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Angie Nixon, a mother, a union organizer and a democratic socialist, just won the Senate primary in Florida, despite being outspent 16-1 by the political establishment. And she won on this message:

If wanting your neighbor to afford their insulin is radical, then call me a radical. If believing a mother shouldn’t have to work three jobs just to keep a roof over their heads is extreme, then call me extreme. These things are not radical. They are not extreme. This is just basic human decency.

We’ve been saying some version of that for almost fifteen years. What people need to survive is not radical. It’s the floor, not the ceiling, of what a human life requires.

“Radical” and “extreme” aren’t descriptions. They’re a tactics deployed on the right AND the left as a way of making the bare minimum sound like too much to ask, so the people who benefit from hoarding and deprivation will never have to change, nor answer for it. What’s worse, they gaslight us for having needs, for believing we deserve better, for wanting a future where everyone can thrive.

Taking back our power is the whole project. When we buy into the myth that we are powerless, that we don’t know better, that our suffering is a personal failure, we play right into their playbook. When we trust ourselves and each other to know what is needed and build collective capacity for care and governance, we become the ones we have been waiting for.

Closing the gap, the space between who gets to thrive and who doesn’t, is what we are fighting for. Not someday in the future. Not once conditions are perfect. Now, with what we have, for each other.

This, y’all, is the winning strategy. Not extreme. Not radical. Not far left. Basic human decency.

Kerri

(Image Artist unknown)

Getting Informed

• Don’t surrender power. Angie Nixon just won the primary for US Senate in Florida on a platform of “basic human decency”. Learn how this movement-born official has navigated the complexities of Florida and held onto her integrity while fighting for working people.

• “The aesthetics of liberation are about true collective freedom and the freedom of being able to live long, healthy lives in community with one another in a way that actually honors our highest and truest selves”. In We Make The World, Patrisse Cullors explores why aesthetics are not simply an accessory to movement-building, but a vital strategy for imagining and creating more just futures.

• Laying the bricks beyond elections. “It may be worth checking in with ourselves, from time to time, about what, if anything, our attention is cultivating.” Kelly Hayes on how total electoral absorption will not build the relationships, networks, skills, and forms of collective power that we are going to need.

• “This is not an event. It is a mode—a dynamic, durable apparatus of subjection and disposability that never runs out of supply.” Jafari Sinclaire Allen on the machine that came for Jason Arday.

• If we’re going to work to bring diverse groups of people into conversation and ultimately solidarity, we will need an updated politics of togetherness capable of bringing nuance to intersectionality. Check out this nourishing conversation on togetherness between Trevor Smith, Amara Enyia and Scot Nakagawa

• What happens when curiosity turns into a movement? On How We Build This, Michael Pollen reflects on the unexpected path from journalism to advocacy and how writing about food systems and psychadelics helped spark broader movements for change.

Practicing Change

Authoritarians don’t play by the rules. They change the rules so that they can win. They make it harder for people to vote. They deploy mass disinformation efforts, They ignore (or change) election results. They intimidate voters/election officials. And they target, investigate, arrest and outlaw opposition. This is not a theoretical prediction. This is already underway. Here is how we get ready:

What is the status of the SAVE Act: this legislation - which would require all citizen to provide documented proof of citizenship (DPOC) to register to vote - is expected to come up for a vote again when the Senate returns in September. If Congress passes any version of the SAVE Act before the November elections, voter registration and how voters cast their ballot could change drastically. The Brennon Center for Justice estimates that over 21 million do not have access to DPOC and this bill would disproportionately burden young voters, older Americans, low-income voters, people who have moved frequently, people with disabilities, rural voters, people who do not have easy access to government offices, families who have been impacted by natural disasters or relocated due to domestic violence, and voters who change their names due to marriage, divorce, or gender identity.

• Activate the vote: The first step in defending an election is making sure people vote. In 2024, approximately 89 million eligible voters in the United States didn’t vote. That’s more people than votes received by either major-party candidate. Activating the vote means going beyond your own ballot to engage and organize your people to voice their values and rally the community to turn out.

• Check your registration: at vote.org - as the landscape changes, check multiple times - once is not enough. This is especially true for those of ya’ll in Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming

• Vote early - together: Souls to the polls! Early voting is smart if it’s available to you. Bring your friends, neighbors and a voter guide

• Election day as a civic holiday: while Election Day SHOULD be a federal holiday, treat it as a civic celebration. If you voted early, spend the day helping others to vote and protect our elections

• Count every vote: after Election Day (Nov 4), keep going. Celebrate all votes being counted. Organize peaceful, visible, joyful encouragement for election officials to count all ballots (dance party anyone?).

For more on election protection, check out this resource from Freedom Trainers. Elections are not the endgame. They are the beginning. LFG.

Art by @ccnc_hbcuaction

Building Capacity

I keep thinking about the photo of a Black woman sitting on the DC metro, surrounded by dozens of masked white supremacists on July 4th, 2026, and what it says about America.

