Rabbi Danya RuttenbergIt doesn't matter if they are ever coming for you.
It was always ever already too much that they were coming for anyone.
Niemöller was never the moral guide.
He got the memo too late.
Our job is to to understand that
EVERY
SINGLE
HUMAN
BEING
IS
PRECIOUS
and to act accordingly
NOW
If someone is being targeted
any
human
being
it's my responsibility
it's my obligation
even if i'm safe forever
because someone needs to do something and I'm someone
as Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it
some are guilty
all are responsible
The number of people who manage to respond to the first skeet with "but they ARE coming for you" is truly astonishing.
PEOPLE.
THAT
IS
NOT
THE
POINT
HERE.
Please please please PLEASE
see the people in harm's way now as your obligation
no matter what
irrespective of your own skin
If we want to play historical analogy game, sure, I'm not delusional about where my loudmouthed disabled queer Jew rabbi ass sits viz the Gulag but I'm also not delusional about where I am
viz the people watching the OTHER PEOPLE GET RACIAL PROFILED INTO CONCENTRATION CAMPS
and I am safe today.
As long as you are safe
you are obligated to take action on behalf of those who are not safe.
Full fucking stop.
And safety is not ever going to be absolute, not here, not now, not in this chapter of this nation's history.
(For some people, it's never been absolute, never been at all)
But for those of us with RELATIVE safety, we are OBLIGATED to take action NOW while we ARE STILL ABLE TO DO SO
Taking action now-- by those of us with any scant amount of safety whatsoever -- is the ONLY way we can get any sense that any of us will ever get to the part where any of us will ever get to the true collective liberation that we all deserve
And that some are most especially owed by this nation.
As @iwashyna.bsky.social has said, whatever you've been saving for a rainy day -- those favors, that access, whatever-- this is the time.
This is the emergency time.
We have actual fascism to defeat. Concentration camps to dismantle.
The 16th largest military in the world to abolish.
again
WHAT
ARE
YOU
SPECIFICALLY
DOING
TODAY
www.lifeisasacredtext.com/goodtrouble/
THE GOOD TROUBLE CHECKLIST
THE GOOD TROUBLE CHECKLIST
Sustained campaign.
Diversity of tactics. (definitely not just marching in the streets.)
A cross-section of society. Ideally women-led or co-led.
COMMUNITY AND SOLIDARITY IS EVERYTHING.
Keep learning.
Take one step. Then take another. Just keep going.
You can do this.
On Organizing
On Organizing
