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Here’s a question that might make you uncomfortable:
When was the last time you talked to a friend about their political identity?
Not their political opinions. Not who they voted for. Not some abstract debate about policy.
Their political identity. The parts of who they are that intersect with systems of power.
Their race. Their sexuality. Their gender identity. Their disability status. Their immigration status. Their economic class. Their family structure.
All the things we’ve been taught to politely ignore in friendship.
Because here’s what we’ve been sold: Good friendship is warm and cozy. Nice and easy. Comfortable and safe.
Good friendship doesn’t talk about politics.
Good friendship keeps things light. Avoids conflict. Stays in the pleasant zone where everyone can just get along.
And that’s exactly the problem.
Because when we keep friendship apolitical, when we only show up for the “easy” parts of our friends and ignore the rest?
We’re not actually loving them. We’re loving a sanitized version of them.
And more than that, we’re staying powerless. Isolated. Unable to create the change we desperately need.
Meet Priya Vulchi (And Why Friendship Is Radical)
I just finished talking with Priya Vulchi, author of Good Friends: Bonds That Change Us and the World.
Priya co-authored Tell Me Who You Are (about race and identity) with one of her closest friends. She co-founded and ran a non-profit called CHOOSE with one of her closest friends for over a decade. She was the youngest TED Resident ever.
And her new book is a resounding cry that friendship is vital: not just for our individual well-being, but for humanity itself.
Here’s what Priya helped me understand:
Friendship isn’t supposed to be apolitical. That’s not some natural state we should aspire to.
It’s a deliberate depoliticization designed to keep us weak.
Because when we have deep friendships, the kind where we actually SEE each other’s full identities, where we care about each other’s struggles, where we show up for each other’s political well-being?
That’s dangerous to systems of power.
How We Got Here: The “Nice and Quiet” Version of Friendship
Let’s go back to Aristotle for a second (bear with me, I promise this matters).
Aristotle described three types of friendship:
1. Friends of utility: people who are useful to you (think: networking)
2. Friends of pleasure: people you party with, hang out with, have fun with
3. Friends of virtue (also called “perfect friendship”): deep, meaningful bonds
Most of us? We’re stuck in categories 1 and 2.
We have friends we borrow things from. Friends we grab drinks with. Friends who are convenient and circumstantial.
There’s a New Yorker comic Priya mentions where two friends are hugging goodbye, and one says: “If you’re ever in my borough, on my street, right next to my house… let’s hang out again!”
That’s where most of us live. In conditional, convenient friendship.
And here’s what that looks like in practice:
If your partner’s flight lands at 3 am, you go pick them up from the airport. No question.
If your friend’s flight lands at 3 am? You tell them to take an Uber.
If your kid needs something, you drop everything.
If your friend needs something? “No worries if you can’t! Totally understand!”
We’ve been taught that friendship has limits. That there’s only so far you should go for a friend.
And we’ve DEFINITELY been taught that you shouldn’t bring politics into it.
Why “Apolitical” Friendship Is Actually Political
Here’s what Priya helped me see:
Keeping friendship apolitical isn’t neutral. It’s a choice that serves specific systems.
We live in a hyper-individualistic, capitalistic society. And that society NEEDS us to be isolated.
Think about it:
You used to borrow sugar from a neighbor. Now you use Postmates.
You used to borrow a dress from a friend. Now you buy one on Amazon.
You used to ask a friend for a ride. Now you use Uber.
Every time we choose convenience over friendship, we’re feeding a system that profits from our isolation.
And when we keep friendship “nice and apolitical”? When we only show up for the easy parts?
We stay atomized. Self-interested. Politically vulnerable.
As Priya put it: “The more alone you are, the more politically vulnerable you are. And the more alone you are, the more politically vulnerable other people are.”
It’s by design.
Plato said it back in 300-350 BCE: “It’s in no interest for the Persian Empire for its people to have strong bonds of friendship with one another.”
