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Five days of dissent
Friday: went to a refugees-are-welcome in Durham. Listened to a lot of refugee stories. Glad I went, especially given that we didn't really understood the magnitude of the atrocity that was going off in Washington DC at the time. Need to stop going to things in other places, the driving 30minutes both ways combined with the protest combined with needing to find parking and food in an unfamiliar place and I was basically shot for the whole afternoon.
Saturday: ended up being a day off, I tried to go to a organizing thing but couldn't find it. Made up for it by doing two things Monday. >.<
Sunday: went to RDU. It was a pretty beautiful thing, especially the large numbers of (apparently by dress) Muslim participants, especially teenagers and kids. Then the permit got revoked and the police broke it up without contest, and while the overall action got good reviews (the crowd had grown to 10x the permit) it reminds me that I haven't really been to a protest, yet and I don't know how much stomach I or others have for actually standing up.
Monday: went to Thom Tillis's local office, a first. There was a woman ahead of me in line, we were told they were talking to one person at a time. But we were both invited back. The woman wrote down her concerns on the sign in and then said she'd come to pray for the lives of the innocent refugee children we were sending to their deaths. The local office is tiny and she lost her nerve a bit: she said she'd go outside the door into the hallway to pray. I asked if I could join her. She tentatively asked about my religion, and I got to use the "oh I'm Unitarian, so I'm up for whatever" line. And this is how I ended up kneeling in front of Thom Tillis's office doing ten hail marys on my Monday lunch break. She indicated that this was her first political action ever (hence the nervousness), and I thanked her for giving me the opportunity to pray with her. I wish I'd asked her to join me back there same time tomorrow. I wish I'd brought her back into the office with me and we'd figured out when we could both meet with the Senator in person. So, some missed opportunities there, but not an experience I'll forget. (Same story on Twitter thread.)
Also Monday: went to my usual death penalty protest, stood in the cold for an hour by the jail. A new math grad student at State came by and stood with us. I joked with the regulars that, extrapolating from when I showed up, our average age was going down so quickly that we'd all be high schoolers by fall.
Tuesday: went to the state house and followed through on this tweet. Introduced myself to the assistant for my representative and senator; both were on my side, appreciative, told me this stuff mattered, and generally gave me civic warm fuzzies. For the house speaker and senate president, both Republicans, I just said "I wanted to give this message about how HB-2 has affected me and my career" and scrammed.
Saturday: ended up being a day off, I tried to go to a organizing thing but couldn't find it. Made up for it by doing two things Monday. >.<
Sunday: went to RDU. It was a pretty beautiful thing, especially the large numbers of (apparently by dress) Muslim participants, especially teenagers and kids. Then the permit got revoked and the police broke it up without contest, and while the overall action got good reviews (the crowd had grown to 10x the permit) it reminds me that I haven't really been to a protest, yet and I don't know how much stomach I or others have for actually standing up.
Monday: went to Thom Tillis's local office, a first. There was a woman ahead of me in line, we were told they were talking to one person at a time. But we were both invited back. The woman wrote down her concerns on the sign in and then said she'd come to pray for the lives of the innocent refugee children we were sending to their deaths. The local office is tiny and she lost her nerve a bit: she said she'd go outside the door into the hallway to pray. I asked if I could join her. She tentatively asked about my religion, and I got to use the "oh I'm Unitarian, so I'm up for whatever" line. And this is how I ended up kneeling in front of Thom Tillis's office doing ten hail marys on my Monday lunch break. She indicated that this was her first political action ever (hence the nervousness), and I thanked her for giving me the opportunity to pray with her. I wish I'd asked her to join me back there same time tomorrow. I wish I'd brought her back into the office with me and we'd figured out when we could both meet with the Senator in person. So, some missed opportunities there, but not an experience I'll forget. (Same story on Twitter thread.)
Also Monday: went to my usual death penalty protest, stood in the cold for an hour by the jail. A new math grad student at State came by and stood with us. I joked with the regulars that, extrapolating from when I showed up, our average age was going down so quickly that we'd all be high schoolers by fall.
Tuesday: went to the state house and followed through on this tweet. Introduced myself to the assistant for my representative and senator; both were on my side, appreciative, told me this stuff mattered, and generally gave me civic warm fuzzies. For the house speaker and senate president, both Republicans, I just said "I wanted to give this message about how HB-2 has affected me and my career" and scrammed.