It is not 400 years ago. It is 400 years. It is now. (@brandisocial)

This isn’t just about the public resurgence of white nationalist groups. It’s about Jason Arday, bullied to death by people who called their cruelty scholarship. It is about Black people found hanging from trees, at least five documented U.S. cases in 2026 alone. It is about Gary, Indiana, a city that is over 76% Black, going without power for more than a week while residents say they’re always first cut off and last restored. It is an escalating pattern of racial terrorism and anti-Blackness against real people who have names. Nolan Wells. Kyle Bassinga. Juliana Umba Nzita. Tonea Nicole Miller. Tasia Fortune. Isaac Carlos Aguirre. And others whose names never made the news at all.

This white death cult and culture of supremacy is denying the world its future. And it will not end on its own. It will end when white people recognize this shaping and work to change it, in themselves and in the systems they run. It is a project all of us are participating in, until we aren’t.

Jafari Sinclaire Allen wrote it plainly: “At least those who build the machine know what they are. It is the ones who believe their hands are clean who keep it running…“

This is an invitation to reckon, not just with how we got here, but with our role in keeping it running.

Art by @voiceof_theoppressed

Dreaming Differently

One of the most harmful and limiting myths is that there is not enough room for everyone to thrive. It pits us against each other, wedges us into scarcity, striving and smallness, and holds us bag from dreaming bigger.

Art by @geralyn_brennan

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last 10 years, our toolkits have been helping the community get informed, practice change and dream differently, together. Now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last 10 years, our toolkits have been helping the community get informed, practice change and dream differently, together. Now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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I owe you an update. WELLREAD has been quiet for a year, and I don’t want to just pick back up like nothing happened. Here’s where we’ve been…

CTZNWELL has never operated like a traditional organization. Fifteen years in, what’s kept this work alive and relevant has been our willingness to stay responsive, nimble, willing to make mistakes, and ready to trust emergence rather than locked into the dominant trajectory of “progress is more”. Trump 2.0 was one of those moments. It called for real reflection and reckoning around what this time - state violence, extreme inequality, dismantling of democracy and the rise of fascism - actually requires of us. So we slowed down, listened and returned to the belief that inspired CTZNWELL in the beginning: in the absence of systems that take care of us, we take care of us.

What has emerged since has been a renewed practice of direct response and mutual aid, on the ground, and in my own local community. The inquiry underlying this work: what does it actually take to build community power and capacity, not just to resist systems of power and oppression, but to build shared practice and co-governance to feed each other, house each other, protect each other, without waiting for permission from institutions that were never built to protect us in the first place.

That question turned into a test model. Over the past year we built out local networks for rapid response: political education, skill-shares, resource pooling, working groups, the unglamorous infrastructure that makes mutual aid actually function. What we learned is that community power isn’t a metaphor. It’s a way of practicing the world we actually want, at a scale small enough to experiment, learn and iterate in relationship so we can scale in accountability.

Which brings me to what’s next. The next phase of CTZNWELL takes that same question and asks it at the level of a movement:

• How do we build real community power and the capacity for co-governance and collective care?

• How do we move differently so as not to replicate patterns of harm?

• How do we build scale that meets the need without burning us out?

• How do we build a culture of experimentation and mistake making so that we can rehearse the world we are all longing for into being?

WELLREAD is where we will be sharing more about what we’re learning, who we’re learning from and how we’re practicing towards the different future we all deserve. Stay tuned for crowd-sourced community zines, monthly meetups, embodied practice, calls to action and more.

I’ve missed writing to you here. This is me/us picking it back up, with a year of field practice and learnings, and a clearer sense of what we’re actually building toward.

Kerri (she/her)

PS - stay tuned for Movement for the Movement (MVMT) - a practice of political change from the inside out. Rooted in the understanding that how we organize our bodies is how we organize the world, MVMT uses dynamic, intuitive movement to shift patterns of urgency, control, and disconnection into creativity, trust, and real collective power.

Artwork by @maese.art.by.eileen.jimenez

Getting Informed

• What we’re for. Ash-lee Woodward Henderson on the country we’re owed, what we declare for ourselves and how we’re going to build it (hint: We’re a country that takes care of all of us period.

• The real strategy for power building.Avoiding conflict takes an enormous toll, requires immense effort, relies on endless tricks. If we want to build powerful groups, powerful organizations, powerful movements, we will have to cultivate conflict as a skill and superpower.

• An inside look at the nationwide resistance to ICE. The mass popular opposition to ICE “surges” led to a sea change in public opinion. Now organizers are asking: What’s next?

• Caring abut each other only gets you so far. Zedé on why we have to build the thing that lets care reach people consistently, that survives a bad season, that keeps running when you need a month off, that can grow without requiring any one person to carry all of it.

