Dear friends,
I was recently asked how I first got involved in advocacy and activism. What I remembered most vividly is that my own middle class parents, born in the Great Depression, lived with a profound fear of poverty and hunger, which fixed my attention on those problems.
My parents’ concerns manifested in what I referred to as our ‘apocalypse pantry’, in which my father stocked dehydrated and canned foods. It’s possible he was trying to conceal a fear of nuclear war with a fear of hunger, but since the closet was not in the basement, I’m pretty certain he just wanted to prepare in case he got laid off again.
I internalized my parents’ concern and became rather obsessed by the so-called War on Poverty. In college, I learned that the formulas used to calculate the benefits then known as food stamps generally maintained people in a state of privation. This was probably the first issue about which I ever wrote to my congressional representative.
The Biden Administration has approved a permanent increase to SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). Effective on October 1, the monthly benefit will increase by 25% above pre-pandemic levels.
The increased assistance will be available indefinitely to all 42 million SNAP beneficiaries.
Join me in feasting on this juicy, delicious piece of good news today.
Mutual aid efforts have done a lot to keep people fed during the pandemic. If you are looking to get involved — to reduce food waste and increase the quality of food available to folks who need it — look no further than our own KWT Community Fridge, located on E. 2nd Street just north of Fort Hamilton Parkway!
Sign up for a shift to clean and stock the KWT Community Fridge!
I feel about singing much the way I feel about eating and sharing food. Someone who knows me well told me about this singing action to lobby for the For the People Act. Here’s the lyric:
Learn the song! Then, call 1-888-453-3211 and then sing it to your Senator’s voice mail in support of the For the People Act.
Teens Take Charge, an organization started by Bronx teenagers working for educational equity and justice, is taking on the city’s failure to offer a remote schooling option.
I went on at some length yesterday about the urgent need for the DOE to rethink its no-remote plan for September; you can re/read my screed. Or you can simply read and sign TTC’s excellent petition.
Amplify youth leadership by signing the Teens Take Charge petition for a centralized remote school option this fall that includes free broadband, social-emotional support for remote students, access to keyboards and other devices.
If you haven’t been inclined to listen to teenagers, then you should a) reconsider, and b) read Teen Vogue. Now, I recognize that the authors in Teen Vogue are not all teenagers, but they do listen to and write for a youthful audience in a way that will give you hope. And it’s Tuesday, when we like to get up to our necks in good news.
This feature from Teen Vogue on the Abolitionist Library Association (AbLA) is an excellent reminder of the way that police abolitionism has put down some roots. If the last abolition movement is any indication, this movement will take some years to triumph AND there are groups (like ours!) that sprung up after the murder of George Floyd and are committed to the work.
Read Mary Retta’s “Getting Police Out of Libraries.” The article includes a nice mention of my favorite institution — the Brooklyn Public Library.
Check out the Abolitionist Library Association’s amazing resources and consider joining. Librarians, students, and library patrons (all of us!) are welcome.
A new directive from Biden changes the enforcement priorities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Under the previous administration, officers were narrowly directed to investigate immigrants as perpetrators of crime. The new guidance requires agents to consider the welfare of undocumented people, who may have been victims of crime, in order
to help [them] seek justice and facilitate access to immigration benefits.
Until we abolish ICE, a little more humanity is a step in the right direction.
Sunday was the ninth anniversary of the initial application period for DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The program offered temporary protection from deportation to those who came to the US as undocumented children. Although the program has allowed hundreds of thousands to immigrants to continue to live, work, and study in the country they know as their home, it was never a long-term solution.
When the Trump Administration tried to suspend DACA in 2017, the courts blocked the effort, but a recent court ruling prevents the government from approving new applications. It’s time for Congress to pass legislation that creates a pathway to citizenship.
Take this easy one-step action to let your elected representatives know that you support a path to citizenship.
Perhaps the thing I like best about being an activist is that it offers myriad opportunities to feel a part of something larger than oneself. Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are, of course, part of many systems.
Ignoring distant injustices is not merely an indifference to human suffering; it also reflects a failure to understand how environmental damage really works. Polluted air doesn’t park itself over low-wealth communities. Polluted water doesn’t stay put in Black or brown neighborhoods. As Chandra Taylor, [the senior attorney and leader of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Environmental Justice Initiative ,] points out, “Anything that causes a devastating harm to people of color is eventually going to happen to everyone.”
What happened in Memphis this year is an example of how historically powerless people can work together to interrupt a pattern of environmental racism that has been in place for more than a century and a half. It’s also an example of why everyone else should care.
The defeat of the Byhalia pipeline is everyone’s win, just as it will be everyone’s loss if we do not stop the Line 3 tar sands pipeline being built in Minnesota.
Enbridge spilled drilling fluid 28 times at 12 river crossings this summer, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced last week. The news alarmed pipeline opponents — including some lawmakers — who had been demanding information about possible “frac-outs” along the route for weeks.
The largest spill polluted a wetland area near the Mississippi River with more than 6,000 gallons of drilling fluid.
Sign a new petition to stop Line 3!
Donate to the Lakota People’s Law Project Action Center to help secure treaty land and water rights, stop the tar sands pipelines, and defend native voting rights, health, and safety.
Last week, outside the headquarters of National Grid, we sang:
We are the people
We will stop the pipeline
For every human
We are here to win.
I don’t know whom to credit for the chant; it’s been stuck in my head all week AND I like it.
Have a great day!
with love,
L