Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Cowles.
Hi Ryan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up on the East Coast. The area I’m from was once heavily industrial. By the time I came along most industries were gone, leaving behind deteriorating red brick buildings scattered across decaying urban and rural landscapes. Throughout my childhood, I bounced between a couple small towns and cities and got exposure to both extremes.
My first job was in a tobacco field when I was 12 years old. Agriculture isn’t covered by the same labor laws as other industries, so kids in the area I grew up in would work with seasonal migrant workers in the tobacco fields after school and over the summer. Our job responsibilities would change depending on what period of growing season it was, but I mostly remember “stringing” plants. Each plant had a string that ran from the ground up to an overhead beam. You would carefully wrap the string from bottom-to-top around the leaves and branches to keep the plant supported. Then, you would take a few steps to the side and do the same for the next plant. And the next plant. And the next plant. And you’d repeat that process until your hands calloused, you wanted to cry, or the bus came to pick you up.
As I got a little older, I was in-and-out of trouble a lot. I skateboarded, skipped school, and wrote graffiti heavily for the better part of a decade. Through many of those years, I had an old 35mm Canon camera that I kept with me. Writing and documenting graffiti sparked an interest in photography and design that has stuck with me since. I’ve been catching tags and taking flicks for as long as I can remember. Years later, that culminated in a small magazine that I self-published called High Iron Cult. That reminds me, I need to finish up the next issue…
In my teens, as the misdemeanors turned to felonies, I jumped between minimum wage jobs after school until I landed at a sign shop when I was in high school. I was able to place large letters on other peoples’ property without risk of incarceration, so I stuck around. A year or two into that job, my boss wanted to start offering websites to our local clients. The pay was almost as bad as the websites I made, but I was able to learn on the job and turn my interest in design toward web development.
Shortly after that, the 2008 recession hit. I was living with my partner and two roommates in a dilapidated row house, racking paint and writing graffiti, and regularly debating whether we should buy groceries, cigarettes, or booze. By 2010, the job market still looked bleak, so my partner and I decided to move to the city she was from in Southern California. We put everything we owned into suitcases we got from Goodwill and took Amtrak 3,000 miles from SPG to LAX.
I worked a few different jobs after landing in California, everything from design to tech support to web development. I had no plan and I made it up as I went. I connected with people through the Open Source software community and was able to lean on those connections to learn and grow my own skillset. I have no formal training or education. But thanks to the Open Source software community, I was able to stumble my way into the tech industry. For better or worse, I’ve stuck around since.
Through that experience, I came to believe that with adequate support, guidance, and opportunity most anyone can be successful in any role. The missing pieces are often due to circumstance and privilege. I’m in a role now where I help create an apprenticeship program for people moving into engineering roles in the tech industry. We have a long way to go across the industry as far as making opportunity accessible to people, but I’m hopeful that we’ll see more of these types of programs as a step in that direction. With that said my advice to any young person interested in getting into tech right now… is to run away and get a union job with UPS. It’s rough out here right now.
Off the clock, when I’m not with my family (or sometimes when I am), I organize with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). I am a co-chair on DSA’s National Labor Commission, where we’re building a fighting working class. As part of that, I organize with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee to help people build power to fight for and win better pay, dignity, and respect in the workplace. If any of your readers have ever been pissed off at your boss, we should talk!
From graffiti crews to open-source software to labor — I’ve always felt that the collective is stronger than the individual. We’re at a point now — as our infrastructure crumbles, wealth inequality is at an all-time high, and climate change is ever-looming — where it’s clear that no one is coming to save us. So we have to do it ourselves. And whether it’s in the streets, in the workplace, or in our communities, all of us together are stronger than any of us alone.
I’ve been a troublemaker my entire life. These days, I’m trying to put that to good use so we can build a better future together.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has been bumpy as hell. When I was a kid, I recognized that things were messed up. I saw people, including many close friends and family members, struggle a lot. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think the allure of graffiti was both an escape from and a reaction to a system I could clearly see was unfair but couldn’t fully understand.
Like most of the kids I grew up with, I smoked, I drank, I got into stupid fights, and I hustled a bit. As many of my friends started getting into harder drugs, graffiti again served as an escape. We’d smoke, we’d drink, but when opiates came into play, I was able to dip out to catch tags in the streets or the train yard. This escape wasn’t without its own troubles, as evidenced by the juvenile charges that added up. But I had a friend’s mom who could sign off on my court-mandated community service — and at least it wasn’t heroin.
We kept doing the “live fast, die young” thing. By the time I got into high school, the second part of that began playing a larger role as I started to see my friends and their family members pass away. Between overdoses, car accidents, and violence, I went to a lot of funerals in the second half of my teen years. While other kids were planning their future after high school, I couldn’t see much point in doing so for myself. I figured I would wind up dead or in jail before any of that mattered. So I just kept existing, looking for that next thrill.
