What Does Resistance Look Like?

staring into an abyss. And I think that what it is is that I am in this place of just deep disappointment and who I believe that I'm America had the possibility to be. I was never under any illusion that America was this beautiful land of opportunity where streets are paved with gold and everyone has all obstacles removed and you know, can live the life of their choosing. But America on the spectrum of freeness, provided a sense

of freeness for even the most marginalized people, right. And you know, we're under no false ideas about what the experience in America is for black people. And the fact that you can lose your life at a routine traffic stop because of a trigger happy, white, delusional law enforcement officer.

We're under no false ideas about the treatment that trans people receiving this country, where I just saw the other day that a woman who was misgendered by a man in Texas, murdered by him was just given a free pass because the victim was trans. So I'm under no illusions about the work that America has needed to do on itself to actually live up to its ideals. But the disappointment comes when we experience an absolute reversal of fortune of progress, and that's the moment that we're in now.

I think that it's really important for us to understand that when folks say, oh, we've seen worse before, Oh we'll get through it, the fact is that sure there have been worse moments, but understand that everybody did not make it through. We're still discovering in this country mass graves of enslaved black people or free black people who

were killed by white mobs. We're still discovering the Native American children who were stolen, kidnapped from their families, their tribes, sent into sexually abused educational environments, and were also killed. And we're still discovering those graves. America in so many ways is in fact a cemetery. And so while we can look and say that there have been darker times, you also have to understand that everybody didn't make it to the other side, that there were countless lives that

were lost. And so I think that where I find myself when I get into moments of despair and grief is knowing that we're all not going to make it through Trump's regime, that millions of lives will be lost, millions of people will be traumatized, will lose their homes, their lives, their livelihood in this new regime that centers whiteness, centers patriarchy at the expense of everything else. And so what I feel is important in this moment for us to remember and not just to acquiesce, is that we

can grieve. We can have moments and days of deep sadness. We just can't stay there. You know. This is why I talk about community being so important and people needing to find the that they can lean on so that we're all not down at the same time that when you're down, there are other people that will be there to comfort you and to show you the light once again. And then when they are down, you can be the one that is the lantern that shows them the light.

Because a part of where we are is also recognizing that we cannot just acquiesce. And I know, and I'm speaking to myself as much as I'm speaking to all of you, that we can't just resign ourselves to what will be, That we still have agency, we still have a story to write. You know, I was reading this piece at Talking Points Memo and I posted it on my YouTube page on Friday, and the title reads, the

most pernicious anticipatory obedience hides in plain sight. And you know what was written here, and what I want to say to all of you is that it is fair to be overwhelmed, but we cannot just be obedient. This is a moment for good trouble. As John Lewis once said, here's what he writes in this piece. During harrowing times, some people become overwhelmed and even lose hope. It's not

a one way progress. Almost everyone has their moments, but there's a particular kind of militant dumerism afoot at the moment. Any discussions of next steps in the battle against trump Ism or the preservation of civic democracy, any suggestions or strategies are met with a chorus of don't you get it, don't you get how it worked under Hitler and Stalin, or don't you know? Rules don't matter to Donald Trump? And this is the point, right is to have us

believe that we have nothing left to do. They go on to say, in a sense, it's a dialogue genetically related to what I called competitive hyperbole two days ago. Strategies for the future, or even the assumption that there will be a future, get shouted down as a hopeless naivete and at least within the stream of conversation, which I'm certainly not saying is dominant, but it is there. It leads to the same escalating declarations of dystopia and totalism.

Is it possible that Donald Trump could push the American public into dictatorship or, more plausibly, the kind of soft autocracy or broken democracy we know today in places like Russia or Hungary or Turkey? Sure? Is it likely? I don't know any way of putting odds to such a thing, But what I know is that it's not easy. There's Congress and the courts, and even when they're compliant, the process is still difficult, time consuming, and hard to pull off.

There's also the double level government of federalism, in which a great deal of the machinery of government remains in other hands. That's more difficulty and time consuming obstacles, and it's the work of an opposition to make it as hard and time consuming as possible, to make the consequences as visible as possible. I really appreciated this piece in Talking Points memo, and like I said, I've posted it, but you do need a subscription to read the entire thing.

