How We Get Through This

Earlier this year we shared a post on social media-- Instagram, specifically-- in response to the rapid actions of this administration that left us, and many people in our community, feeling insecure and frightened about the future. This post was a series of slides titled “How We Get Through This,” which included the following tips for our collective survival:

1. Love on your People

   Whoever they may be. Don’t let despair have you isolating yourself from the folks who keep you grounded and remind you that you are whole, majestic, and lovable.

2. Set Limits

   On social media and in real life. Resist doom-scrolling, media overconsumption, and trauma porn. Unfortunately, life is full of suffering and keeping you overwhelmed and immobile in changing/challenging it is a tool of the enemy. 

3. Disobey

   When they come knocking on the door, it's “I don’t know anything,” “I’m not sure of anyone’s immigration status,” “I can’t help you.” We don’t support predators. We protect those who are preyed upon. 

4. We Stay Knowing 

   We knew this was coming. The keys of survival have already been identified by our ancestors. Don't get swept up in the white man’s nihilism. What did Grandmama and ‘em do when things got sticky? Do that. 

These survival tips are as relevant now as they were when we first shared that post back in January. As we send out this newsletter, we find ourselves on the brink of an unprecedented failure of our food safety net program. The USDA will not be issuing SNAP benefits on November 1st.

We want to be clear: the excuse that “the well has gone dry” is not a sufficient justification for the unnecessary suffering of millions of American children and their families. This is a political maneuver under a regime that somehow has money for ballrooms and military strikes in the Caribbean—but we digress.

During this time we lean into the teaching of our ancestors who made some way out of no way, of those who survived despite, and engaged community as a mechanism for survival. 

This is our time to revive our communities by wielding the tools of collective care:

Mutual aid, Rent Parties, Bail Funds, Food Pantries.

Please circulate these links through your networks. We will survive this because we have already been given the blueprint.