Powerful systems don’t want us deeply connected. Because deep connection is dangerous to them.
What Real Friendship Actually Looks Like
Okay, so what does it mean to have friendship that ISN’T apolitical?
Let me tell you about my friend Caitlin.
Caitlin and I have been friends for 18 years. She grew up in an amazing, supportive family. One of those families that constantly works to be chosen family.
I did not.
I lack what I call “family privilege.”
And in a society that’s structured around nuclear families, that lack of privilege rams up against you constantly in ways most people never see.
Caitlin has really no personal experience with this. She can’t fully understand what it’s like.
But she’s one of the first people to bring it up. To advocate for it. To stand up for me.
She’s gotten into debates with family members about it. It’s reshaped how she approaches things.
I asked her once: Why? Why are you so passionate about this when it doesn’t affect you?
She said: “I believe you.”
That’s it. I believe you.
THAT is political friendship.
She’s not just being nice to me in our one-on-one hangouts. She’s actually caring about my political well-being: the ways systems impact my life differently than hers.
And it’s changing how she moves through the world.
Now here’s the flip side:
Caitlin has a medically complex son. Most of his treatments, medicine, and doctors are paid for by Social Security.
Not Social Security for people over 65. Social Security for disabled children and adults.
I love this kid with all my heart.
And because of that love, I think about Social Security daily.
When people talk about it, I educate them. When I’m looking at political candidates, I’m tracking their positions. When legislation comes up, I’m paying attention.
My love for my friend transformed my abstract “I should care about this” into active, daily political engagement.
Do you see what happened there?
Neither of us had personal experience with the other’s struggle. But because we love each other fully (including our political identities), we’re both taking action.
That’s not mobilizing (showing up for one protest and going home).
That’s organizing. That’s sustained, long-term engagement because we’re embedded in relationships that matter.
Priya’s perspective on friendship and politics is powerful. Hear all the details in the full episode.
The June Jordan Example That Changes Everything
Priya writes extensively about June Jordan, a Black queer feminist poet, educator, and activist who passed away in 2002.
June was good friends with a woman named Frances Fox Piven, a sociologist.
And for a while, their friendship was going fine… as long as June collaborated in her own self-silencing.
As long as June did acrobatics to avoid certain parts of herself, the friendship operated smoothly.
But one day at lunch, June reached a breaking point.
She felt that Frances didn’t really accept or understand her bisexuality. And they had a fight. They didn’t talk for several years.
Later, they reconciled and became lifelong friends.
But here’s what June said about that moment:
Not accepting all parts of her (including her bisexuality) was a form of suicide.
“It’s like severing one limb and going to the friendship and expecting your whole body not to bleed out.”
You have to love someone entirely for who they are.
This is what Priya means when she says friendship is inherently political:
You can’t separate a person’s political identity from who they are and claim you love them.
That’s not love. That’s loving a sanitized, comfortable version of them.
Why We’ve Been Told to Keep It “Nice”
So why have we been taught that friendship should be apolitical?
Because real friendship (the kind that sees and cares about political identities) leads to action.
Let me give you another June Jordan example.
June is walking in North Berkeley. A random stranger runs up to her, panicked.
“Help! Someone dropped an antisemitic pamphlet on my front lawn. My wife is Jewish. I’m scared. Have you seen anyone?”
Immediately, June gives him her phone number. Connects him with people who can help. Tells him to stay in touch.
Priya writes: “I was so moved when I read that. Because I don’t know if someone ran up to me… I might keep walking with my dog.”
But June showed profound friendship to a stranger.
Because when you practice seeing people’s full identities, when you care about their political well-being?
You can’t unsee it. You can’t stop caring.
And that caring leads to:
- ▪️ Different voting choices
- ▪️ Conversations with family members
- ▪️ Showing up at city council meetings
- ▪️ Writing to representatives
- ▪️ Educating people who don’t know
- ▪️ Standing up when you see injustice
- ▪️ Organizing with others for sustained change
All because you love your friend.
