What do we have that they should want? We have a wall to work upon

[sovay]

For the first day of summer proper, I had lobster and ice cream. I mended two out of my three pairs of jeans. I baked a lemon cake for the chorus potluck tomorrow. I bought a tank top on sale. I passed out on a couch for an hour in the evening because I had slept maybe two hours the previous night.

I do not know what to do about the planned mass roundup of immigrant families, obscenely described by ICE as a "family op." [ETA: As of this evening, the roundup has been delayed. May it stay so and may there be no advantage to the White House from the threat of it.] I do not know what to do about children tortured, American concentration camps. I already have a senator whom I call to express support of her unwavering opposition to these monstrous policies (which makes a nice change from my governor whom I call to yell at about everything) and I donate when I can to RAICES and I am feeling trapped by the limitations on my finances and my physical capacities which make it difficult enough already to keep myself alive, but what is the use of being alive if I can do nothing for anyone else? It feels like being cornered into complicity, as if I should be expected to raise my hands and say not I didn't know but so what could I have done? I want to know what to do from where I am, which feels terribly far from any levers of power. Fretting is just thoughts and prayers, secular edition.

Comments

[gwynnega]

Lobster and ice cream sound good.

I feel sick with helplessness about ICE and the concentration camps. I tell myself that making donations and calling Congress are not nothing, but it doesn't feel like much in the face of such evil.

[heron61]

I do not know what to do about children tortured, American concentration camps.

*nods* I know precisely what you mean. In Oregon, we have a governor, two senators, and my local House rep who are all awesome in their dedication to opposing this vileness. I write or call to congratulate them periodically, and I do
Postcards To Voters for out of state activity, but it feels like so little. I remain both sad and horrified that what are becoming death camps (via neglect and deprivation) are not inspiring continuous news broadcasts and the occasional riot. Instead, we get arguments over terminology and apathy.

[rosefox]

The raids have been delayed for two weeks because people like you spoke out, so what you're doing isn't nothing. Two weeks is a gap into which a stick can be wedged by those who are closer to those levers.

Your senator depends on those calls; every one increments the "my constituents tell me to keep doing this" counter, which is hugely, hugely important both for morale among the senator's staff and for press around her actions.

And when you model your values for Fox and your godchild, when you sing and reach the hearts of your listeners, when you write and shift the thinking of your readers, when you smile at a woman in hijab or a Spanish-speaking family sitting across from you on the bus, that's not nothing either. Tikkun olam begins at home.

[lilysea]

and my physical capacities which make it difficult enough already to keep myself alive, but what is the use of being alive if I can do nothing for anyone else?

You have value just being alive, even if that was the only thing that you could manage right now.
Also, you have value as a writer.
Also, you have value as a voter.
Also, you have value as someone who calls their political representatives.

[vass]

I feel the same way, about your government and also mine (which also has concentration camps right now, also with children.)

What I'm trying to do at the moment (subject to my own limits) is reach out to groups with the same goals and ask them for things to do within my capacity, so that my work isn't what I'm doing but what we're doing, in the hope that a little work combined with others' work is better than a little work in isolation (which is still better than thoughts and prayers and fretting.)

[cmcmck]

While what is going on over here is bad enough,nothing touches this hideousness.

[selkie]

Just remember you have a godchild who stands on lunch tables and who knew firmly by the middle of second grade that their family lives or dies by right and legal are not the same thing. Neither of their parents has a body that can be put in the way any longer, but we have tried to model being a real fuckin' nuisance obstruction in other ways.

[thanate]

yes; we can afford a monthly donation to Raices & I just set up another to al Otro Lado since that covers a different geographic region, but it's hard not to feel like I'm buying off my conscience. Even when I know that all my skillsets are more useful here than there.

[a_reasonable_man]

I keep thinking of what the Timothy Gilbert wrote, in a public letter, after Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Gilbert is not well remembered today, but he was an important figure in Boston, where he lived, at No. 2 Beach Street. A devout Baptist, he became wealthy as a piano manufacturer and endowed the Tremont Temple, which still stands. He was also a committed abolitionist. Part of his letter reads as follows:

"My opinion ... may have little weight with those who ... [support this infamous law], but may help sustain the sinking spirit of some poor disconsolate one, who, having fled the land of the oppressors, is anxiously looking to see if there is any one who will give him a cheering look, or a kind reception ....
"Allow me to say to such an one, that if pursued ... and every other door in Boston is shut against him, there is a door that will be open at No. 2 Beach Street, and fear of fines and imprisonment will be ineffectual when the pursuer demands his victim. If [the pursuer] enters ... it will be at his peril. I am opposed to war, and all the spirit of war ... but I should resist the pursuer, and not allow him to enter my dwelling until he was able to tread me under his feet."

[dramaticirony]

Part of my way of coping is too look back and see how hard and difficult and long in coming many victories of past where. And to note how unexpected sudden change often was.

It is not fair to judge yourself more harshly than you would anyone else in the same financial or physical situation. (Though I know how hard it can sometimes be to take this perspective.)

When mystics suggest we should "act but not expect" or "do your work, and step back" I suspect they are trying to help us stay effective when facing challenges like this, rather than simply taking the piss of causality. But, ehh, mystics, who knows?