1.6.21 was an attack on our country by right-wing militants brought on by a President and complicit Republicans spreading lies about an election, hoping to subvert the will of the people who turned out in record margins. Confederate flags in our Congress, while some who swore to protect us and others who pledged to represent us enabled a mob that killed five people and planned to assassinate our elected leaders. All the while, police target, detain, and kill Black people and violently repress those protesting for equal justice, while these same politicians empower them, hoping to divide and distract us from their failures.
We are united with millions of people from all walks of life: Every elected official who incited these attacks and whose lies fueled these flames, must be removed or resign. That’s how we can move forward together.
We know last week’s planned coup by white nationalist militants is the horrifying continuation of an ideology and of a nation that has so traded in deliberate division and in devaluing the lives, livelihoods, votes and voices of Black, Indigenous, People of Color, in order to protect and preserve the interests of the white and wealthy.
Violence is the core of a society that privileges power and wealth of a small few based on what we look like or where we come from, and that shames and blames people for being Black, having an accent, or struggling to make ends meet. Acknowledgment of this deep vein of violence and hatred in our history, culture and psychology is the first step towards genuine healing and justice. We will only root it out when we center the needs of the people who we have repressed and exploited.
We the people have pulled through everything that’s been done to divide, derail and dishonor our most basic rights. We have stood strong in the midst of unrelenting attempts to discredit and silence Black, Indigenous, immigrant and other communities of color.
Though we are apart, we can unite in action. We’ve compiled these ways to act, listen, watch, read, and deepen our thinking.
To Do
Sign and share: Sunrise Spokane, a local, youth-led climate justice group, is calling for Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers to resign due to spreading lies of election fraud and her continual support of Trump, despite his fascistic behavior & encouragement of violence. They are hoping to grasp her attention through gathering signatures & creating community-wide social media buzz. Please sign and share this petition!
Continue calling on our Senators to #ConveneAndConvict Trump and hold complicit Republicans accountable! Demand our Senators:
1. Convict and remove Trump from office immediately;
2. Expel each member of Congress who has fanned the flames of white supremacist violence and the lies of a stolen election;
3. Prosecute Trump and every single one of his enablers.
- Call Senator Patty Murray’s Spokane office: (509) 624-9515 – Email Senator Murray here
- Call Senator Maria Cantwell’s Spokane office: (509) 353-2507 – Email Senator Cantwell here
Sign on to support Jamaal Bowman’s COUP Act to create a commission to investigate and intercept police misconduct and incompetence on Capitol Hill
Join in the Martin Luther King Jr Family Outreach Center’s MLK Day 2021 Service Projects – 7 ways you can take action!
MLK Day of Action: Impeach, Expel, Transform. On the day we celebrate the great Civil Rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Frontline is calling on people across the country to show the world just how powerful we are: to celebrate the progress we have made, to recenter our movements, and to call on the Senate to impeach Trump, to expel the Members who voted against certifying the election results, and to transform the country. You can check out their suggestions for action here. We can all take action together to #ImpeachExpelTransform and center the power of our movements and not the Right’s response.
Add your name to United We Dream’s petition to stand with immigrants and to hold the BIden Administration accountable to protect immigrants!
Day 1: Biden must start ending U.S. complicity in the war in Yemen – The sanctions that come with Trump’s bogus terror designation of the Houthis will block humanitarian aid to as many 20 MILLION people. While the Houthis need to be held accountable for their abuses, this is a politically motivated and egregious misuse of the U.S. terrorist designation that amounts to collective punishment and will only deepen U.S. complicity in the crisis in Yemen. It’s got to be immediately reversed. Sign here!
#ForwardTogether, Saturday’s Frontline organizing meeting, Saturday January 16th, 12-3pm Pacific time – Join this mass call of movement organizations including Women’s March, Rising Majority, the Movement for Black Lives, Showing Up for Racial Justice, and United We Dream to talk about the issues that matter right now and how we will win together
White Men Rejecting Violence & Hate – national mass meeting
Sunday Jan. 24 at 1 pm PT – Sign Up Here – Join Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and Organizing White Men for Collective Liberation (OWMCL) for a mass meeting to discuss patriarchy, whiteness, and how we organize white men into our movements for justice. We know the Right is extremely effective at organizing white men– an effectiveness that has deadly outcomes. How can we offer compelling alternatives and a sense of belonging to out-organize the Right?
To Listen or Watch
Showing Up for Racial Justice webinar, “White Backlash: why it happens and how to fight back” with Dr. Robin DG Kelley. Full webinar recording here – worth your time!
Joan Braune’s interview on the Range podcast – Joan Braune — noted critical theorist — joins to talk about how language shapes the way we view reality and how the blanket usage of words like “terrorism” and “extremism” — even when explicitly describing right wing violence like last week’s attack on the Capitol building — might actually do more harm than good by incorrectly and unfairly lumping the emancipatory struggle of the left with the oppressive projects of the far right.
MLK Moral Monday: A National Interfaith Service of Love, Light, and Leadership from the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Repairers of the Breach, and Kairos
Monday January 18, 10 am at www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/livestream and fb.com/anewppc – Building the Beloved Community with Love tied to Justice, Light grounded in Truth, Leadership rooted in a Moral Agenda for the Nation – featuring the Rev. Dr. William Barber II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
To Read
“Categories like ‘terrorist’ and ‘extremist’ can be unhelpful ways of explaining the far-right—not because the terms do not fit the actions of those who entered the U.S. Capitol, but because these terms lump very different groups of people together in problematic ways under a single label, and because these terms have been used to facilitate Islamophobia and crackdowns on the left and activists of color. …
Now more than ever, we need careful specificity. Those who took over the Capitol building were far-right and fascist insurgents.”