Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)@iris@neuromatch.social
I got to meet up (online) with my group that formed in the wake of the US 2016 election. We call it Action Tuesdays (even after it shifted to Thursdays) and we would take turns bringing one topic and one action item for us to do together that evening — writing postcards to voters or letters to local lawmakers/school boards/etc, making signs for protests, teaching each other, sometimes just talking through trickier issues where there seemed to be no right answers. The same people were already and still are friends, and this was our dedicated time to doing something rather than just panicking or sliding into despair.
We hadn't met for this purpose in a long time, but decided around a month ago that it was high time. Tonight we brainstormed public comments for the pending CBP rule forcing disclosure of 5 years of social media history and caught each other up on ICE resistance local to each of us. I'm much less overwhelmed with US news than I would be if I were physically there, but I still left the session lighter than I arrived. I'm impressed by what people are managing to do and hopeful that it is a meaningful level of resistance.
Thought y'all outside the US would appreciate knowing that people are pushing back against everything that's happening. It's quiet, but people are showing up.