Get ready to push
Real politics is constant activism.
You are entitled to your feelings about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. After all, no politician is perfect and these two most definitely are not.
But they are moveable. The Biden/Harris platform is as far left as any democratic ticket in history; not because they are the most progressive candidates, but because activists have been pushing them non-stop towards the progressive policies that can protect our people and planet.
Perhaps the gift they are giving us, is to unhook ourselves from the myth of the political hero and reclaim our role and responsibility as citizens. They work for us. It is our job to push them on policies of care like Medicare for All and a Green New Deal. It is our job to fight voter suppression and demand one voice, one vote. It is our job to get them elected by organizing our people. And it is our job to hold them accountable for the duration of their term.
This is not one and done politics. Real politics is constant activism. It is an everyday practice of showing up for the wellbeing of the whole. Only together do we have power.
Let’s do this. #VOTE
Kerri (she/her)
Art by @favianna1
Noam Chomsky wants you to vote for Joe Biden and then haunt his dreams. Real politics is constant activism and we’ve got our work cut out for us. [click to tweet]
Representation isn’t everything, but it’s also not nothing. Alicia Garza on what it’s going to take to make history and keep going. [click to tweet]
WAP is showing us just how threatened men are by female sexuality. And we are neither waiting for them to validate our sexuality, nor playing by their rules. Just like Cardi and Megan. [click to tweet]
When there is so much real violence against women, it’s a sad waste of time to focus on imaginary maybe presumably it-could-theoretically-happen violence. Rebecca Solnit on transphobia and the biggest threat to ALL self-identifying women: patriarchy. [click to tweet]
Electoral strategy is placing human beings we can hold accountable into representative office. adrienne maree brown on the strategic next move (vote on November 3rd) and finding your political home. [click to tweet]
Aaaannnnnddd….we’re off. With 82 days until the election, we’ve got our work cut out for us. It’s not enough to simply vote for our candidate, we need to ensure everyone has access to the vote, we need to protect the vote and we need to organize everyone to turn out the vote. Here’s where you can get started:
FIGHT VOTER SUPPRESSION: Vote suppression has a long and ugly history in the U.S., and over the last two decades, it has resurfaced with a vengeance. Here’s what you need to know.
CALL FOR POLL WORKERS: America is facing a RECORD shortage of poll workers. Protect the vote in your community by volunteering to be a poll worker.
GET ORGANIZED: Voting is collective care. Join us TOMORROW at 4pm PST for an organizing meet up to get us ready and resourced for the election (Plus, a sneak peak at the upcoming CTZN Summit!). Register HERE.
Kamala Harris wasn’t the VP candidate for more than an hour before she was called “nasty” by the current occupant in the White House. Things are about to get hot in this contest, but the solution is not respectability politics. Respectability politics (aka “civility politics” and “polite politics”) is how people in power try to control the debate. And it almost always emerges when those people feel most threatened by the discourse. But no amount of niceness is going to move the needle on oppression. Calls for civility are more like calls for assimilation into dominant culture. They say “if you talk like us, dress like us, act like us, and follow the rules, we will treat you with respect”. It also puts the burden on those who are most marginalized to adjust to dominant culture, implying that it’s their fault if they don’t. This is also not an endorsement of treating people inhumanely. But righteous indignation is what this moment is demanding of us. And if we can channel that into movement power, we “cam” win.
Join us TOMORROW at 4PST for an organizing meet up to get vote ready.
Boundaries are a love language. They keep us accountable to our truth AND express to the people we love what we need. Saying no is saying YES to the things that are most important to us. And the people who truly love us will understand that. #Boundaries
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