How
We Show Up
Last
Monday night, on Presidents Day, I met with a
group of strangers about how to resist the
president of the United States. We sat in a
circle, surrounded by paintings of garden tools,
which made me think of a country grange meeting,
except our community space — in a gentrified
part of Oakland, California — had an espresso
machine, a rack of zines, and a “cell phone
motel” for locking away digital devices.
This
was my initiation into a neighborhood “pod” of
Bay Resistance, a network of
community, faith, and worker groups mobilizing
to defend racial, economic, climate, and gender
justice in the face of growing authoritarianism.
“I tried to think about what I’d be doing if I
were in Minneapolis, or LA, or Chicago,” said
one of the group organizers. “I didn’t have an
answer.”
She
wasn’t alone. Many in the room expressed similar
feelings of horror, paired with a desire to
help. I shared these sentiments, too. But I also
showed up for a different reason: the power of
simply connecting with strangers around a common
cause.
You
see, long before the US was hurtling toward
fascism, the country was already deeply divided
and disconnected. I’ve been listening to podcasts and reading books on the subject, and I’ve
become convinced that one solution lies in
learning how to meet and see one another and
work together at the local level.
The
good news is this is happening. In response to
growing hate, we’re seeing growing care, and
people in places like Minneapolis are reporting
feeling more connected as a result. “There’s
something really heartwarming about looking a
complete stranger in the eye and saying, ‘I’m
here for you,’” one Minneapolis business owner
told The New York Times.
Toward
the end of our meeting in Oakland, we split into
small groups to explore actions we could take
ourselves, from setting up a farmers market
stall to joining foot patrols around sites where
ICE might invade. New activities and events were
added on the spot — a craft night ahead of the
farmers market, a book club to read Mutual
Aid, an upcoming emergency response training
to prepare ourselves for a climate disaster.
I
didn’t know anything about these people; I
hardly learned their names. But they were my
neighbors, and they were showing up. I wanted to
keep showing up
too. |
