A Viral Post, a Terrifying Report, and the Work We Can No Longer Avoid

Why people are angry, why political will is missing, and how we build power together.

A small group of friends, we have an encrypted chat to share information to keep our community safe. I was doing my morning scan — open the email, open messages, open social media, open the encrypted chat. My friend shared this article from This Week in Worcester. The report says Trump’s DHS is planning to raid churches over the holidays.

What the actual fuck? Did I read that right?

Before I share anything, I try to vet what I’m reading. So, I went back to the weekly with a more critical lens.

Full disclosure, this article doesn’t pass all my criteria for stopping fake news. Sources weren’t named (some asked NOT to be), there was nothing linking back to see where these briefings came from, and another criticism was that this news outlet doesn’t have a history of investigative journalism. Even with these gaps, the fear it tapped into is real — because this pattern is real.

So, my critique is nuanced. We live in a time when “reputable” news sources aren’t talking about what’s happening at the community level (eroding of community and local news has a part to play here). We live in a time where people are routinely ignored. And, here’s the part that stops me in my tracks. That encrypted chat? This morning (as of this writing), a few days after this article was posted, that friend has a close family friend who was kidnapped by ICE. She and her community are in survival mode.

Our communities are under threat, and we need to amplify our voices. My friend and those close to her are utterly exhausted from being terrorized and living in fear. This friend is like family to me. I posted that article because the word had to get out there.

So, I shared it. Everywhere. I posted it on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. The former three platforms averaged a few hundred views. But something wild happened on Instagram. The post went viral. As of this writing, it has over 70k views, thousands of likes, hundreds of comments, and hundreds of new followers. For me, this wasn’t entertainment. This is serious business when my family is being terrorized.

Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable.

~ Aurora Levins Morales

But people chiming in, watching, commenting in thoughtful and engaged ways - this is confirmation that you, that people are paying attention, and you are craving clarity. If you commented something hateful, your comment was deleted. I curate my space for community safety.

As the comments came in, three themes rose to the surface.

• What can we do?

• How hasn’t he been stopped?

• How is this possible in America?

To answer these questions, we need to start with the foundation.

So, let’s do the last part first. This is possible in America because it has always been possible in America. This so-called land of the free is rooted in racism and sexism. Racism, sexism, and classism prop up our world, and we try to make friends with it instead of breaking up with it. Every time we turn a blind eye to injustice, we let justice go. Every time we say something hateful about a group that looks different than us, we perpetuate racism and sexism. Every time we refuse to pay attention to the news or busy ourselves with our “work”, we let this disgusting, festering system continue. This is possible in America because we were built this fucking way.

Let’s do the middle part next. He hasn’t been stopped because there is not enough political will. In my comment replies, I have been saying there is no political will. I’m saying ‘no political will’ because without enough, it might as well be none. There would be political will if we had more organized people. We would have more organized people if we worked on talking to people we care about shared values.

We haven’t done our work.

Which brings me to the first question, “What can we do?” First, we need to recognize there is something to do, and we need to claim responsibility. Second, get clear on what you want. This means understanding our values. Third, we have to talk to people.

Here’s what I mean by political will, and how we build it. I have been trained in the organizing school of thought that power is the ability to act, and power is organized people or organized money. Think about the ultra-wealthy, the billionaires (some now trillionaires). What have they been able to organize because they just wanted to recently? Prevent unions from organizing? Build rocket ships to space? Infiltrate the government with president-appointed agencies, hack IRS servers, and more? They have organized money.

But we, we can have organized people. We have our neighbors, our friends, our church members, and our family. But we don’t just have them because they are there. That’s not organized. Even if you have a shared industry, we cannot assume we are organized and aligned with shared values.

Here’s where people get stuck — they actually get stuck on having the conversation. So, let’s try to break it down. Getting organized begins with a conversation. Before you have the conversation, you must work on getting clear on what you want. The next step to being organized is to figure out what people you want to be with you, who are your organized people? You find them through conversation. So, who do you want to have a conversation with, where you can understand their values and find out if you really have shared values? In one of my videos, I used the example that I value all people having access to safe, stable housing. If you shared that value, and we talked about it, that’s one step toward getting organized.