• We have a right to be furious with Graham Platner. When we fail women who are credibly alleging sexual abuse and sexual violence, or back people with a clear pattern of abusive behavior, our movements fall apart, and they fail. Naomi Klein on how fighting sexual violence isn’t a distraction. It’s how we win.

• We have been robbed of one of life’s great joys. It’s as if we launched a war against nature, and that has turned place after place into something that resembles a war zone. The climate movement is a peace movement, a movement to end this war and its casualties. Rebecca Solnit on how summer is not what it once was.

Practicing Change

Mutual aid is not just a practice. It is a real and tangible strategy for how we fight fascism, take back our power and dependence on the state and build the capacity and structures to take care of each other.

What it is/isn’t: Mutual aid is not charity. Charity says “I’m helping those in need” and often decides who is worthy of help and who isn’t. Mutual aid says “our survival is collective”. It assumes everyone is deserving of support because we are all humans who have needs.

How we’re practicing? For the last year, we’ve been in the field learning, practicing, and iterating how we respond, how we grow, how we build for greater community capacity/power. The top three things we’ve learned: 1) building systems is not more important than building relationships 2) we must build pro-active community capacity alongside rapid response 3) always be asking “who are we accountable to?” and practicing that. There is no community care without accountability.

Who we’re following: Here are some orgs doing the work and leading the way. Please check them out and support their work.

• Soul Fire Farm is an Afro-Indigenous centered community farm in Petersburg, New York, that delivers free produce directly to households living under food apartheid in the Albany region

• Cooperation Jackson is a cooperative federation in Jackson, Mississippi, building food sovereignty and economic democracy in a county with over 61,000 food-insecure people.

• MIRAC MN is an all-volunteer, grassroots, multiracial, and multinational immigrant rights mass-movement organization. MIRAC fights for legalization for all, an end to immigration raids and deportations, an end to all anti-immigrant laws, and full equality in all areas of life.

• Los Angeles Tenants Union is a member-funded, all-volunteer organization with no paid staff and no foundation grants, running 17 neighborhood chapters across LA County.

• NEXT Harm Reduction is the first online, mail-based harm reduction program in the United States, shipping free naloxone and sterile supplies in plain packaging to every state and Puerto Rico.

• Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a national horizontal network built on the principle of solidarity rather than charity, deploying to hurricanes, floods, and climate disasters through consensus-based working groups.

• Chicago Community Bond Fund posted over $7 million in bonds and freed more than 650 people over its lifetime, maintaining a 90 percent court appearance rate, while simultaneously building the political campaign that made Illinois the first state to abolish cash bail in 2023.

• Highlander Research and Education Center has been training movement leaders in Appalachia since 1932, where Rosa Parks attended workshops before the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the civil rights movement found its footing.

Art by @olly.costello.art

Building Capacity

We’re getting so much movement nourishment from Prentis Hemphill’s Finding Our Way Podcast. This podcast truly lives into the questions (one of our favorite practices) and invites us to explore ourselves and the skills we need to create and embody the world we want.

I wanted to lift up this particular episode featuring Kazu Haga, founder of the East Point Peace Academy, a core member of the Ahimsa Collective, and the author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm. In it, Prentis and Kazu examine our definitions and enactments of accountability and pose the question, "Who do we become when harm occurs?" Here are some of our favorite moments from Kazu:

“Conflict is the spirit of a relationship asking itself to deepen.”

“To me non-violence isn’t about what you don’t do. much more about when you see violence in your community, what are you going to do about it? How are you going to interject yourself in the situations of violence and injustice and work to transform it?”

“Nobody has ever lived in a world that was collectively liberated…in modern times none of us know how to do racial healing, none of us know how to do the work of liberating ourselves from the legacy of patriarchy. All of these things are things we are grappling with collectively for the first time. So I think there is some humility and vulnerability in accepting that we don’t know..but I think the fierceness is saying ‘we don’t know but we are going to keep trying anyways’.”

“What if we acknowledge that part of the role of non-violent direct action is to help people feel something; to feel grief and to feel fear that is trapped in their bodies. So what if instead of yelling and chanting, we bring a grief ritual to public spaces as a form of non violent action and help people tap into the part of their bodies that says I know that something is wrong”.

There’s so much more where this came from. Check out the podcast, subscribe and the support their work.

Image by @eroticsofliberation

Dreaming Differently

Building a different future requires that we imagine better and move differently. “We must help people imagine a world in which we can rely on one another”. May it be so.

Art by @itschinwosu

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last 10 years, our toolkits have been helping the community get informed, practice change and dream differently, together. Now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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What is happening in LA and in cities around the country - ICE raids at home depot schools, street corners, car washes, bus stations - isn’t about security. It’s about control. Its about removing (kidnapping and disappearing) people who don’t fit a certain idea of what America is.

This is a long-standing American tradition. Disappearing people who don’t “fit” into the white able-bodied cis/straight male image has been taking place since our inception - as old as the colonial genocide of Indigenous peoples and as recent as the violent raids and mass deportations of today.

