Links of the Whatever – June 01, 2020
Yes, one of those posts.
If you're feeling galvanized by this week's events but still aren't sure what you can do, hopefully there will be something helpful in here.Also just to be clear, I'm not an expert on any of this. But as one of those 'content creators', even just as a hobbyist, I feel morally obligated to share content of actionable resources.
Links: Black Lives Matter
This post has a lot of embedded Instagram posts, so if you're reading it from the email list, head on over to the main site.There is no one single best way to helpParticipation will look different for everyone. You can't do everything. On the other hand, everyone can do something. Figure out what that something means for you.Do your research, consider your context, use your brain, and aim for growth and consistent effort (tbh, this is basically the same thing I say on any other blog post here regardless of topic, as this applies to pretty much anything).On this topic, the following post for provides some initial food for thought: https://www.instagram.com/p/B-X2s8pAR4o/This post has excellent suggestions on how to do things for the long haul. In fact, it's what I ended up basing my own participation plan on. https://www.instagram.com/p/B_VyKyRFdL-/
Do your research
On donations
Before forking over cash, read up (even briefly – do they at least have pages on these things?) on the org's past work, planned future work, financial transparency, and budget allocation. If it's a larger org, consider the rating given to it on Charity Navigator or GiveWell. What kinds of news articles have been published about them? How do they address criticism? Who is on the board? What kinds of experience and background does its leadership team have? Be wary of fake gofundmes and other fundraisers. They're out there.If following an infographic or article with indeterminate date, check for edits and updates from the account the image is from and from the orgs it is promoting. For example, many posts (like the one below) directed people to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund. MFF has closed their donations after receiving millions of dollars over the past few days, and now asks that you consult https://bit.ly/fundthecommunity to get money where they believe it will have a good impact.Consider donating to organizations that haven't had the tides bring them into an international spotlight, particularly ones in your own community that are doing analogous work. https://www.instagram.com/p/CAv6PAyjUKQ/
Education and action
Some resources with concrete ways to get going:75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice by Corinne Shutack (really, most of these can apply to everyone) on MediumHow to Support the Struggle Against Police Brutality by Claire Lampen at The Cut https://www.instagram.com/p/CA04VKDAyjb/
Since I'm talking the talk, what am I doing?
This section isn't to say these are the best actions for you to do, or to brag or even claim that this was the best possible thing that I could do, but to offer some insight into what I'm doing besides sharing Instagram posts.Immediate actionDonated $50 plus fee coverage to Take Back the Block, a Minnesotan organization which focuses on organizing at the local government level towards policies that will move funds from police to preventative measures.For more on their work, see their about page or this recent intro thread on Twitter, which tbh I think does a better job summarizing than the main page: https://twitter.com/reclaimtheblock/status/1266798836707553281Longer termMaking time For things that aren't actively pleasant, I find that if anything's going to happen on my end, I need to actively to-do-list them. I do a weekly review of my spending. As long as I'm keeping up with it, it usually doesn't take that long. While I'm sitting down to do that anyway, I'm tacking on an hour to plan and start things (everything I'd like to do can't and won't be done in one hour a week, but personally I find scheduling time to commit to things more helpful than being vague). I started a google doc for notes and action items e.g. researching local orgs for a particular topic, upcoming local council issues, or listening to a podcast episode or reading things, or doing an action item suggested by one of the above resources.Set up recurring donation to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (which seems to refer to itself mostly as LDF – it's technically a separate organization from the NAACP): I selected to earmark it specifically for work on police brutality and the death penalty. I started with $25 a month. I will be taking more time to learn more about what's around in this area. In particular, I'm looking for a local organization that I can make recurring donations to which doesn't have the name recognition to pull in as many resources (in addition to balancing with existing/future recurring donations for environmental causes and other one-off giving).Keeping up to date with city government My local city council's official website is an inscrutable fractal of links, so I decided the best thing to start with was signing up for my district councilmember's newsletter. For good measure, I signed up for one of the adjacent district's newsletters too. Whenever there's a notable vote or discussion coming up, I will take some time to look into it and decide whether it's something I should contact the rep about.I'm not going to turn the wardrobe round-ups into a local politics and activism round-up. This is, when it comes down to it, still a personal wardrobe curation blog. I would rather spend that time doing more these things instead of writing it up reports here or in an additional blog. Plus, by the time I blur out the details enough that I feel like it's not empowering any potential stalkers, it will be pretty pointless for readers anyway. But I suppose if anyone remembers reading this a few months down the line, feel free to ask about it in comments or messages....Anyway, I hope some of that ends up being useful or encouraging for at least a few people out there. I am not posting as many resources on Instagram as I figured since this was an additional platform I had, it would be more helpful if resources were shared here. It's been too long with too little work, and it'll be interesting to see how much of a boost the Black Lives Matter movement will get from the head things have come to this week.If you have any recs for other allyship and activism resources along these lines that you have found helpful and want to promote, please share in the comments below!
Links: other
I originally structured the post with two normal fashion-y links at the end with the idea that if people had already seen and processed the posts I shared (as these are all pretty viral ones), they wouldn't feel like they wasted a click. I edited it down since I didn't want to take away from the other links, and if I could re-do the first published version, I would have just not included them. But in case you had seen them already and were looking for them again, they were NYT Wirecutter: Sock care tips and Harper's Bazaar: The Best of 1980s Fashion (gallery).