Who is up for a J-Unity challenge? (AkaJune Challenge)
Are you out protesting? Writing legislators? Bailing out a friend or stranger? Donating to rights or justice groups? Sewing cloth masks for people? Volunteering for a non-profit, charity, rights group, etc? On a board for a group? Or you want to do anything of these or something else to support UNITY and COMMUNITY -
We can talk about actions, ongoing activities, plans, resources here.
Posting stuff I already did in case others find it helpful. All of these are things I’m doing without leaving the house.
Donated to causes in Minneapolis as well as locally
Used some of my stimulus money to get bagels/muffins delivered from local businesses to an ER and local offices.
Called my congress critters partially using a script and ending with “We can do better. We need to do better.” I can probably call them again next week come to think of it. They’re all, like, super red though. The only one that’s up for reelection is in a gerrymandered red-as-red-can-be area so it’s just a matter of which Republican will replace him (this fall I think).
Reached out to black coworkers early in the day once I came up with a simple starting sentence (and deleting a lot of rambling angst) “Hey there, before we get too much into our work day, with all the craziness going on in the news the last couple weeks I just wanted to take a minute to ask - how are you?”
Trying to educate myself in advance so I have better responses when certain relatives are like “But the looting…”
Future thoughts:
I’m on a board for a group that has an annual event and we all agree that we need fresh blood in our planning group and I pointed out that we’re all a bunch of white ladies within a certain age range, we need more diversity. We’re not holding our event next year, though, because even best case scenario (as we saw it in March/April) screwed up our planning and prep during the year so our next event won’t be till 2022 so … I guess that issue’s on the back burner for now.
There’s a black man with a good local reputation (I think, need to research to verify) running against a white woman for sheriff this fall, she’s had the position foooooooreeeeveeer. But … she’s done good? I think? Back when the immigration issue was the big thing she said they would not assist ICE. She and the other heads of local law enforcement in the area all cosigned a letter saying what happened to George Floyd was awful and the officers involved need to be held accountable. But for day to day stuff or the standards her officers are trained to, I have no idea. I’m not sure how to ask either.
The mayor posted to FB that he signed Obama’s Commit To Action. I guess I can set myself a reminder to follow up in two months to see what action has been taken.
I’m sure we can be doing better locally but compared to the rest of the country I think we’re above average? But I’m also not sure? I unfollowed the local Indivisible group ages ago because I didn’t have the bandwidth and looking at it now it seems to be focused on national-level stuff (other than local protests). So maybe I should set my sights to a higher level but then that seems like using a squirt gun to put out a forest fire? Overall I’m not sure how best to spend my energy next, I guess.
My actual plans for this month are to investigate a range of volunteering options I’ve identified and pursue them – it’s very likely that voting rights and voter suppression will be on that list, so I’ll post about that as I find stuff!
Gave money via one donation that was split between 6 charities via ActBlue based on a plea from Bernie Sanders re: Covid
Same but Re: racial injustice
Contacted a business announcing it was giving 1000 of it’s training books out to businesses upon request related to George Floyd. I contacted them and challenged them to do more - free trainings and/or mediations for racial injustice discussions.
Searching for way to support local black politician who has marched in many recent protests (and past - like women’s march, science march).
I am not out marching or protesting. The Covid risk still concerns me, and Spouse has risk factors. I feel like a hypocrite.
I’m in! I’ve been working on creating my own lists of resources, charities etc. I donated to these relevant charities/ resources:
Change The Record, for indigenous legal stuff
Indigenous literacy foundation, books for kids
Rachel Cargle, great resource on anti-racism
Educating myself:
Welcome to Country, short reference on a range of areas to help me interact with indigenous people in a more supportive and respectful way. It’s also full of references to further reading.
I want to:
Make a plan on how to be a supportive, active citizen in a way that uses me best
Read up on the -isms in my current field (water, academia) and local government
Educate myself on how to write letters, and then write a lot of letters.
Running for re-election. Google failed me - I found his personal FB, campaign FB, his legislative page but no funding page. His campaign FB had a website link - but it was not secure and it had no relevant info (like someone bought the domain and didn’t do anything). So I sent him a message via his official FB.
Thanks. I found that one too, and I was trying to figure out how to determine if it is legitimate. I found another couple of sites - they definitely looked shady to me.
This one looked legit - at least the addresses are in the Navajo area! I don’t think GoFundMe screens the legitimacy of the drive (but do act if it turns out to be a scam).
That’s my understanding as well re: GoFundMe’s policies.
This GoFundMe looks to be linked to the Navajo Nation DOJ, and looks very very real by my internet searching. I mean, it’s always possible that funds don’t get used the way they’re supposed to be or people think they’re supposed to be, but I don’t think it’s a fake.