're thinking, am I a delinquent in this moment or not?

And I think it forces people to do things that might make them uncomfortable and I think it's something that I'm definitely still learning and it's something I have to be careful about, you know, I'm Black, I can't be too much of a delinquent all the time if I want to like, make it to adulthood.

So it's been a learning curve for me as well, but I really enjoy the philosophy and it's always a good conversation starter, if anything.

Yeah, definitely.

No, it's, no, I think it's like very awesome and inspiring and I, I also really like in the book how you talk about people like connecting to kind of like, I can't remember what the language was, but kind of like, yeah, that like animality, like, you know, like, I think there is like an element of forced normality as an adult that you have to be like hyper responsible and like obedient and, you know, just like comply with everything, like just do your job and pay your bills and die.

Do you know what I mean?

So I think your philosophy is like really inspiring and it's definitely like kind of touched something in me as someone who's like compulsively hyper responsible all the time, like to actually like wiggle that a bit of like, yeah, what is, what is potentially going to bring more freedom and is actually resisting oppression in different ways.

Yeah, like we've talked a lot about kind of school and prison and that kind of like pipeline, but you, you know, like the book just explores so much more than that.

And you really kind of like dive deep into what you describe as the links between the promotion of like the nuclear family, right wing politics and like strengthening of kind of like white supremacist imperialism of the British empire.

And I know there's like multiple empires around the world, but we happen to be living in this one.

So yeah, I just, I know it would take like a whole week to talk about all of these things or maybe even a whole decade, but if you could just share like a little bit about the connections between these things, that would be amazing.

Yeah, definitely.

So when a person is I guess labelled as innocent, labelled with innocence, afforded innocence, afforded the privilege of innocence, society, a capitalist society, encourages them to be be productive because society values the innocence and aims to change or dispose of the corrupt people.

So The way in which adulthood is defined is through three layers of productivity and it's so interesting that you just mentioned that, you just mentioned the feeling of productivity and hyper responsibility as an adult and how you're kind of forced into these boxes and, you know, as you said, which, I had my mic off and I giggled so you could hear, but what was it like, pay bills and then you die, like, really, really is what it is, but the three levels of adult productivity are intellectual productivity or labor, physical productivity or labor, and reproductive productivity or labor.

And if you can't contribute to society, quote unquote, in these three ways as you are expected to, and as you should if you're trying to be a binary adult, or if you're expected to be a binary adult, then you will basically be rendered Child.

And I think this is what people are trying to articulate when they say that a community or they are being infantilized.

Although that word is, is ageist.

But anyway, I digress.

We were talking about the family structure, right?

And, and the nuclear family and the empire.

So when somebody is labeled as innocent, they're encouraged to be productive and reproductive.

And.

you know, the people who are often labeled as innocent are, as we talked about, white people, middle class people, for example.

And so when the British Empire encourages white people and middle class people to reproduce, it strengthens their empire.

Because as I mentioned the state feeds into the school system, and the school system feeds into the family, and the family feeds into the child.

There's this, like, trickle down of beliefs that the state is trying to indoctrinate us with, and to force us to believe and hold for ourselves.

And As we do that, we build our own kind of familial empires and in the book I have a chapter called Empires of Blood.

Oh my god, that statement is so cool.

I have a book, sorry, in the book I have a chapter called Empires of Blood and I talk about how the family structure acts very similarly to an empire.

And is an institution that upholds the values and norms of the wider state, but also has its own values and norms that its members are expected to conform to unless they would like to be rejected from the family.

We can see this, for example, if somebody has like anarchistic or abolitionist politics and their family rejects them for not following with the conservative right wing bullshit that they usually hold, or if a family member is queer, they might be kind of shoved out of the family, quite literally.

because they are not upholding the beliefs, norms, and values of the familial empire.

And often within Britain, the familial empire is highly influenced by the state empire.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think, yeah, I think everything you've said, like makes those a sense and yeah, the book kind of really brings it alive.

