Several activists from different social change movements have stepped forth with a shocking new discovery. After asking basic ‘Get to know you’ ice breaker questions to members of their respective groups they found that most, if not all of them, had personal traits or practices considered morally wrong. What follows are testimonials by those who found out that their organizations were full of shitty people.

Sarah Respoch, of Rochester’s grassroots campaign to stop voter suppression, had this to say about several members:

“Well, it just struck me as odd that we had so many sophomore poli-sci kids from around the area come and go. They always seemed so eager to join up and help the movement! They’d help educate people and join us at rallies, but then at the end of the summer they’d go back to school and never come back. I talked to one of them, he was a U of R guy, and all he had to say was ‘yeah, its better than an internship ’cause I get paid, and if I get one of the booth people to sign a sheet it counts as one anyways’. It…It’s like they don’t even care about the message, they just see the organization and the people as objects used as a means to an end.”

Gerard LeBouif, a local leader of a chapter of the Vegan Anti-GMO movement told us:

“Like, I had known [REDACTED] for years, he helped found the chapter here. Me and him were close friends! We even came from the same class at U of R. I had no idea that he was a registered sex offender. I asked him a week ago, point blank, ‘do you have a criminal record?’ and he said ‘yeah’ like it was nothing! He’s been in my house, with my kids , before. It’s like I never really took the time to know the guy.”

Bram Stepford, leader of the Young Republicans Club, and the  Delta Iota Chi Kappa fraternity at the University of Rochester, noticed this about some of his comrades:

“I found out Chet had never even drugged and sexually assaulted any of the sorority girls at our weekly bi-annual mixers. Like, never once! He never called anybody a n***er, or a s**c, or a w*****k, or a c**t, or a dick-weed, or a k**e, or”

He went on for some time listing various racial slurs and offensive slang,

“…he never skipped classes to get blackout drunk, and he didn’t even go here as a safety school! Like, he is paying for his own education and joined the frat thinking it would be a close knit community of brothers that shared a common profession or interest! Like, and but, like, and he just really believed in the republican cause and saw it as a way to better the political landscape of the country. Such a boner killer, you know?”

And finally, from the Rochester Socialists Union, Rebecca Sheppard had this to say:

“Well, its kind of an awkward situation, we’re in the middle of discussion of how to proceed. Okay, the short of it is that we have been involved closely with the Rochester Black Lives Matter movement for some time now. We believe that equality should exist in all forms and that no one group should be in complete power. We were excited to see so many people start joining in to rally and protest with us, but they would disappear after one or two rallies. It turns out they were just trying to be in pictures so that they could bolster their social media profiles and get bragging rights. I think the most disgusting example was one guy who came from U of R, he was at the front of every protest once the photographers came out, he kept claiming he was in NYC during the Occupy Wall Street protests and got beaten by police, but whenever he went near any person of color, he would immediately change into this gross stereotype, desperately trying to fist-bump people and saying “wassup homie?” or “whats good, blood?” it…it was disgusting to say the least.”

It’s sad to say that individuals in any given cause can turn out to be the complete opposite of who we thought they were. Some people try to use groups dedicated to social, political, or economic change to wash over who they are as an individual, rather than let their individuality dictate how others see them, as shitty, awful, terrible, awful people.