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7/11/2018 0 Comments

Maya Brady-Ngugi's 5 Steps to Becoming an Activist

Hi Teen Resisters! As a brief interlude between our July and August lists, we're including this little activist guide from one of our favorite activists on Earth, the incomparable Maya Brady-Ngugi (she's also our Teen Resister of the Month). Her approach to activism is holistic, strategic, productive, and often takes inspiration from history. Her 5 step guide (which she says is "kind of like making a cake"), plus extra tips and recommendations, will have you thinking and planning all summer long (at your own pace!).

Maya Brady-Ngugi speaking at April 20th's NYC Says Enough Rally. Photo by Rainer Turim.

5 Step Guide to Becoming an Activist:

LEARN: Maya's first step is to learn. Once you feel passionate about something, the most important thing to do is seek out information. She recommends reading books, watching documentaries, and reading articles from newspapers or academic journals. Expand your horizons, and try looking into issues you don't know much about. Educating yourself in itself is an act of resistance. Once you've informed yourself, take the time to meditate on the issue, think about it, and challenge your ideas about it. Once you feel like you know what you need to know, you can go on to the next step.
GATHER: Activist work is most successful and enjoyable when done with other passionate people. You can meet amazing friends, mentors and colleagues through activist work. Especially if you're new to activism or the issue, it's a good idea to try to seek out existing coalitions or organizations so you can observe how the work is done and become a participant in a community you can learn from. But starting your own group doesn't have to be hard either! Maya recommends "just starting a group with your friends."
PLANNING: This is all about developing a goal. "What do you want to help contribute to?" Maya said. "Your goal doesn't have to be what you think is realistic, or even something really big." Then, map out a way to get to that goal. Try to think of action steps, even ones you may not be able to do (there are always ways to get things done, even from afar!). Then, make a concrete plan about what you might want to do. And let your actions grow with you! One of Maya's favorite quotes is from adrienne maree brown in her book Emergent Strategy: "Small is good. Small is all. The large is a reflection of the small." It's almost always better to start small and find local things to do, and let the actions grow with you. It's easy to think of activist work as only the huge moments you see in national movements, but more successful movements start from the ground up.
ACTION: "The next step is action, which has really plagued me for a very very long time," Maya said, "This is basically putting out your plan... trying to achieve your goal. This is really where activism is, and even though you make a plan, you're supposed to be really fluid and try and solve the problems as they're coming. This is also where you're really working with a group of people." Maya referenced what she learned from a 50th Anniversary Black Panther book. "One of the really prominent woman Black Panthers, Ericka Huggins, said that young people come up to her so often and are like 'How did you do this? How did you guys start this?' Like the Breakfast Program, for example, that fed 15,000 kids across the country, where Black Panthers would wake up at 5 AM and feed kids breakfast every single day- how did they start that? How did they run the clinics? The Black Panthers ran a lot of programs in communities that were completely run by them... they took old ladies to things, they had a school in Oakland, and it's kind of crazy that they were able to do this and have an international network... She kind of just said that you just have to do it. You just have to figure it out and try to come up with a plan, and if that doesn't work you move on to try to find a new plan. You just can't be afraid to try something, because even if you fail, it's still a step in the right direction."
SHARE: This is the step most associate with activism in the age of social media- sharing what you are doing and your thoughts. Maya urges you to work at what you're doing and take baby steps (while sharing, if you want!) before making the reach of your actions your first priority. But that's not to discount the importance of sharing! Grassroots movements grow into tall trees when aided by large groups of passionate people.

"Those are some principles that I find really helpful to activism. The Learn, Gather, Plan, Act and Share... are the bare bones, and activism gets a lot more complicated than that, but those are the things that I have learned," Maya said.