And yeah, like I said, like could just literally spend hours talking about it and reflecting on it.

But yeah, I finally kind of wanted to ask you about solidarity.

So in the book you write adults have a duty to be in solidarity with us, whether or not we are legally or biologically quote unquote theirs, especially as capitalist society continues its abusive reign over our lives and adults continue to perpetuate cycles of harm.

We are responsible for the world we live in and for expanding the possibilities of freedom for those who are new to it.

The only means of liberation from our empires of blood is through the birthing, raising and safety of children as a central interdependent collective practice that includes the voices of young people ourselves.

Yeah, and that, yeah, that you know, that paragraph like proper gave me goosebumps when I read it.

And I just wondered, like, you know, in building these cultures where, as you say, like, youth are liberated, safe and empowered, like, what does that look like to you, you know?

And also, like, what does solidarity mean to you in that respect?

Yeah, I think that a lot of people might hear youth liberation and they think that this means something Ridiculous and I don't know if the word is unachievable or inachievable, inachievable?

I don't know.

But they think it's, you know, ridiculous and far away and impossible, but in saying youth liberation, we're not talking about some kind of superficial equality.

but equity.

And what I mean by that is children are different to adults.

And in calling for youth liberation, we're not saying that children are not different to adults, but we're saying that we should be respected as the children that we are, rather than expected to either be adults or either be the projections that adults put onto us.

So youth liberation will look very different for different community members of different ages.

But I think overall it looks like autonomy for young people.

It looks like empowerment for young people.

It looks like the breaking of familial empires so that we can have connection with multiple community members.

Really what these empires do is just foster a culture of abuse because we're not allowed to question each other's empires.

Or question each other's families, question each other's parenting.

And there are so many, so many, so many young people some of whom are still children, some of whom are now adults who have been or are stuck in these, you know, families and they're not able to get out of it because they don't have a community outside of these families.

So to me, youth liberation looks a lot like intergenerationality.

It looks like wider community than just biological family.

It looks like respecting.

children as they are, for who they are, and it's like allowing us to determine ourselves.

And quite frankly, it's like to do what you want.

I think there's such a an attachment to control that some people just control so, I was going to say nitpickily, but that's not like, that's a silly word.

But they control with like every possible way that they can in a way that is just so ridiculous and unnecessary.

Not that control is really ever necessary.

And letting people do what they want is often a lot less scary than we think it is if we allow ourselves to be less attached to hierarchy and less defined by our place in the hierarchy, particularly the power that we have within a hierarchy.

But overall, children are community members and community includes children and we shouldn't be segregating children and sending them to places and institutions like school that are so segregated and separated from the rest of society.

And, you know, even if you're somebody who doesn't take care of a children, hasn't given birth to a children, and you don't consider yourself a parent of children, that does not exempt you from taking care of children, because children are you're and our and my community members, and we cannot leave them behind.

We have to deal with our own discomfort around children, particularly young children, I think, and our biases towards teenagers, because I think that the experiences of teenagers and, and young children are distinct in and of themselves.

I think there's this big push to kind of invisibilize children from public life until we become socially acceptable adults.

Please allow us to just be messy and be playful and be loud and to be a bit irritating and not let that...

discomfort within you be a reason to justify our exploitation and our marginalization.

So overall, youth liberation to me looks like the same kind of freedom that anybody else would want which is just self determination, autonomy, safety.

And care.

Aw, definitely.

Yeah, that really reminds me of something my uncle said, who doesn't have, like, you know, he's not parented his kind of quote unquote own children, but I remember him saying like, Oh, I like them a lot more when they can, you know, when they can talk, when you can have a conversation with them.

And it was just like, yeah, like you're suddenly accepted into adult world, like once you can kind of talk to people and otherwise, like you're just kind of an irritating distraction of what they're trying to do or whatever.

Like it's, yeah, it's really interesting.

