Sounds like mine. I was raised on defanged, liberalised readings of Civil Rights leaders; and the more I tried to dig into their works later on in life as an addled, blue-dyed Democrat servant of empire, the more I found the people I was researching... Had pernicious, seemingly 'missed' references to being ideologically communist, if not socialist. References and ties that were literally ignored during my time in grade school.

The more I dug into the empire's lies, the more confused and angry with the empire I became-- and then I got to watch my 'brothers-in-arms' resoundingly cheer for a civilian getting blown to salsa shrapnel on a drone feed. That day messily broke something in me, but it also cleanly broke my allegiance to the west, and made me that much more willing to dig into anything that the empire considered a threat. Think it's been about nine years I've been making my reading lists spicier, and five since I started working with local food pantries.