Maya's Recommendations:

Top Activist Books:

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown is "life changing," according to Maya. "The author takes things that happen in nature, almost like laws or practices she knows happen in nature, like ants, for example, or the way that ferns grow, and then she's like, 'because nature operates this way, we as people should organize this way,'" Maya explained. She said the book is "super helpful" for thinking about activism.
A Taste of Power: A Black Woman's Story by Elaine Brown
The Black Panthers: Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution by Bryan Shih
Hope and History by Vincent Harding
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis

Favorite Documentary: Eyes on the Prize

Maya's Teen Resister of the Month Bio:
Meet our July Teen Resister of the Month, the amazing Maya Brady-Ngugi.
Maya is 18 and an experienced and passionate activist based in NYC, but is moving to Atlanta for college later this summer. She has been working in activism for years. She’s planned teach-ins at her high school in 2015, 2016 and 2017, and planned Black History Month events in ’17 and ’18. She’s run an academic and social mentorship program that connects high school students with struggling elementary school students. On the protest front, Maya has planned walkouts and rallies for Black Lives Matter, following Trump’s election, and for the March 14th ENOUGH Walkout. She also was a co-organizer of the April 20th NYC Says Enough rally in Washington Square Park, and currently serves as the NYCSE Head of Community Outreach. Maya also worked on a Dakota Access Pipeline divestment plan and raised money for protesters there. On top of that, she is on the Sexual Health Education Committee for the mayor’s office in New York City. If her credits weren’t enough, people who’ve worked with Maya know that she is constantly thinking and learning about activist theory, and that she tangibly applies the wisdom she has learned and thought of to the work she does.
Check back for her forthcoming TR list on solutions to police brutality.

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7/6/2018 0 Comments

Protect and Preserve: June 18th-July 6th

Hey Teen Resisters!
A lot has happened in the past few weeks! We've decided to focus on two main, longer topics for this list--updates on family separation and the possible dissolution of ICE, as well as a breakdown of everything that is currently happening with the Supreme Court.

Recently, however, a lot has happened with primaries for the midterm elections. Specifically, the victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 14th House District in the New York Democratic primaries was incredibly telling of the direction that the Democratic party seems to be going in. Ocasio-Cortez, a former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, beat incumbent Joseph Crowley by about 15 percentage points. Read more about Ocasio-Cortez’s victory here, and get an overview of what has happened and what is coming up in terms of the midterm primaries as a whole here.

We are also honored to have the chance to feature the June 2018 Teen Resister of the Month, Gaia Gamboa! Gaia is a member of NYC Says Enough and an immigrant herself. The recent detainment and separation of thousands of children at the U.S. border is an issue that she has a personal connection with--in the near future, Gaia and her family hope to foster a child that otherwise would be detained. She also marched with Gays Against Guns at the Pride parade, as one of the 104 'Humans in White' which commemorates those who lost their lives to gun violence, specially the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting. Gaia lives in Brooklyn, and in her free time loves swimming and reading quality books.

Educate, involve yourselves, and resist!
peace&power,
TR

WHAT WENT DOWN

Family Separation, Immigration, and ICE
Perhaps the most pressing issue of right now is family separation at the border. We’ve all seen the photos of the babies crying as they are torn from their mother’s arms, heard the testimonies from parents not knowing where their children are, and many of us marched at one of the hundreds of rallies across the country. But what exactly is the current situation on immigration? Here, we break it down:

Illegal immigration has always been an issue. The Obama administration had a policy that, instead of separating families to prosecute parents, let both the parents and the children go free until their hearing. Changes began in April 2017 when Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced his plan to further enforce immigration laws, a plan which later manifested in his Zero Tolerance Policy. This policy said that all adults, regardless of whether or not they had children with them, would be prosecuted. Family separation was never explicit, but it was implied in the policy.
On June 8th, a Reuters report revealed that 1,800 families had been separated. A major outcry arose from citizens, celebrities, and immigrants across the country, accompanied by the spread of photos, videos, and testimonies.
- On June 20th, Trump signed an executive order ending this practice of family separation, saying that the government would detain migrant families together.
- On June 26th, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the Trump administration to return immigrant children younger than five to their parents within two weeks., and children five and older to be reunited within 30 days. He also ordered the government to provide communications between detained caregivers and their children and not to deport adults without their kids.

But the reunification process is very complicated and will not be an easy fix:

Officials have been unwilling to say whether they have collected the information necessary to reunite families.
The Administration for Children and Families, the division of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) responsible for the children, stated that there are 11,869 minors in their care, but that figure is constantly changing––the US has already deported an unknown number of these children’s parents, and many of these children came unaccompanied.
Parents also must be extensively vetted to ensure they are not human traffickers pretending to be parents, which requires days and lots of paperwork.
The Trump administration is releasing its plan for putting families back together, but it is missing key details.
The children will keep waiting in custody until their parents’ deportation proceedings are completed.
The DHS has reported that 522 children have been reunited since the policy began, which leaves thousands unaccounted for.
The government is building more organized databases to keep track of whereabouts, which brings up concerns that the current process is missing the information to reunite many families that are currently separated. In some cases, it can be impossible to locate a single child.