The Difference Between Mobilizing and Organizing
Here’s something Priya taught me:
There’s a difference between mobilizing and organizing.
Mobilizing is when you show up for a one-time protest. Everyone gathers, you march, you go home and close the door.
Organizing is sustained, long-term change. It’s continuing to meet, discuss, study together, challenge one another, and forms connections.
And organizing requires deep friendship.
Because organizing is exhausting. It’s long. It’s hard. It requires showing up again and again and again.
You can’t sustain that alone.
Think about the civil rights movement. We see the photos of Martin Luther King Jr. standing alone.
But when Priya looked at photos with the frame broadened just slightly?
Martin Luther King Jr. is sitting with his friend Ralph Abernathy.
Malcolm X is with Yuri Kochiyama.
Toni Morrison is with Fran Lebowitz.
Rosa Parks is with Johnnie Carr.
All these people we know as solo names? They were actually good friends.
And you know what else? They laughed together. A lot.
When Priya interviewed June Jordan’s friends (including Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, and Adrienne Rich), every single one of them went on unprompted tangents describing June’s laughter.
This sound that peppered her sentences. That filled rooms. That everyone remembered.
Priya writes: “I’m sitting there feeling like an imposter because my friends and I are really goofy. We’re really silly. I don’t know if we qualify.”
But that’s exactly the point.
These iconic activists were good friends. They found joy together. They laughed together.
And that joy sustained them through the exhausting work of creating change.
What’s Actually at Stake
Let me be really clear about what we’re talking about here:
When you refuse to see or care about your friend’s political identity, you’re not protecting the friendship.
You’re actually practicing a form of violence against them.
Priya talks about how we understand that diseases and illnesses make people sick.
But injustice makes people sick, too.
If you’ll show up for your friend’s physical health crisis but not their experience of discrimination or marginalization?
You’re picking and choosing how you’ll love them.
And that’s not love.
Think about it this way:
If your friend is a cancer survivor and doesn’t have a typical nuclear family structure, you’d (hopefully) show up for their doctor appointments, bring them food, and help them at home.
That’s caring for their physical well-being.
But if that same friend is experiencing discrimination at work because of their identity? Or fighting for their rights to exist safely in public spaces?
That’s also a health crisis. And it requires your care too.
You can’t separate the two and claim you love the whole person.
The Friendship That Changes Everything
Here’s what happens when you practice real, political friendship:
You start to care about things you never thought about before.
Not because you “should.” Not because you read an article or saw a post.
Because you love someone who’s affected.
My friend’s son needing Social Security? That transformed my entire relationship to disability rights and social safety nets.
My own lack of family privilege? That’s transformed how Caitlin thinks about family structures and support systems.
Neither of us had to force ourselves to care. The caring happened naturally because we love each other.
And here’s the beautiful part:
That caring ripples out.
When Caitlin talks to her family about family privilege, they start thinking about it too.
When I educate someone about Social Security for disabled children, they start paying attention too.
Small conversations lead to more conversations, lead to changed minds, lead to changed actions.
That’s how movements actually happen.
Not with one charismatic leader making one big speech.
With millions of small acts of friendship creating ripples that add up to waves.
There’s so much more to this conversation about real, radical friendship. Listen to the complete episode for the full discussion.
Why This Feels Uncomfortable
I know some of you are reading this and feeling uncomfortable.
Maybe you’re thinking:
- ▪️ But I don’t want to lose friends over politics
- ▪️ My friendships are my escape from all the heavy stuff
- ▪️ I just want to keep things light and fun
I get it. I really do.
But here’s what I want you to consider:
When you keep friendship “light and apolitical,” whose comfort are you protecting?
Because I can tell you: it’s not your friend who’s directly impacted by the political issue you’re avoiding.
It’s probably your own.
And look. I’m not saying every friendship conversation needs to be intense and heavy.
