Mimi Arbeit
Antifascist, Educator, Organizer
I am a White anti-racist Jewish queer femme applied developmental psychologist, sexuality educator, and community organizer. I lived in Boston and New York City before moving to Charlottesville in 2016, as a postdoctoral fellow at the UVA School of Education. I organized with SURJ-Charlottesville and supported media strategy within a network of local anti-racist activists during and after the 2017 Summer of Hate. I now share my life between Charlottesville and Boston, where I have a faculty position in Psychology at Suffolk University and lead the Youth Equity & Sexuality Lab.
My scholarship applies antifascist principles to developmental science to hone strategies for countering fascist influences in young people’s lives, including: how to stop fascist recruitment of youth; how to protect youth from fascist violence; and how to support youth resistance to fascism, white supremacy, and male supremacy. This scholarship draws on my related lines of work in promoting adolescent sexuality development and preventing sexual violence, and on my experiences with antifascist community organizing. I am driven by lived experiences that have shown that through organizing in solidarity, together we can defeat fascism and build power for social justice.
I love dancing, and I love long walks, whether on the beach or downtown. Most of all, I love talking to people about relationships, community organizing, and antifascism. Thank you for being here.