And yeah, like what you're saying about letting people do what they want, like When I was young, like, because of my mum's, like, challenges and, like, lack of support, it actually gave me, like, loads of autonomy and freedom.

Like, I wasn't disciplined by, like, a kind of patriarchal figure, like a father, for example, even though in the book you, you know, you write how any parent can be, like, a disciplining authority, like, regardless of gender.

But I think it actually created a lot of like expansiveness and like freedom in my life to like pursue my interests.

So to, you know, become really active in the animal liberation movement and read books on anarchism and feminism and like all the things.

And yeah, just like, I guess I'm very curious because, you know, I started my first little like animal rights group at school when I was 10 years old and it was like a big part of my life.

But Like, I think you talk about it in the book, like this kind of like fetishizing children or so of like, Oh, look how cute this girl is because she's like done this thing, you know, or like, look at kind of like I was kind of often promoted by some of like the bigger kind of.

animal rights groups of like the newspaper or something would want to focus on like a child activist.

So I'd always give them my number, right?

So I was always getting interviewed and put on this pedestal of like, Oh, you're doing all this stuff.

And it's like, actually it kind of meant that a lot of my childhood, there wasn't actually a space for like play or being a delinquent.

Like it was just all like the whole world's on my shoulders and I have to, you know, try and like work towards animal liberation or whatever.

And I know that you also you know, become very politically active, very young.

And I don't know if this is like too invasive as like a personal question, but I just wondered, like, what have your experiences been like in the movement and how does that feel different to you, like in terms of like the themes of your book and yeah, kind of like ageism and experiences of that.

And Yeah, just kind of like a bit of a personal question, really, of like how, yeah, how, how it's been for you.

Yeah, definitely.

Even when you were mentioning earlier about like your hyper responsibility, I was like, don't go down that route.

Let's not talk about that because I related to it so much.

I think the beautiful thing about autonomy, the other side, or a significant part of autonomy that we maybe don't talk about as much is that Autonomy doesn't just mean, like, throwing someone out into the unknown and allowing them to just, like, just destroy themselves and blow themselves up and get themselves into stressful situations, because there are loads of people who might, like, have experienced a level of autonomy, as you said, but there's a, there's a point when it honestly just becomes neglect because there's no guidance and support.

Yes, everybody deserves autonomy and should have autonomy and should have choice and autonomy for others should exist even when it makes us uncomfortable.

I mean, not uncomfortable in, like, a seriously, like, messed up sense and that they're really harming other people.

But, you know, there is going to be a level of discomfort when we're used to holding on to our privileges and we're gonna have to let that go as we allow ourselves and the people around us to be more autonomous.

But that autonomy should always come with guidance and support, and not just passive guidance and support, but active guidance and support.

It's not really enough to say that, you know, you want to, you know, Be there for someone, like you're here for someone.

What does it mean for you to be here for someone?

And what if I go over there?

Are you gonna be, you're gonna be around over there?

You're gonna be around over there?

You're gonna be around over there?

You know, life is a journey.

People aren't just in one place, like emotionally or physically.

Throughout their whole lives.

So I think there has to be something active when it comes to that guidance and support, and active in supporting people's autonomy.

Supporting autonomy isn't some kind of like passive thing where you just sit down in the corner and let someone do whatever they want.

It can be, but...

There does have to be a level of guidance, and I think that within movements like this, like you said, there is like a level of responsibility, like the world is on your shoulders, and this putting someone up on a pedestal, when you place someone on a pedestal, you're taking away their personhood, because now they have all these expectations to live up to and to fulfill.

And I really.

struggled.

Like it was honestly quite hard writing this book and I'm so glad that, you know, people are learning from it and people are valuing my words and my time, but it has been exhausting.

to have spent the best part of my childhood best as in like longest or perhaps most significant part of my childhood like basically begging people to see the personhood of me and other communities that most of society would rather leave behind.