Ice is not enforcing law and order. They are enforcing a vision of who belongs to the white American project and who doesn’t. But as Martin Neimoller reminded us:

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

The only safety for any of us is in solidarity. If you want society to be better for your child, you have to work to make society better for every child…that includes the undocumented child, the trans child and the Palestinian child…every child. We build solidarity by practicing the kind of radical love that is based in abundance vs zero sum and the idea that none of us are well unless all of us are well.

Kerri (she/her)

Artwork by @patrick_martinez_studio

NTK (need to know)

• Fascism Barometer: In this urgent episode of The Fascism Barometer, host Ejeris Dixon sits down with renowned activist and organizer Linda Sarsour for a powerful conversation on fascism, Palestinian liberation, and the meaning of true solidarity.

• The Abundance Debate Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It. Populists and abundance proponents have retreated into factional warfare. But both sides need to realize that they need each other.

• Timely lessons for keeping people safe in the streets. As Trump looks to increase repression, a new training guide explains how peacekeepers reduce fear and build solidarity.

• The Los Angeles Protests Are an Act of Self-Defense. Residents of L.A. aren’t merely protesting ICE; they’re attempting to protect their communities from ICE’s raids.

• Unpacking Trump’s Order Authorizing Domestic Deployment of the Military. The president’s move represents an unprecedented, dangerous, and legally doubtful exercise of power. What to know about troops deployment, martial law and The Insurrection Act.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

JOIN LOCAL RAPID RESPONSE NETWORKS: Rapid response networks respond to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions and raids in our communities. Many counties have a local rapid response hotline available 24/7. Find your local rapid response network HERE.

FIGHT DISINFORMATION. How to avoid common myths about immigration and best practices for interrupting the narrative cycle of dehumanization and deportation.

ICE WATCH: if you’re not at risk of deportation, you can respond, report, document ICE raids for our neighbors to disrupt illegal activity and protect our neighbors. Here are some resources to skill up.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS: Understanding the law and our constitutional rights is essential to ensuring fair and dignified treatment, preventing exploitation and protecting our communities. The ACLU has put together a thorough resource for getting informed and engaged in defending our rights and each other.

PROTEST: ICE protests are spreading around the country in solidarity with the undocumented community. And June 14th is the “No Kings” national day of action schedule in opposition to Trump’s birthday military parade. Find a protest near you.

FOLLOW THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE WAY: Solidarity starts with centering the those who are most impacted and listening for what is needed (versus assuming we know, getting in the way of leadership, trying to be the hero). Here are some folks/organizations leading the way:

• Immigration Coalition

• Union Del Barrio

• United We Dream

• California Immigration Policy Center

• Chirla

• Mijente

• National Immigration Law Center

Art by @562.arts

DIGGING DEEPER

There is room in the movement for all of us. Responding to this moment requires a diversity of tactics and strategies that recognize that many ways we can show up to resist, protect and support each other. Mutual aid is how we take care of each other and build alternative structures outside the state to ensure people have what they need to survive/thrive. It is rooted in abolition and the idea that there is enough to go around and we get free through community solidarity and each other.

Mutual aid is the accumulation of many small, fractal acts of relationship and generosity. And at a time when it is extremely dangerous for undocumented people to be doing everyday activities in public, those of us who have the privilege of citizenship can show up in essential ways. Here are some suggestions for how you can show up in little and big ways for the community:

• Offer to run errands (pick up meals, groceries, supplies, etc)

• Offer to drop off and pick up kids from school

• Accompany neighbors to court appointments and immigration check ins

• Report ICE sightings to rapid response networks

• Join your rapid response network or ICE WATCH street team

• Protect day laborers by Adopting a Day Laborer Corner

• Donate to your local mutual aid network

• Donate to legal defense and bail funds

• Donate to immigrant led organizations

Note: Mutual aid is rooted in relationship and trust. If those relationships do not already exist, it is strongly recommended that you find a mutual aid network near you that is already doing the work and support through them.

Image by @votingshoes

WE-NESS

If you’re unclear about how to show up in this moment, ask your self “what do I love that is at stake?”…and then with everything you’ve got, protect what you love.

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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I’ve heard many a self proclaimed guru claim that anger is negative and destructive. This is a typical wellness tactic inviting us to bypass the shame and discomfort associated with our complicity in injustice and oppression in order to maintain the delusion of security and control. But this kind of denial only serves to reproduce the same logics and relationships that got us here in the first place.

Anger is a signal. It is inherently life-affirming in that it calls us to reckon with all that is in the way of our interconnected wholeness - all that needs to be faced, healed and reconciled within us and around us so that we can move towards collective survival and thrival.

When we turn away from anger - deny it, smother it, repress it - it can become a violence against ourselves and each other. But when we avoid the uncomfortable feelings, we avoid the possibility of change.