After all this, will Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) be abolished? The idea of ending ICE has become very popular among activists, but politicians’ views are mixed. Many Democrats do indeed support the abolishment, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (see __!), New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, but key leaders such as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, California Senator Kamala Harris, and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker support reforming the agency instead.

As for Republicans, Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have tried to argue that support for ending the agency equates to support for open borders, though Customs and Border Protection is tasked with monitoring the border, not ICE. This distinction is part of why many support eliminating the department.

What can you do?

Stay informed: for New Yorkers, text NYIC to 864237 for updates on ICE.
READ this R29 article detailing things to do.

Trusty Resist Bot: Text RESIST to 50409 for easy access.
Sign this petition and this one to stop family separation and speed up reunifications.
Call your senators and representatives!
- Script: Do not trade family separation for unlimited family detention and lack of due process. Demand that President Trump, DHS Secretary Nielsen, and Attorney General Sessions end all family separation and detention through social media, letters, appropriations, and in Congressional hearings. In addition, support efforts to defund family separation in appropriations and decrease funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices within the Department of Justice.
- Urge your Member of Congress to cosponsor the following legislation:
  - S. 3036 – Keep Families Together Act (see past list [link to past list])
  - R. 2572 – Protect Family Values at the Border Act
  - R. 5950/S.2937 – the HELP Separated Children Act
  - R. 2043/S. 2468 – Fair Day in Court for Kids Act of 2018
  - H.R._ The Central America Family Protection and Reunification Act
Donate to the ACLU to end family separation.
Donate to individual GoFundMe campaigns to reunite families and learn about more ways to end family separation here.

Supreme Court-- Kennedy's Resignation, Muslim ban, and more

The Supreme Court recently ruled to uphold Trump’s Muslim ban. “Taking all the relevant evidence together,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was driven primarily by anti-Muslim animus, rather than the Government’s asserted national-security justifications.” The ban itself “indefinitely suspends the issuance of immigrant and nonimmigrant visas to applicants from the Muslim-majority countries Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria and Yemen — plus North Korea and Venezuela.” Throughout his campaign, Trump thrived creating fear and bigotry. Assaults against Muslims in 2018 have surpassed levels seen in the past, and with this ban those numbers only stand to increase.

More worrying news came out of the Supreme Court recently in the resignation of swing vote Justice Anthony Kennedy. On Wednesday, June 27th, the justice announced that he would retire, giving President Trump the chance to nominate a new, most likely conservative, justice to fill the bench. Justice Kennedy, 81, has acted as a swing vote for nearly three decades. He showed liberal views on gay rights, the death penalty, and abortion, and conservative views on voting rights, gun control, and campaign spending. Filling his vacancy with a conservative would not only lead all future cases in a conservative direction but also endanger many landmark Supreme Court precedents where Justice Kennedy voted on the liberal side.

Roe v. Wade specifically was the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, protected under the Fourteenth Amendment right to privacy. If it were overturned, regulation of abortion would revert to state legislatures. Four states would immediately ban abortions when the Supreme Court makes their decision; Mississippi, Louisiana, North Dakota, and South Dakota have “trigger laws” in place. Ten other states still have pre-Roe abortion bans that were never repealed. Trump is currently meeting with candidates, and said he would announce his nominee early next week.

What you can do:

FIGHT THE BIGOTRY! Islamophobia is extremely prevalent in our society, and the new implementation of the Muslim travel ban will exacerbate it more than ever. Read about some ways to fight it here.
Sign this petition, to be delivered to the House of Representatives, regarding the unconstitutional nature of the Muslim ban.
Call your senator!!
- In the event they oppose the Muslim ban, here is a sample script to tell them how to stop it.
- Trump has the power to present a Supreme Court Nominee, but the Senate has the power to block him, provided 51 people vote against the nominee. When the time comes, call your senators and tell them to oppose the nominee!

Inform yourself:

These lawsuits opposing the Muslim ban were put forward by the ACLU.
This article details the process by which extremist nominees can be stopped.
Timeline of the Muslim ban.
Trump’s shortlist of possible Supreme Court nominees.

And, finally, the puppy video.

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