To the man who calls himself a builder:
Since January, you’ve demolished more than you’ve built, tearing apart families, destroying our environment, and dismantling rights we’ve spent decades securing. But you did manage to build one thing during your first year in office: a coalition of mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, friends, and neighbors who will fight back against you and your hate and cowardice. To. The. Bitter. End. We’re just getting started calling, writing, and mobilizing, and we will continue to demand our right to a safer, healthier, and more equitable world—not only from your administration, but from our future politicians as well.
And this all comes back to the word “we,” because as Mariame Kaba points out in this tweet, “Asking what can *I* do = daunting. Asking what can *we* do = opens possibilities.
Oh, and we’re picking up six-packs of this stuff in bulk.
Your weekly songspiration!
1. Even before the plan to end DACA was officially announced, people were out in full force to support Dreamers:
Community members held a vigil outside Ivanka’s house; immigrants and allies protested in front of the White House; and members of The Fair Immigration Reform Movement and other groups are fasting in front of the Capitol.
In New York, members of Movimiento Cosecha blocked Fifth Avenue while others protested in front of Trump Tower. #SinDACASinMiedo
Students in Colorado and New Mexico walked out of school en masse; a crowd in Kansas City, Missouri poured out in the streets to show their support; and DACA supporters flooded Joni Ernst’s office in Iowa.
United We Dream members snuck into—and took over—Trump’s DC hotel, and Mijente made a Confederate statue of Jeff Sessions—then tore it down.
Microsoft offered to pay their DACA-recipient employees’ legal fees if they risk being deported. (It’s the least they can do after their corporate PAC donated more to Republicans than Democrats in 2016!
Yeah, our thoughts exactly.)
Last but definitely not least, 16 state attorneys general are now suing to protect Dreamers and the Tennessee Attorney General pulled out of a lawsuit against DACA.
Want to help, but aren’t sure where to start? Our reader Nora put together an amazing list of things you can do: call your members of Congress; donate to the groups on the front lines, like Movimiento Cosecha and United We Dream; find a rally at WeAreHereToStay.org; and lift up the voices of Dreamers who are #HereToStay.
2. The 118-mile march from Charlottesville reached D.C. this week, where marchers set up a permanent vigil. We love these highlights from the journey. (Thanks, Nancy!) #Cville2DC
3. Illinois’ governor signed a new law to help transgender and intersex people add their correct gender to their birth certificates—as well as the law banning “gay panic” defenses in court that we reported on a few weeks ago.
4. On Labor Day, fast food workers went on strike and other workers and allies held #Fightfor15 protests in cities across the country to advocate for living wages and union rights. The turnout in Chicago was beyond amazing. Check it out:
And across the pond, McDonald’s workers went on strike for the first time—here’s why.
5. Canada has saved 22 gay men from torture in Chechnya and plans to bring more to safety.
6. After the government cut the advertising budget for the Affordable Care Act by 90%, our reader Rhonda took matters into her own hands. She formed the Indivisible ACA Signup Project, and their ACA advertising reached over 5 million people—and you can help spread the word about enrollment! If they won’t, we must.
7. Yet another federal judge has ruled against elements of the Muslim ban.
8. Starting this week, New York City is offering free lunch to all 1.1 million students in its public schools. #TheBestBackToSchoolDeal
9. The National Cathedral will remove stained glass windows memorializing Confederate generals, and Yale finally renamed Calhoun College, formerly named after a white supremacist, to Hooper College, after Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper, “a boundary-smashing computer pioneer.”
10. Dinosaurs (this will make sense in a second) marched outside the White House to protest proposed budget cuts that could lead to the “extinction” of service programs like AmeriCorps. #LetUsServe
11. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a series of reforms to protect New York City renters, including the creation of the Office of Tenant Advocate.
12. The first lawsuit against the Muslim ban was settled, and the agreement requires that the government must send a list of free immigration lawyers to everyone initially barred from entering the country.
13. We all knew the answer to this about 5 seconds after his tweet went out, but it’s official—there is zero evidence that Trump Tower was ever wiretapped… and Trump is a liar (obvs.)
It’s no surprise that we love the library, and this weekend we’re going to be checking out the work of the incomparable Kate Millett, who died this week at 82.
P.S. “You might have gone through the storm but you don’t have to look like you went through the storm.”
P.P.S. To the #manwhohasitall: #womanup
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