In this way anger is a portal. Being with anger means creating space for it to move. Being willing to feel the confusion and discomfort and ground in relational accountability allows us to redirect and transmute that energy into new ways of being and doing that lead us towards deeper solidarity - not as a fix but as a practice of collective attunement.

In her latest book The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity, Sarah Schulman explains that solidarity is not so much about solving problems as it is building relational capacity and infrastructure for the future. Real world solidarity invites us to move from reaction to relationship and commit to co-struggling towards the collective healing and transformation we are yearning for.

In this edition of WELLREAD, we’re invited to reckon with our relationship to the suffering that is happening here and around the world and transmute that into practices of solidarity that affirms our mutual responsibility and shared wellbeing.

Kerri (she/her)

Artwork by @justseeds and @lookbacktosee

NTK (need to know)

• How heroism and perfectionism can hinder participation in solidarity and how historical perspectives on solidarity reveal its multifaceted nature. Check out The End of the World podcast featuring Sarah Schulman, author of the new book The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity.

• “Some days, my best efforts feel insufficient and overwhelming at the same time.” From Aspiration to Action: Organizing Through Exhaustion, Grief, and Uncertainty

• While recent polls show growing support for Palestine, the numbers don’t hold the urgency of lives, of children, of hunger, of grief. The Anger of Recognition: Witnessing Gaza and the Pain of Belated Solidarity

• “Abundance” Is How Dems Lose To Trump. Ezra Klein’s new book is supercharging elites’ campaign to deter Democrats from challenging billionaires and corporate power.

• In a time of heightened mobilization (like now) law enforcement systems ratchet up repression and deploy strategies to undermine our movements and divide us. Here are Five Questions for Cultivating Solidarity When Responding to Political Repression.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

What we are witnessing in Gaza is not a famine. It’s intentional starvation — a manmade crisis enforced by Israel’s blockade and destruction of aid routes. Food is being used as a weapon of war. Families are collapsing from hunger. Children are dying from dehydration. Where millions are facing intentional hunger and starvation, we are being called to do more.

Hunger strikes have historically been used as a tool of protest and solidarity in response to injustice, often when other means of redress are denied. From Irish political prisoners resisting British rule to the Indian Independence Movement opposing British colonial violence to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Movement bringing attention to the plight of farm laborers in California to Palestinian prisoners resisting conditions of occupation, confinement, and erasure, fasting and hunger strikes have come to represent embodied refusal, spiritual discipline, shared practice and solidarity with those who are suffering.

ConnectHER (a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying global women’s issues through film and storytelling) has been working closely with young filmmakers and activists in Gaza for years. Since the start of the war, they’ve been providing direct aid — including food, clean water, shelter, baby formula, and other necessities— in partnership with trusted local teams. Fast4Gaza is a campaign that emerged in partnership with and at the request of our Gazan collaborators, who are leading extraordinary grassroots relief efforts under unimaginable conditions.

We’re answering the call by participating in this ongoing practice of embodied resistance and collective action in the following ways:

• Fast from sunrise to sundown every Thursday

• Donate what we would have spent on food to ConnectHER

• Share with your people and fast in community

• Boycott companies complicit in the occupation and support the BDS movement

• Gather in shared solidarity to break fast and support each other (stay tuned for upcoming solidarity meet ups)

If you cannot fast due to medical conditions you can still practice by donating to ConnectHER, withdrawing your support through divestment and economic activism (see below) and attending our solidarity meet ups for more resources on how to resist and take action for collective liberation.

Art by @bypeoni

DIGGING DEEPER

But what can I do?

Striking in solidarity isn’t one size fits all. All of us can find unique and creative ways to embody resistance and withdraw our support.

The Palestinian-led movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a global campaign initiated in 2005 by over 170 Palestinian civil society organisations, including trade unions, student groups, women’s organisations and refugee networks. It calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions to be used to bring pressure on Israel to end its regime of settler-colonialism, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. Similar to the BDS campaigns which helped put an end to apartheid in South Africa decades ago, today’s BDS movement provides a set of tactics for people around the world to make a meaningful difference by putting pressure on governments, corporations and institutions to end their complicity in Israel’s system of oppression against Palestinians. Here’s a BDS starter guide complete with priority and pressure targets.

Divestment as action is also moving the needle at home. Organized boycotts allows us to hold corporations and corrupt systems accountable by hitting them where it hurts: their bottom line (ie: Target’s market value has plummeted by over 12 billion dollars since the boycotts launched in 2025). The Peoples Union is planning a summer of coordinated economic activism targeting the worst offenders in corporate greed and corruption including Walmart, Home Depot, Target, Amazon and Starbucks (just to name a few). You can follow and participate here.

Other things you can do here and abroad to stay engaged:

• Pressure your elected officials

• Organize your people in solidarity circles and actions

• Support mutual aid efforts

• Participate in trainings on non-violent action

Artwork by @humanitproject

WE-NESS

The revolution will not be synthetic. It is organice. It is all of us.

