Hi First name / friend,
Happy Monday! I hope you took actions on Friday or over the weekend to protect democracy, protect marginalized communities, and/or to demand climate justice. Please share when you've taken an action in
the Facebook group (if you use Facebook) - it helps build a sense of community without each other (which many of you have asked for) when we share what we are all doing.
The message below is for our WWHW white subscribers (if you are non-white, feel free to skip down):
It is time to meet the moment; it is time to get uncomfortable. Like complete-awareness-of-your-privilege-to-look-away-and-ignore-harm-done-to-marginalized-communities uncomfortable and then funnel that discomfort into DISRUPTION. People in power are not responding to polite requests to uphold our Constitution or to women wearing knitted pink hats. The fascist, racist, and destructive federal administration and its MAGA cult following are breeding hate and violence. They are undoing regulations that protect the air, water, soil we need to live and seeking to open up federal lands and ocean waters to extract more fossil fuels – fossil fuels that cause increasingly frequent extreme weather events that destroy people's homes, livelihoods, and lives themselves. To stop all of this requires aggressive, coordinated, inconvenient action.
Black women have been speaking on this work and shouldering this work (alone) for too long. You, personally, did not cause this mess - but we (white people) all have a place in this work to fix the injustices happening all around us (and sometimes by us). It is time to actually do what Black women have been saying that we need to do - act. But before we act, we need to decenter ourselves in the work.
With that - we ask you to read
this amazing gift of words from St. Louis activist, Ohun Ashe, on how we, as white women, need to get it together. We ask that you reflect on any harm or complacency you have had in the past. Then use that uncomfortable feeling to get up and do something to fight for our democracy, our planet, and our fellow humans.
If you feel you don't know enough about white privilege and institutionalized racism, please see the posts in the WWHW Group and Instagram sharing lists of books, articles, and content creators to read and follow. If after looking at those, you still have questions - please ask us. We are glad you are here - joining us in the fight for a healthy, safe, ecologically survivable, and free society - for everyone.
