stay with us, don't let them change you
there is a story going around about a Vietnam war protester who stood outside the white house every day with a lit candle. upon being asked if he thought his presence would change things, he replied that his protest was so that allowing what was happening and doing nothing wouldn't change him.
we are to believe the death-making machine of western capital-imperialism is natural. that its continuous and ongoing catastrophes, genocides, and torching of the earth—while we carry-on business as usual—is not having monumental consequences on our collective psyche
— josh! (@queersocialism) November 10, 2023
our government and the international white-supremacist, capitalist apparatus are counting on us giving up, on our tiktok-shortened attention spans wearing out, on our opposition to genocide being a trend.
i am clinging to Mariame Kaba's quote "Hope is a discipline" for dear life these days. i believe, because of my commitment to justice and my knowledge of history, that committed, ongoing struggle does change outcomes AND that it is imperative that we not let ourselves be coopted into the complacency that empire requires of its citizens in order to continue to subjugate.
inside/outside strategy is happening, and it works
the current level of popular opposition to apartheid Israel is unprecedented. additionally, folks working in government are publicly speaking out against Israel's actions and the united states' ample support in a way that is unusual in recent times. this is however how most major shifts in american politics have happened. this gives me hope.
Although the protest is often worded in cautious terms, the fact that there is in the literal halls of power a constituency for a cease-fire is one of the few signs of hope. It offers the possibility of an inside/outside strategy that can actually change policy. The outsiders are the people protesting in the streets—and also making their anger vocal in other ways such phone calls or letters to politicians. Although inchoate, this loud unrest will be hard for Biden to ignore, since it mostly comes from within his own party. In 2002, George W. Bush could afford to ignore huge protests since the people in the streets weren’t by and large his voters. Biden doesn’t have that luxury. The inside/outside strategy is in fact how most larger-scale changes in American politics—from the abolition of slavery to women’s suffrage to the building of the welfare state—happened. To get big changes you need to mobilize mass protests while also prodding those members of the elite who realize the status quo is untenable.
Jeet Heer
the work continues and we can tap in however we are most able
i am grateful for the tremendous amount of publicly available information about how we can collectively resist the ongoing genocide and apartheid of Palestine. here's a resource with 9 ways we can continue to fight.
make space for processing in community
i'm here writing to you on a friday night after a long, long week of teaching because i believe that words have power to change things, not just my words, but each of our words. i also find myself desperate to be in community with folks who are similarly heartbroken, who believe things can and must change.
so, i'm offering a free writing workshop for people of all writing abilities and experience to read some poetry from Palestinian poets and create some writing of our own.
i'd love for you to join me. grab your tickets below.
i hope it's useful. if it was, consider forwarding this email to someone who might want to subscribe. i'm offering 50% off yearly subscriptions for the last (my favorite) quarter of the year, just in time for a couple subscription only essays that will be dropping in the next few weeks.
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with hope,
katie wills evans