Art by @rblwacause

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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As expected, Trumpelon has come out hard and fast in their first 30+ days. They are doing everything in their power to weaponize the media, governance, data and finances against the public interest. It is a classic strategy of shock and awe designed to keep the masses in a constant state of outrage and collective disorganization.

The goal is to move the line of what is normal and acceptable further and further out until we no longer recognize ourselves. No, we are not over-reacting. We are under-reacting.

A change of this depth and magnitude must be met in equal measure. That means collective action that includes personal transformation. It’s not enough to withdraw our support/spending from greedy corporations and fascist institutions - we need to break from our own attachments/addictions to consumption, convenience and comfort. We need to change our behavior - how we spend our money, how we care for the land, how we look after each other, how we repair harm, how build together new futures and ways of being.

The world won’t change if we won’t. Let’s get to work from the inside-out.

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

• Faced with existential threats from the right, the Democratic leadership remains timid; faced with demands for justice from the left, it goes on the attack. Democrats Need to Learn How to Throw a Punch (AND why they won’t).

• We don’t need to go to Mars, we don’t need to live forever, what countless people and this precious planet are crying out for is the sorting out of how we live these lives we’re given right here and now. Silly rich men and the false promise of immortality.

• In challenging times, mutual aid is one way that communities can come together to support one another when the government can’t or won’t. How to create a mutual aid network.

• Community-based suicide intervention is about creating a web of life between our bodies where we can take turns resting and being held when we are overwhelmed. Kai Cheng Thom on why we must live for one another.

• The old pathways to influence are broken. The leaders who succeed in this era will be those who invest in new infrastructure, and prioritize cultural resonance over existing organizational cultures. The Future Belongs to Those Who Adapt.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

Economic activism is one of the most powerful ways we can demonstrate collective power. Tomorrow, March 28th, there is a nation wide economic boycott to protest economic inequality, high cost of living and corporate greed. Boycotts like these can send a message to corporations, lead to future collective actions, support local businesses and inspire long-term lifestyle changes among consumers. People are being encouraged to NOT spend money on gas, fast food, or shop at major retailers like Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, chain grocery stores and more. Instead, pay cash (not credit/debit purchases), shop local and only buy what is essential. But economic activism and boycotts are most successful when they are organized and sustained (the Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days). Here are some simple and powerful things you can do to opt out:

• Shop local: When you need something, buy from local businesses and support your local community.

• Pay with cash: Every time we swipe, banks and credit companies make money from processing fees which contributes to higher costs for small biz owners and consumers.

• Cancel subscriptions: Take stock of your subscription/streaming services (beware of auto-renewal) and only keep what you absolutely need.

• One in. One out. This is a super helpful tip for transforming purchase behavior….don’t buy more of a thing until you are out of it; buy one kind of that thing (avoid stocking up and purchasing multiple flavors, scents, etc)

• Utilize your local library: Sharing books is an amazing way to pass around old wisdom and new worlds.

• Buy nothing groups: Lots of neighborhoods have “buy nothing” where folks give away or trade things they no longer need.

• Barter: Between all of us, we have what we need. Consider trading with your community.

• Quality over quantity: Focus spending on items that are reusable, repairable, and endurable (will last a long time).

• Buy used: Before you buy anything new, check out marketplace, craigslist, eBay, thrift stores and estate sales to see if someone is selling it used

• Ship less: CO2 emissions from shipping has increased substantially over the last few decades. Try to ship only when necessary.

• Handmade: Learn a new skill, support a local artisan, make things together!

• Local farmers: Buy seasonal, locally-grown produce, dairy and eggs from local farmers, farmers’ markets and/or join a CSA.

• Garden or forage: Grow food you always eat and/or can preserve. Do produce swaps with your friends!

• Research grocery stores: Research who owns your local grocery stores, where their political donations go, how they treat their employees and be discerning about where you give spend your money.

• Support sustainable designers: Consider alternatives to fast fashion and support designers who are creating quality garments from repurposed materials.

• Shop second hand. Go thrift!

• participate/organize a clothes swap: Organize a clothing swap with your friends to repurpose your items and refresh your wardrobe.

• Appreciate/reimagine what you already have: Assess what you already have, reimagine new uses, ways of styling/decorating/repurposing.

