Where I've been finding the boost I need
in case you're needing one, too.
A quick thanks to everyone who joined our book talk on Anand Giridharadas’s book The Persuaders. I was grateful for community wisdom. If you signed up, I’ll send you the slides from my summary at the beginning and the resource Giridharadas created on How to Be a Persuader. As soon as I finish my last final of the semester, I promise!
Have you heard about these Mass Calls that hundreds of progressive organizations are co-sponsoring, led by the Working Families Party? They’ve been happening all year, but the one right after the election nearly broke the internet with MILLIONS of people joining across multiple platforms. I was one of them. (You can watch it here if you want.) It was really good for me because I heard from leaders of organizations I don’t really love, and they were clear about where we all have a shared vision for the future. I needed that reminder, because we’re going to need each other in the years to come. And it closed with powerful words and wisdom from leaders of the Working Families Party casting a vision I could get excited about, instead of only talking about the horrors that are very possibly ahead of us.
I’m often political but rarely partisan in this newsletter, but since this is a message about a small third party, I feel okay mentioning the content below once and then letting go of it for the foreseeable future.
I don’t know if you have this experience, but for the past 8…or 12…or maybe 24 years, I’ve heard a lot of friends complaining about how we only have two viable choices in Presidential elections, and those choices are growing closer and closer together.
And every four years, I used to dutifully point out the differences between the two parties, and all the people who would be hurt by horrible policies and court appointments if one party was elected over another. Which is true. But the drifting of both parties to the right—or towards corporate interests—is also true.
So about eight years ago, I started saying “you know, instead of complaining right before the election, why don’t you start getting involved with a third party the day AFTER the election so you can build local power?” And if they didn’t know where to start, I’d mention that the Working Families Party is invested in workers, in people of color, in having air we can breathe, in not spending our money blowing up other countries and sacrificing our troops but instead to invest it in basic justice and equality.
Which isn’t to say I got super involved in it myself. Until this election. I didn’t even join as a member until last night. But I had been admiring them at a distance for years and noticing how they supported local candidates I cared about. And their instagram content had been giving me hope all year, not about this election but about the movement we could build together if we got to the root of what matters to the vast majority of us in this country. Plus they have a smart and distinctive strategy: if there are candidates affiliated with another party who align with their values (like AOC, for example), they can run with that party but still claim WFP affiliation, while the WFP builds power. It takes time to build power and relevance, and it doesn’t happen when we only pay attention every four years for a few months.
But whether you’re very content with your current political options or not, here are a few resources you might enjoy as a source of encouragement that I picked up at the mass call they co-sponsored last night with SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) and BLM:
Here’s a link to all of the recordings of mass calls so far; they talk about Project 2025 and organizing and building power in the most recent calls, and they’re practical and informative and also inspiring (especially with the groundedness of Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson at the beginning and Maurice Mitchell at the end of every call).
In yesterday’s call on understanding power, the facilitators shared an article by Civil Rights leader Bayard Rustin about building a broader coalition to effect change for all Americans. He wrote it in 1965, and it also still resonates.
WFP partnered with Indivisible, MoveOn and many other organizations to create a resource for us to find each other in our local communities. It’s called We Are Worth Fighting For, and this link will take you to a toolkit to host your own gathering as well as a list of gatherings happening around the country so you can connect with an existing group if one already exists. (I particularly love the section of the toolkit labeled “we all have a role,” with a helpful graph on our work over the next four years to (a) defend people, (b) disrupt and disobey, (c) defend civic institutions, and (d) build alternatives.)
I hope you are taking time to take care of yourself, to connect with people you love, to work on a safety plan if you are at likely risk, and to be helping people with a safety plan if you are in a position to do so.
A lot of pundits are talking about how in November of 2016 there was a flurry of activity on the left, and the lack of that same activity is a sign of fatigue. But a friend of mine took me to the musical Hamilton last week, and I find myself thinking that we are actually embodying that line by Lin Manuel Miranda: “[we]’re not lying still; [we are] lying in wait.”
I’m excited to defend, disrupt, and dream a better world with you in the new year.
with love and gratitude,
Sandhya
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
PS—the other day a friend was telling me about how she was teaching younger family members her secret recipes. I asked if she had read that poem about a grandmother wanting to teach her granddaughter to make, tamales, maybe? And her granddaughter refuses to learn because they both know that this passing on indicates the grandmother will one day be gone, and she does not want to acknowledge that possibility.
Well, I was looking for a poem by the late great poet Nikki Giovanni to share with you as additional inspiration, and while I was poking around her poems on The Poetry Foundation website, I found the poem.
It was biscuits, not tamales. And it was Giovanni. Because of course it was. What brilliance and insight that tears your heart open a tiny bit.
Legacies
her grandmother called her from the playground
“yes, ma’am”
“i want chu to learn how to make rolls” said the old
woman proudly
but the little girl didn’t want
to learn how because she knew
even if she couldn’t say it that
that would mean when the old one died she would be less
dependent on her spirit so
she said
“i don’t want to know how to make no rolls”
with her lips poked out
and the old woman wiped her hands on
her apron saying “lord
these children”
and neither of them ever
said what they meant
and i guess nobody ever does