It's been exhausting having the responsibility of adult education and adult emotions and adult trauma on my shoulders, because we don't know how to engage in safe intergenerational community and interactions.

So it's very concerning.

And it is, I think, very isolating and confusing as well, because, you know, I know a few people who've kind of grown up.

in social justice spaces, but you don't really grow up with anybody else because everyone around you is already grown.

And so you're like struggling.

You're like, clearly, you know, as a person, as a human, just able to, like, be on the level of these other people around you.

But then there's the expectation that that level is going to be consistent.

I think what I'm trying to say is, like, intellectually and politically, I can write a book and articulate my thoughts and 10, 20, 30 years older than me.

But those people who are 10, 20, 30 years older than me expect me to be on...

an adult level in terms of like emotionality and in terms of relationships and in terms of so many other aspects of being a person and I think that when people, when adults value young people they often just see them as small adults rather than the children they are rather than just affirming them as a young person and put so much responsibility on their shoulders.

I think there's a level of like despair that we all have, you know, in these niche little communities where everyone's like, you know, depressed and, and hates the world, but also like has so much care for the world, which is exactly why we're doing this.

And I think people kind of, for want of a better term, like freak out a little bit when they see a young person because they're like, oh my god, this is the future.

There is hope.

Your hope puts so much pressure on my shoulders.

Your hope is yours.

You have to hold that.

You have to be responsible for your own hope, as you have to be responsible for your own.

Freedom.

Like, the way I describe myself succinctly as a writer, liberator, and delinquent, but I'm not a liberator of other people.

I'm a liberator of myself and myself only, because I can only be responsible for my own education, my own freedom, my own understanding.

And I believe the same for other people.

But I think that when We see an autonomous young person, or we see a, when we see maybe a version of the young person we wish we could have been We are putting, though, the pressures and projections of our own childhood onto that person.

Our as in, you know, adults, in this case.

I don't know if any of that made sense.

Yeah, no, no, it all made sense and, like, I think, yeah, I think it's really interesting about what you said about, like, everyone else is, like, Already grown, like if you're kind of a child in lots of like spaces which are like very dominated by adults and you know, you talk in the book how, you know, like everyone I know that has kids like finds like social movements really alienating, you know, like the lack of support, the lack of care, the lack of kind of political attention on you know, caring for children and supporting them and mentoring them.

But yeah, like, I think when I was young, it was interesting because people are somehow, like I mentioned, like, yeah, like you said, like imposing their hope on you and somehow also trying to parent you in like an interesting way, right?

Like I was surrounded by adults who didn't have sort of you know, their own children that they'd parented.

So they were kind of putting like all of their stuff on me as this like child of theirs, like collectively or something.

But like you said, like the other areas of kind of growth or healing, like I hadn't gone through.

And then when I was like thrown into this world of like state repression, ultimately like, you know, I'm 20, 30 years younger than the other people going through it.

Like, of course, prison is going to have like a different impact on me, if that makes sense in terms of like molding who I am or like, yeah, I dunno, it's just really fascinating.

And I think that's why I was just curious about, yeah, your experiences.

kind of in these like radical movements, which people assume are kind of like liberating because the focus is on liberation somehow.

But it's like, I feel like sometimes I'm not only like I'm learning and challenging like the power dynamics in that kind of like blood family stuff.

But also, like, understanding, like, the kind of parenting that the movement played.

And, you know, like, some of the movement attitudes to things, like, like you said, like productivity, like if you're not contributing to a movement because you're burnt out or you've developed a chronic illness or you, you know, have a disability, then you feel like redundant, right?

Like you feel like dead wood, like another.

organizer who'd had her legs broken, couldn't kind of do this campaign anymore.

Like she literally, someone told her she was dead wood.

Like that was the language.

Like I talk about it in the overcoming burnout book where lots of people contributed to kind of their experiences of like chronic illness and ableism in different kinds of social movements.