At age 19, no longer a juvenile in the eyes of the law, things got real. I had a few open court cases, one included multiple counts of felony vandalism which carried a potential three-year sentence. I wasn’t getting out of that one with some community service… I had a friend who had been locked up before. So while other kids our age were prepping for their college exams, I was trying to learn everything I could from him about surviving state prison.
I ended up receiving a Continuance Without a Finding in that case. In short, I agreed to admit that there was enough evidence to convict, but the court didn’t actually enter a guilty finding. Instead, the case was continued without a verdict for a year, and as long as I didn’t break probation, I was able to avoid prison time. But if I broke probation, I’d get smacked with the guilty verdict and full range of penalties. I had a few really close calls while I was on probation — you ever hide in the spare tire well of an 18-wheeler? That shit is uncomfortable! — but I didn’t get bagged. Let me tell ya, risk of incarceration is one hell of a motivator to get that cardio in! My other significant case at the time got dropped in pretrial due to insufficient evidence. I somehow managed to stay out of prison.
Just a couple of years later, my friend who helped me prep for that prison time that never came ended up getting shot and killed. He got shot in broad daylight on his own front porch over some shit that happened years ago when he was barely a teenager. That f*cked me up for a while. And in hindsight, probably played a role in my decision to move to the other side of the country. I just had to get out of there.
I was incredibly lucky to have a supportive partner and support from her family when we landed in California. We still had struggles, but I was able to leave some of the harder ones behind. I still smoked, I still drank, and I still bounced between jobs, sometimes wondering how we’d make rent. But I managed to stay out of serious trouble.
For a while, I felt bad about leaving the area I grew up in. And I struggled with mental health issues. It was humbling and it took me to some dark places. But with space between myself and where I grew up, I was able to better understand myself and where I came from. And I began to understand why others struggled, too. These days, I’m five years sober and have a beautiful family that keeps me on track.
I’ve learned this world we live in is hard and the system that we live under is messed up! Very few of us are setup for success in this rat race and that’s the underlying cause of a lot of our hardships. But it doesn’t have to be that way. And that’s why I organize.
I’m just some dude. I’m not credentialed, I have no unique training — hell, I barely graduated high school and dropped out of community college. But what I do have is a genuine desire to learn from and work with people to build a better future for all of us. If you’re ever been pissed off at your boss, if you’ve ever been pissed off at your landlord, if you’ve ever been pissed off at a politician, that’s the only qualification you need. That anger and frustration is righteous and when we can channel that and come together to fight, we can win. It’s our best shot and it’s our only shot.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The Democratic Socialists of America is the largest socialist organization in the United States. We have almost 100,000 members and chapters in all 50 states. We’re a member-driven mass organization and we believe that working people should run both the economy and society democratically to meet human needs, not to make profits for a few.
I currently serve as a co-chair on DSA Labor’s steering committee. DSA Labor (the National Labor Commission or NLC) is a body of DSA members active in the labor movement, including union members and stewards, union staff, workers center activists, union officers, labor journalists, union retirees, students in labor solidarity groups, and labor-oriented intellectuals.
I also organize with the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC). EWOC is a joint project of DSA and the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) to build a distributed, grassroots organizing program to support workers organizing at the workplace. We’ve supported workers in all industries across the country to fight for and win safety, dignity, and respect in their workplace.
No matter what industry you are in, no matter how large or small your workplace is, if you want to come together with your coworkers to improve your working conditions, we’ll help you learn how to how to build the power to do that. By organizing your workplace, you can win real, lasting improvements that allow you and your co-workers to flourish in your jobs. After all, it’s your labor and cooperation that keep the business running day after day.
– Join DSA: http://dsausa.us/join
– Join DSA Labor: http://dsausa.us/join-nlc
– Organize your workplace with EWOC: https://workerorganizing.org
Get in touch because we have a world to win!
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I was really shy when I was young. I kept to myself and my two primary escapes were the internet and writing graffiti. As I got a little older, I masked that shyness with jokes, sarcasm, and a facade of tough-guy bravado. But most of the time, I was just frustrated and struggling to operate in a world that I didn’t really understand. I rode my bike everywhere I could, I caught tags in cutty spots and sought out cheap thrills wherever I could.
I’ve always been skeptical of authority and the status quo. That’s fueled my drive to challenge conventional norms and push boundaries. I guess I’ve always been a bit of a line-stepper. My persistent curiosity and penchant for questioning things have been pretty constant throughout my life, shaping my personality and passions in various ways.
For a long time, I masked parts of my past and my personality, fearing they might negatively impact my professional image during job interviews and other formal settings. These days… I’ve learned to embrace these experiences as essential parts of who I am today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://bnux.link
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/bumpynux
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BumpyNUX
- Other: Organize your workplace: https://workerorganizing.org
Image Credits
Ryan Cowles