But I pulled out those two pieces from it because I think that it's important. We cannot just make this easy for Donald Trump and his clown cabinet to instill the type of militant power that they want to hold over all of us. Now, to me, the resistance does not look like pussy hats and women's marches and the like, and then you go home and you feel really good about the march that you did, but you actually do

nothing to follow up with that. It does look like providing resources if you have them, to abortion clinics, to reproductive justice spaces, to transgender equity spaces, to organizations and nonprofits that are working in this really dangerous time. To protect the most marginalized. It looks like sharing articles and resources that direct people towards independent media so that they can cut the cord from cable news, which has been complicit. Right,

it looks like figuring out what resistance looks like. And if for you, that looks like holding on to your joy, going dancing, gardening, doing what brings your soul peace, If your resistance looks like that, then that is resistance. Because the goal that they have for all of us is

to be downtrodden, hopeless, depressed, angsty, angry, sad, demoralized. We're malleable if we do the work of beating ourselves down and then by the time that they approach us, we're already putting our hands out to put the cuffs on. You have to think, in this moment, what does my resistance look like? How do I want to show up in this moment? And if in fact our days are numbered,

how do I want to be remembered. I remember being young and learning about the civil rights era and always wondering who would I have been right As the bus boycotts were happening, as segregation was raging, as police were beating and brutalizing and killing black people, and as they were fighting back, you know, non violently and sometimes exercising their Second Amendment right as the Black Panthers did. Who

would I be? And now I know? I'm the storyteller, the narrator, the person that is offering up their analysis and clear vision of where we are and where I would love to see us be. I'm the person that is producing political content for those that are willing and want to know the truth, because story, narrative, truth is how we battle against the lies, the grift, and the deceit. The people that are being placed in positions of power

in our government are criminals. They're liars, their abusers, they're repugnant, they're deplorable, and so we do not need to consume their bullshit. We need to fortify ourselves and find the avenues of light, of hope, and of truth that will keep us afloat during the tsunami. I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you like, oh, you know, it won't be as bad, it'll be like twenty sixteen. No, it's going to be worse than people could ever possibly imagine.

It's why I went horse for the entire election. Cycle trying to get people to see what was at stake, and seven percent of Democrats decided to stay home. Portions of Democrats decided to throw their vote to Jill Stein, but the majority of white people that are totally fine with racism and misogyny came out in droves. So sure as the numbers are tallied in we realize that the margins were slim, which means to me, we could have won,

but something went awry. Some people were not reached, or some just thought that, you know, oh, it's all bluster, but we'll make it through. And now folks are recognizing to some extent, but it'll get worse. The buyer's remorse that they have Oh I didn't realize. I thought everybody was doing their own fucking research. So what we have to continue to do is to fortify ourselves, build real

life community in real life and online. That's not about creating a bubble, It's about creating a net and network of safety. I also incur people if you have the ability to think about genuinely, if things become untenable in the United States, what your exit strategy is. Knowing that not everybody is going to be able to leave but those people that can should start thinking about what it looks like and preparing so that you are not caught

off guard but instead ready to go. We need to be working in a both and mindset, both figuring out what our resistance looks like in these uncharted times and uncharted waters, and what an exit strategy looks like, because, as I say, all of us will not make it the same way that all of us did not make it through the global health pandemic. A million Americans lost their lives, the same way that all that came through

the Middle Passage did not make it. Yes, of course there are a darker time times that we have seen in our history, but we have to be very real about the moment that we're in and recognize if this is it, what do we leave behind for folks to know, to remember and to pick up the baton where we leave it. So my message is we have to resist.

And I'm saying that to you as much as I say to myself, because There'll be some days that I turn on this microphone and I've had it, I'm exhausted, I've got nothing left to give, And then I'll go through the comments sections and I'll see on Blue Sky and in on Instagram, people sending messages of encouragement that refuel me and give me the strength to turn on the mic and do the work once more. But it

is all of our jobs. There's not enough to just cut off family members, particularly those of you that are white who are like, oh my sister's a Trump, Are my dad's a Trump? Or and this amon and that one, and just cut them out because again they're not listening to me. But maybe if over these holidays that are approaching, you actually have conversations and ask them why why did you vote for him? What does it signify to you? What are you hoping is the result? And listen, we

need to get back to a place of conversation. It doesn't mean that we are going to agree, and particularly when the decisions that other people make determine whether or not people are treated with dignity and respect and have the opportunity to access the American dream. No, that's not up for debate. But I know that Donald Trump is coming into office hoping to further divide this country furthers so resentment and hate and anger, and so if we are not trying to be the bridge in our own

families in our own circles. Then he's going to continue to win and trump Ism will never go away. Pick your path, choose who you're going to be in this moment, and do it. Because if we band together, we build community, we build safety, we just may have a chance to make it through. That is it for me today. Dear friends, on woke ath as always power to the people and to all the people. Power. Get woke and stay woke as fuck.