The fourth step in getting organized is to align with a power-building organization. Leaning into “organized people”, that’s what the power-building organization does. Not only do they secure organized money to work on the values you share, but they also have paid staff to hyper-focus on building the people power. A real power-building organization should have a few key features:

• A 501c3

• A political team and an organizing team

• The organizing team is actively talking to the community and having community members be their primary volunteers

• Offer actions and training for you to complete and do

• Share their strategies and wins over time

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it should point you in the right direction. If the thing you care about is that babies have diapers and all the organization does is give diapers to the babies, then that’s direct service. If the organization teaches you how to get or deal with diapers, that’s self-help and education. If the organization talks to decision makers about making diapers easier to acquire, that’s advocacy. If you wonder why you are spinning your wheels in advocacy, it’s probably because you don’t have enough people power. All these lanes have a purpose, but if you don’t have people behind any of these things, you’re making change a heckuvalot harder. The organizing, the power-building organization, brings the people part connected with the strategy.

We are not trained to think of the people part. And, for some reason, that’s hard. When we think of what we need, we go to immediate needs, and we don’t dig into making systemic change. And to get the systemic change, you need a lot of people to be able to make that change.

So, we have been stuck in these hamster wheels for a very long time. The system, as it exists, wants to continue to exist this way, so there are tools in place to keep us mollified into quiet. We work work work. Then we numb out when we get home. We are tired. And we are literally working ourselves to death.

Now, we need to talk about the hardest part. There is a group that is affected the least: white people.

Neurotypical white men don’t get pulled over because of their skin color or the way they talk. Neurotypical white men get a lot of passes and freebies, but they generally chalk it up to they did good work. But if the tables were turned to a Black person or Brown person, those folks would find themselves pulled over, arrested, and passed over for jobs. Or, shot.

Then, there is white women. White women are adjacent to the “power” white men have and are in a position to protect that power. So, they tend to shy away from putting their bodies on the line to protect other people in deference to their own comfort.

So, I wasn’t surprised when a comment showed up accusing me of not doing anything. Whether I have done a thing or not isn’t the point. The point is white people at large bury their heads in the sand while our Black and Brown brothers and sisters continue to suffer from this racist, sexist world we live in. Whether it’s the white person who doesn’t want to confront his own ingrained racism or someone who measures their own safety as more important than our Brown sisters, whose family is actively being terrorized by ICE right now.

We have a responsibility to each other. We must embrace that our liberations are tied to one another. If we do not understand or fail to accept that fact, we will continue to hamster wheel into despair, and I would rather hamster wheel into hope.

So the question begs, are you mad enough to act?

Did you hop on the socials, and my Instagram post made you mad? Well, GREAT. NOW you have the invitation to DO something.

Here’s where you turn your anger into action. Get clear on your values. Make a list of 20 people you want to have a conversation with. Don’t know how to have that conversation? Come talk to me, and I will walk you through. The most important part is to be centered in listening, not judging, and trying to figure out what that person cares about. Then, find the power-building organization in your area — and sign up to volunteer. Reach out to their organizing director and say, “I want to be involved.” And, the organizing director should put their staff in charge of your region on task to reach out to YOU to have that conversation about YOUR values. The fact remains, being a keyboard warrior won’t save us. We must reach out to our communities.

To keep in the hamster wheel of hope, we have to remember that joy is an intentional strategy. We are allowed to rest, but we are not allowed to give up. Maybe painting rocks is a thing that brings you joy; incorporate that more regularly into your weeks and months. As we do this work, we have to stay in the hamster wheel of hope.

We are living in a threshold moment, as evidenced by the wild views on my IG post. We are ready to be awake and not let these injustices pass us by. So, if you are here because of that viral IG post, welcome. Let’s educate ourselves together. Let us heal together And, let us act together. Because truly, together we are better, and that is how we will build the world we deserve.