Anyway, I'm like totally like ranting now as well.

But yeah, I was just, I was just curious of like your own kind of like, personal experiences, if that makes sense.

But yeah, no pressure to share like anything else, but I just, that's kind of, you know, what I wanted to add was like, I'm kind of still somehow understanding like the role that these movements have played in shaping me if that makes sense.

Yeah, it definitely makes sense.

I think it's, it's such a, such an interesting, complex thing, and I'm really glad that you asked me that question because it's, it's inviting me to reflect on it in a way that I am avoiding from being missed.

That's okay.

Like you, as in like avoiding answering right now or like avoiding exploring in your own life?

Yeah, I just mean exploring in my own life.

I think Like, I think it's an interesting thing.

I think it's always interesting to reflect on experiences that you're having in the moment.

And it's a very different experience to reflecting on things that have happened in the past.

But I definitely agree there's a lot of toxic culture within Within various justice movements and this, this energy to like constantly be doing things and constantly be present, definitely something that I have been have been internalizing in, in various forms.

But I'm also with this conversation in general, like the whole conversation excited and interested to see what kind of person I become in the future.

With these experiences in mind, like how am I, how are my.

relationships with all of these, you know, organisers going to change as I move into adulthood, I wonder.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And that was another thing that I absolutely loved about your book, was just kind of like, recognising that humans, like at all ages, are like learning and growing, and it's like, not just this lens of like, okay, you become 18 and that's it, right?

Like it's this constant process, and I think that was like, really like empowering to read as like a kind of reminder of like, again, this more kind of like liberating delinquency somehow of like, actually, yeah, not just like worrying about money all the time and like paying bills, but actually there's just like so much more like growth.

And I feel like your book is such an incredible resource because I think for so many people who, you know, like are kind of.

you know, actively organizing or educating themselves about all different things.

Like, I really feel like your book will just like fill this like extra niche of like, yeah.

Hey, have you thought about this?

You know?

And I think most people will not have thought about this in the way that you frame it.

So I just, yeah, I just want to thank you again for this like incredible gift of everything you've shared and all of your labor and putting it together and yeah, educating like people.

So finally, like yeah, I just wondered, like, where can people learn more about you and your amazing work?

I'll put, like, any links you send, like, in the show notes, but yeah, if there's any projects you want to plug or things you're doing and where people can find you, then, yeah, let me know.

Yes thank you so much for this discussion.

It was really lovely to speak to you.

It's been a while.

You mentioned your Overcoming Burnout book and I feel like I need to give it a re reread.

I read it a few years ago when I interviewed you on my podcast that has since, since ended because podcast work is like, long.

But yeah, it's been very nice to speak with you and thank you for all the questions.

If there are any neurodivergent listeners, then like, it's kind of off topic, but come and join us at Neuromancers.

Currently looking for new team members.

So if this podcast episode is out before the end of September, then the applications are still open.

But with regards to the book, you can buy it from the Anima print, which is the publishing mi Micro Publishing house that I co-founded at the animal print.org.

I often run courses and workshops on youth liberation, on ageism, and I'll probably be doing a course or kind of like age trauma centred peer support space in the next couple of months, and I'm also doing a workshop on ageism and abuse on the 1st of October, and if it goes really well, I might repeat it, so Thank you.

Follow me on Instagram at aiyana.Goodfellow and you can look through my website aiyanagoodfellow.con and please DM me, email me your thoughts about this episode if you have any more questions because I love chatting to people.

And thank you Nicole for having me on the podcast.

Oh, it's been my absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much.

I've just had the best day, like reading your book, like front to back, but I'm sure I'm gonna be rereading it like over and over again.

So yeah, I just thank you so much for your time and yeah, I will put all the links in the show notes.

So the listeners can order that copy and yeah.

do your workshops and follow you.

Okay.

Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.

You can find the transcripts, the links, all the resources from the show at solidarityapothecary.org/podcast.