Tag Archives: hope

Thanksgiving 2019: Still Finding Hope

the first detailed photograph of a black hole

Laurie and Debbie say:

Hope can feel hard to come by in these times, is why we think it’s so important to name and celebrate people and things we’re thankful for:

The U.S. impeachment proceedings against Donald J. Trump are in full swing, and the evidence for the narrow case the Democrats are mounting is very hard to refute (which is why the Republicans are doing everything they can to distract from the case and raise red herrings). Polls vary, but it does seem clear that more Americans support impeachment and removal than oppose it. Many other cases and lawsuits against the current presidency are in various stages, including the three emoluments lawsuits, all of which have been granted standing and are moving forward.

In other U.S. national politics issues:

The 2020 census is proceeding without a citizenship question. The controversy around this frightened many Latinx and other immigrants and will have somewhat of a chilling effect on voting, but Latin voting rights organizations are doing terrific work countering that issue.

The practice of “deplatforming” right-wing voices is having a real effect. Both Milo Yiannopoulos and Alex Jones have more or less disappeared from the scene since they were removed from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in 2018. This year, after multiple mass-shooting “manifestos” were posted on the site, hate site 8chan was deplatformed and is still looking for a home.

In the realm of science, we have our first detailed photograph of a black hole (above), from the Event Horizon Telescope’s global network of radio dishes!

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved not one but two new drugs to treat sickle cell anemia, an extremely painful and often fatal condition largely found in people of African descent. (The rapper Prodigy died of sickle cell anemia in 2017.) These drugs are outrageously expensive; however, many drugs drop in price a year or two after approval, and some insurance companies will approve them now.

Like U.S. and U.K. politics, the global climate situation inspires a lot of hopelessness. So we’re thankful for Greta Thunberg and the Sunrise Movement, young people who care enough about the world they want to live in to mount an implacable assault on the powers-that-be. And knowing that the European Investment Bank is divesting quickly from fossil fuel investments helps too.

We’re thankful for Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the country’s Parliament, who knew how a state should react to a devastating mass shooting: change the laws quickly.

We appreciate the U.S. District Court ruling acquitting Scott Warren of “illegally harboring refugees” when in fact he was providing humanitarian aid to people in need.

One of the ways we survive in these times is through the work of investigative journalists — an imperiled profession. In that context, we want to name Julie K. Brown, who (mostly in 2018) dropped the hammer on Jeffrey Epstein, leading to his imprisonment.

Our home state of California has led the way in a number of important things to be thankful for:

  • The nation’s strongest law limiting police use of force: Officers may shoot only when lives are in immediate danger, not when they are “afraid for their lives.” The ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project is also doing great work in the area of police violence. And Laurie’s home city just elected Chesa Boudin, a superb progressive district attorney.
  • A law permitting (finally!) student athletes to make money from use of their names and images. This law, with similar ones passed by a few other states, has caused the NCAA to finally back down from it’s “we’re rich; you can’t make a dime” historic position, though details still have to be worked out.
  • Along with New York and several cities, a law protecting people whose hairstyles might otherwise be excuses to keep them from jobs and schooling. Of course, this has mostly been used against Black people, so this is an anti-racist trend.
  • A law making a roadmap for local public banks in the state. (Debbie was an organizer on this one.)

We want to mention our personal thanks for the work of Stacey Abrams, magnificent crusader for voting and human rights, and for the work of Ibram X. Kendi, a writer who is  reframing the conversation about racism. There are thousands more people whose work deserves thanks: this list from Bitch Magazine names 50 of them (only a couple of whom we named above). One person we found in the Bitch 50 list is Rebecca Alexander, whose AllGo app helps fat people find the places where the chairs and other furniture will work for them — a much-needed service.

We are grateful to every single person who is engaging in resistance here or in their own country: people doing the amazing work that needs to be done: all the thousands upon thousands of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving 2018: Hope Is Staying Alive

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Laurie and Debbie say:

For the first ten years of this blog, we wrote a Thanksgiving post, listing good things that had happened in the year since the previous Thanksgiving. (We know the shameful history of Thanksgiving very well; we also like taking stock of good things.)