Art by @martharich63; Ideas by @elisesattic_

DIGGING DEEPER

“Ordinary people are at the center of change” says Dean Spade in this powerful interview on The Response. “And injustice is not a result of misunderstanding. It’s not like the elites just don’t know that genocide kills people or that fossil fuels are destroying life on earth or that poverty shortens your life. They know! It’s a result of domination. If we organize ourselves as if our only goal is to convince elites we will never win and they would love for us to just stay there -begging for them to change things and take care of us. Instead we are going to take care of ourselves and force change.” In a world on fire, caring for each other is the best resistance. And mutual aid is how we do it. Here are the three elements of mutual aid (based on the book Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the next) by Dean Spade):

1. Mutual aid projects work to meet survival needs and build shared understanding about why people do not have what they need

2. Mutual aid projects mobilize people, expand solidarity and build movements

3. Mutual aid projects are participatory, solving problems through collective action rather than waiting for saviors.

Listen to the whole interview with Dean Spade about mutual aid for survival and resistance. And check out Spade’s new book “Love in a Fucked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell, Together”

WE-NESS

Take care of each other y’all.

Art by @tiffanykilgore

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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Hey everyone,

I’m briefly coming back online (on sabbatical in Bahia, BR) to checkin on this important day. The last few weeks have been a blur of fear, destruction, grief and resilience. I, myself, have run from multiple wildfires in LA and am heartbroken by the magnitude of devastation and loss for so many. The fires that are burning at home and around the world are symptoms of the same disease: a system that puts profit over people, greed over life. And it is that very system that is being sworn into office today.

The etymology of the world “inaugurate” comes from the latin world “augere” which means to increase, grow, develop. So instead of getting hooked on the circus of fear and chaos, let us inaugurate ourselves and each other into this next phase of resistance. Here are some invitations for attention and practice:

• DON’T REACT. Respond. This administration thrives on chaos and confusion. But reacting to every sensational headline is a recipe for burnout and only serves to distract us from the work of collective care. Be discerning with what you give your attention to. Our response-ability is how we stay resilient for the long-haul.

• STAY AWAKE. Don’t doom scroll. Consider your capacity for following the news and staying informed. Find creative and sustainable ways to get what you need to stay engaged. Instead of scrolling, curate trusted accounts to keep you informed and resourced along the way.

• GO UNDERGROUND. No one is coming to save us. We must build care infrastructure outside the state to ensure people have what they need for safety and survival. This could include mutual aid, community pods, sanctuary spaces, healing circles and more.

• PROTECT EACH OTHER: With so many communities facing injustice and violence, we are responding by coming together in solidarity, learning how to boldly intervene as effective allies, and reconnecting to each other, our neighbors, and the world. Check out this toolkit on practicing sanctuary.

• RESOURCE & REGULATE. Tending to our nervous systems is how we will be able to meet each moment and show up for what’s needed. How do you resource yourself throughout the day? How can you build self and co-regulation into your daily routine?

• REST. Rest is revolutionary. It’s how we regenerate so that we can keep fighting for the future that we all deserve. Listen to your body. Give yourself (and each other) permission to rest.

I love you. We got us. Onward. 💛🌈🌱

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

• “When the collective needs are met - and only when the collective’s needs are met - will our needs be met. And it never works the other way around.” Ijeoma Oluo on how we have always been connected.

• As billionaires consolidate power, we need to recommit to MLK’s radical vision and “revolution of values”.

• Trump and his allies don’t really care what kind of leftist you are, so long as you fall in line. A better show of our political identity is how we make changes in the world around us, not our slogans and mission statements.

• The ultra-rich have long held immense influence in U.S. politics. But Trump’s inauguration shows oligarchy is stronger than ever. The staggering combined net worth cheering at Trump’s inauguration.

• It is our turn to carry the world. A community safety ritual from adrienne maree brown.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

Over the next couple days (weeks), it is expected that the 47th administration will issue a bunch of egregious executive orders targeting undocumented people, LGBTQ+ folks, DEI, women and more. As Chase Strangio reminds us, these orders will not change the law but are “glorified press releases designed to create confusion and chaos”. While outrage is justified, it will only lead to distraction and burnout. Rather we can direct our energy towards collective care and protecting the most vulnerable. Here’s what you need to know about immigrants’ rights under the constitution (no matter who is president). Please share far and wide and protect each other!

• You have a right to remain silent: you may refuse to speak to immigration officers. Don’t answer any questions. You may also say that you want to remain silent.

• If an ICE agent comes to your door, do not open it. To be allowed to enter your home, ICE must have a warrant signed by a judge. Do not open your door unless an ICE agent shows you a warrant.

• You have a right to speak to a lawyer. You can simply say” i need to speak to my attorney”.

• Before you sign anything talk to a lawyer. ICE may try to get you to sign away your right to see a lawyer or a judge. Be sure you understand what a document actually says before signing it.

• Carry any valid immigration documents you have. If you have a valid work permit or green card, be sure to have it with you. Do not carry papers from another country with you, such as a foriegn passport.

• If you are a parent and are worried that ICE may arrest you, let the officer know you have children. If you are a parent/primary caregiver of a US citizen or permanent resident who is under 18, ICE may “show discretion”.

• Carry a know your rights card with you. Show your KYR card if an immigration officer stops you. The card explains that you will remain silent and you wish to speak to an attorney. You can download here.

