how big is this thing anyways?

earlier this week, i had lunch with my friend danya and she made a really insightful comment (rough paraphrase): “part of what’s so weird right now is that we still don’t know how big this problem is. it seems different everyday. it’s weird to know how to act when you’re not sure what you’re responding to.”

i think she was dead on. last week and at the beginning of this week, i was still in mourning and definitely wasn’t ready to act. now i’ve started to see some ways to act, but it’s definitely still not clear to me what’s going to be the most strategic.

every morning it seems like there’s some new front to be paying attention to. nathanael points out that trump says he’s not going to roll back marriage equality and yet he’s appointing anti-gay judges. that’s a fight in the making. maggie share’s trump’s bullshit ten-point plan for black america. she and phil both point out its absurdity. anyone (with any sort of racial or oppression analysis) who has experienced or studied cities knows that his language is a smokescreen. “reduce crime” means change laws to put as many people in jail as possible (apparently, this is already happening on the west coast). “school choice” means de-funding public schools. “equal justice and applying the law fairly” means inequity, because we currently aren’t all equal; having marijuana in a packback can put you in prison, but shutting down the economy gets you a bonus.

right now it seems like there’s a lot of energy to keep bannon from getting appointed. it’s unclear to me if that’s a distraction. obviously it will be helpful either way, but are we rallying people’s attention and energy around that while missing other insidious things happening in the background? or things we haven’t actually been presented with yet?

i’m tired.