“No complaining, no more Xan, I leave the medicine alone / Dawg, I swear to God that I'm changing for the better / F**k whoever got the nerve to try to tell me that I'm wrong.” Swearengin says she’s running because, “We’re coming out of the belly of the beast, kicking and screaming.” The reckoning on race in the field of economics began around 100 years ago. To put that in perspective, white women hadonly recently been granted the right to voteand, in 1921, white people hadburned Black Wall Street, in Tulsa, to the ground Other than the spoken-word poetry I was performing around Providence, I couldn’t find tangible ways to put my pain into action. But then Kat asked me, “Why don’t you run for office, Nika?” I’d thought about it for a few years, but once I transitioned, the idea seemed absolutely impossible. In my mind, I couldn’t see how, in Trump's America, a 22-year-old trans womxn would ever find a path to running for office without being the butt of countless jokes. I told her, “I’m an activist — running for office isn’t for me.” But Kat persisted, for months, inviting me to fundraisers and womxn's caucus meetings, essentially taking on the role of being my professional hype girl. This is what Kat does best — she advocates for people to live up to their fullest potential and doesn’t give up until you see that potential for yourself.