In 2016, less than three weeks out from Trump’s election, we couldn’t bring ourselves to write that post. Instead, we wrote about how we were feeling, and how we were redirecting the blog in resistance. In 2017, we wrote about some of the myriad of places where we saw hopeful possibility. We also said about 2017, “the catalogue of atrocities, cruelties, threats, and stupidities of the current White House and Congress is amazingly long.” Needless to say, that is still true.

But …

One of our examples was Colin Kaepernick and #takeaknee . That movement has, in some ways, gone quiet, suppressed by team owners, but it is not dead. Since our last Thanksgiving blog, Kaepernick has been named an Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience, and has won the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award given by Sports Illustrated. (Oh, and something from Harvard University, too). Far more important, Kaepernick has changed the national conversation in a way that will continue to reverberate for some time; almost no one looks at a line of ball players singing the National Anthem the same way they used to. Sure, some of the conversation is negative, even very negative, but a lot of it is positive, and passionate. And it’s spreading, including to South Africa,

We also talked about Reverend William Barber II and his moral movement. In 2018, Barber won a Macarthur “Genius Grant” — and got arrested the same day it was announced, supporting workers demanding union rights in Chicago. His movement also put a great deal of effort into Get Out the Vote work in North Carolina earlier this month.

Then there’s #metoo, the earthquake that just keeps going. A year ago we said “No one knows how it will shake out” and that is still true. However, we do know that it hasn’t stopped shaking the world, and shows no sign of stopping. Yes, it’s had failures, including the very high-profile and disheartening failure of the U.S Senate to believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. It has also had hundreds, if not thousands, of successes and — like #takeaknee — it has changed the conversation, everywhere. We find it especially encouraging that, while women of color and women in minimum wage jobs are still at greater risk, that conversation is also happening everywhere, sometimes with excellent results.

No one wanted this year to bring us the Parkland students’ movement for school safety and gun-ownership restrictions, including #boycottnra, but that intrepid, tactically brilliant group has made extraordinary progress, and gained the visibility they deserve.

The midterm elections are getting some mainstream press as “mixed results,” or “tepid Democratic victory,” but the truth is that they were not only a blue wave, they were a black and brown and female wave, and they represent an entirely new force in mainstream American politics.  Here’s one overview article, and a few high points:

  • The first two Native Americans ever elected to national office (both women);
  • The first two Muslim-American women ever elected to the House of Representatives;
  • Three new black lawmakers, including a mother who became politically active when her son was murdered in a hate crime*;
  • Seven additional Hispanic members of the House of Representatives; and
  • A record number of women in the Senate, including the first Latinx woman senator.

State legislatures and governors show similar gains. The U.S. has its first openly gay male governor. We have literally never seen a Congress or statehouses like this before. Likely results include: 1) stemming the Trump administration tide at least somewhat, including the fact that the House of Representatives can cut off the money; 2) encouraging many more women, people of color, and LGBTQ people to run next time, and to pay attention to state and local government; 3) changing the paradigm, as Barber, Kaepernick, and the Parkland students (among many others) are doing.

It’s important to mention here that some high-profile losses, like Stacey Abrams’ bid for governor of Georgia and Andrew Gillum’s for governor of Florida, are causing progressives in those states to turn up the gain. Abrams has announced Free Fight Georgia, and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Florida is newly able to change itself, because even in a year when the Republicans took the state offices, 60% of Floridians voted to restore voting rights to 1.4 million Florida citizens who have served their terms as felons in prison, and are now back on the street. Many other important progressive state ballot initiatives passed, including one that will require a unanimous jury of folks in Louisiana to convict on a felony. (Oregon is now the only state where 10 jurors can do that.) Enough power to fix gerrymandering has changed in at least four states–Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, and Colorado.  Just as with the Florida voting rights victory, this opens the way to change the game for the next election.

Look for a 2019 full of Republican atrocities, yes. But also look at the growing ways we have at our fingertips — not only to fight back, but to make end runs around the haters, and create real change.

Happy Thanksgiving, if you celebrate!

Follow Debbie on Twitter. 

*We originally had this incorrect as a death by police violence. Thanks to Lisa for the correction.