Remember: June Jordan and her friends laughed together constantly. Toni Morrison went clubbing with her friends.
Joy and depth aren’t opposites. They’re partners.
But if you’re NEVER talking about the parts of your friends that intersect with politics?
You’re not actually seeing them. You’re seeing an edited, comfortable version.
And that’s not friendship. That’s acquaintanceship with a fancy name.
What Real Friendship Requires
Priya writes about friendship as a practice, not a destination.
You’re never going to be a perfect friend. You’re going to mess up.
You’re going to say the wrong thing. You’re going to miss something important. You’re going to center yourself when you shouldn’t.
And that’s okay.
Because real friendship (good friendship) includes forgiveness. Growth. Repair.
It includes staying through the discomfort instead of running away.
We normalize that romantic love takes work. That family relationships require effort.
But when friendship gets hard, we bail.
We think: Friendship shouldn’t be this difficult. This must not be real friendship.
But actually, if you stick it out through the difficulty? That’s when friendship becomes transformative.
That’s when it becomes the kind of bond that can actually change the world.
Your Turn
So here’s what I want you to do:
Think about one friend. Someone you care about deeply.
Now ask yourself:
Do I know their full political identity?
Not their voting record. Not their opinions on issues.
Their identity. The parts of who they are that intersect with power and systems.
Do you know:
- ▪️ What it’s like for them to move through the world in their body?
- ▪️ What barriers do they face that you might not?
- ▪️ What privileges do they have that others don’t?
- ▪️ What injustices impact their daily life?
- ▪️ What rights are they fighting for?
If you don’t know these things, start asking.
Not in a performative way. Not in a “I’m being a good ally” way.
In a “I love you, and I want to understand your full experience” way.
And then (this is the important part) let that understanding change you.
Let it change:
- ▪️ How you vote
- ▪️ What you pay attention to
- ▪️ What you speak up about
- ▪️ Who you educate
- ▪️ What you organize around
- ▪️ How you show up in the world
That’s political friendship.
And it’s one of the most radical acts of resistance you can practice.
The Truth We’re Not Supposed to Say
Here’s what Priya helped me understand:
Friendship has been depoliticized by design.
Because when we have deep friendships across differences, when we truly see each other, when we care enough to act?
We become ungovernable.
We can’t be sold isolation as independence.
We can’t be convinced that we’re supposed to handle everything alone.
We can’t be kept in our separate little boxes, powerless and afraid.
We become dangerous.
Dangerous to systems that profit from our loneliness.
Dangerous to power structures that depend on our silence.
Dangerous to the status quo that requires our compliance.
And that’s exactly why friendship (real, deep, political friendship) is so important right now.
Start Small. Start Now.
You don’t have to become an activist overnight.
You don’t have to lead a movement or organize a protest or become some iconic figure.
You just have to start seeing your friends fully.
Including the parts that intersect with politics. Including the parts that make you uncomfortable. Including the parts that challenge your worldview.
And then let that seeing lead to caring. And let that caring lead to action.
Maybe that action is:
- ▪️ A conversation with a family member
- ▪️ A vote you wouldn’t have cast before
- ▪️ Showing up at a local meeting
- ▪️ Educating someone who doesn’t know
- ▪️ Standing up when you see injustice
- ▪️ Connecting your friend with resources
- ▪️ Simply believing them when they tell you their experience
Small actions. Daily choices. Sustained engagement.
That’s how change actually happens.
Not with heroes. With friends.
Want to dive deeper into this? Go grab Priya Vulchi’s book Good Friends: Bonds That Change Us and the World. (Or request it at your local library. Authors love that just as much.) There’s SO much more in there that we didn’t cover today.
Ready to practice political friendship? Start with one friend. Ask them about their full experience. And then let that understanding change you. That’s where the ripple starts.
Ready to rethink what friendship can be? Tune into the full episode for everything covered above and more.
