“Let’s just not talk about politics” is a ridiculously privileged thing to say.

Politics is personal.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you have never faced a moment where you had to make medical decisions based on what a non-medical professional had legislated. Perhaps you’ve never needed an abortion to save your life like Josseli Barnica wasn’t able to receive and ended up dying.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never been a trans youth. Youth suicide attempt rates went up in the wake of anti-trans legislation.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you don’t ever worry that your child’s school is underfunded (or your neighbor kids’ school!). Perhaps you live in an area where property taxes are high enough and PTOs can easily raise enough money that the public school is safe and funding seems stable. But perhaps you’re ignoring the 60% of students across the country who are in districts that are deemed “chronically underfunded.”

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that when a highly publicized rally of a prominent presidential candidate uses racist tropes and derogatory language to describe racial and ethnic groups, your racial or ethnic group wasn’t targeted.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that when you hear about book bans that seek to eliminate books about LGBTQIA+ topics or that acknowledge racism, you just don’t care about this discrimination and don’t mind kids not being allowed to read about it.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never tried to juggle childcare expenses and work a job that won’t quite pay the bills.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that when you hear about a shooting where an AR-15 rifle killed 19 children and two teachers, you don’t have the time to consider what type of legislation (or research funding) could prevent this from happening again.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never experienced sex discrimination in the workplace and needed to learn what the laws are that can protect you.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never been a kid in foster care where political decisions and policies impact life on a day by day basis.

If you don’t need to talk about politics, it means that you’ve never been incarcerated and had to deal with re-entering communities where you have few rights and little room for success.

Sure, we could eliminate political discussions from our workplaces, from friendships, from our families. But then we’re left with only superficial relationships where we don’t hold space and empathy for people who have experienced the issues at hand. We need to listen to people’s stories. We need to come to these conversations with empathy. We need to leave these conversations with impetus to make things better.

Politics is personal.

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Author’s note: Are there people I don’t talk politics with? Yes! (Hi, Dad). But do I think that these relationships often choose superficiality over empathy and love? Yes! And do I think that by avoiding politics, we are choosing to ignore suffering (and working toward change) in favor of this superficiality? Yep. Do I have a solution? No.