For more information/resources, check out @mijente @nilc @unitedwedream

Art by @paolamendoza

DIGGING DEEPER

The way we get through is each other. “It is in collectivities” that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism". Here are some people we are turning to for inspiration as we navigate the work ahead:

Dean Spade: Building mutual aid projects is a way to plug people in, build shared understandings of current conditions, offer meaningful support to vulnerable people, and prepare for the coming disasters.

Kelly Hayes: It will be easy to fall into a pattern of dunking & reacting in these times. Performing disapproval can be a consuming pastime & it is not enough. Refuse to abandon vulnerable people. Build a rebellious culture of care. If you need help, @prisonculture.bsky.social and I wrote a book to assist you.

Ijeomo Oluo: There are times when fear overwhelms me. There are times when I’m drowning in “what-if"s, where they turn, in my mind, into the “what will be”s. There are times when I’m sure that I will not survive the horrors of this world. In these times I have to remember what my therapist tells me: “You have already survived.”

adrienne maree brown: we are the adaptation no oppressor can imagine … we are building our stamina we dream of the real world we carry god, and see god, in each of our faces your holiness is not too heavy, not for me

Chase Strangio: The media keeps suggesting the resistance is dead, but that is because they don’t realize we are everywhere. Building. Shapeshifting. Laying the groundwork for a world beyond their wildest dreams.

Rev angel Kyodo williams: If we can be more radical, be more whole, be more true to ourselves, whatever it is that we do, we could not have spent out lives any better…and we give ourselves over to the endeavor of being more whole and more true.

Kai Cheng Thom: Above all, it is deeply important that we continue to build deep connections between trans liberation and the liberation of all peoples. An attack on trans people’s healthcare is an attack on the right of all people to access healthcare and control their own bodies. Discrimination against trans people in housing and the job market is an attack on the right of all people to have safe housing and meaningful, well-compensated work. Denying trans people the right to live in public is an attack on all of our right to live in freedom and safety. None of us are free until all of us are free.

Prentis Hemphill: To make it through we will have to find resource in each other. abundance through connection, to have empathy to offer. Notice the emptiness of things. Otherwise, we’ll all end up isolated in our pain. The ones that have happened and the ones to come.

WE-NESS

We got us.

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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In the wake of what seems like endless violence against innocent children, I’ve been thinking about this Ruth Wilson Gilmore quote “where life is precious, life is precious”.

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, professor and prison abolitionist has said that the quote is a way of thinking about how people in some cultures and communities respond to crisis, vulnerability, or confusion. When Ruth Wilson Gilmore speaks of “abolition,” she is working with a long view towards making a whole world, starting now, in which prisons and policing as we do them now become unnecessary, unthinkable. In this sense, abolition is not primarily a matter of what we abolish, but what to build and to organize around.

Gilmore also says “abolition is not absence, it is presence. What the world will become already exists in fragments and pieces, experiments and possibilities. ... Abolition is building the future from the present, in all of the ways we can”.

Which brings me to this week’s inquiry:

• How do we be present to what is and what is possible?

• How do we stay vulnerable with each other?

• What are the life-affirming ingredients we need to build a better future?

• What already exists that we can build upon?

• How do we “make a place” where everyone can be free?

May these questions guide your imagination as we stretch into the new year and new world.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @morejusticemorejoy

NTK (need to know)

• Don’t Panic: Organizers Weigh In on Defending Reproductive Justice From the GOP. How organizers are building mutual aid networks to defend against attacks on reproductive rights.

• Back to the Basics. At a time of political realignment, progressive movements need to get back to building relationships, across differences, and growing their base.

• How movements can incorporate anti-fascist strategies and reimagine justice through transformative frameworks. Looking Beyond Survival, with Ejeris Dixon

• Does it say something about the state of our society that our present stirring was triggered not by the raising of tents, but the firing of a weapon? Insurance Denials, Chronic Pain, and a Nation’s Rage.

• The Democratic Party lacks the energy of a determined opposition — it is adrift, listless in the wake of defeat. What Do Democrats Need to Do? Act Like an Opposition Party.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

The holidays aren’t happy for many of us and can be one of the most anxiety producing times of the year. It can be difficult to navigate conflict skillfully - especially when so much is at stake - but if we choose to educate and organize our families, especially when we care about them. If you’re navigating family dynamics and uncomfortable conversations, we’ve got you. United We dream put together this helpful guide to clapping back at anti-immigrant lies during the holidays:

• Call out the lies with curiosity. We don’t have time for debates built on myths, but starting with curiosity opens the door to real conversation

• Share stories that hit home. They can argue with the stats, but they can’t aruge with your story. Share your story or the story of someone you love. Make it personal because it IS.

• Process the conflict; don’t let it slide. When tensions arise, meet them with courage. Avoiding the conversation doesn’t stop the harm.

• Drop the facts; make your case. This is your chance to bring the conversation back to what’s right: the values of dignity, community, and humanity that we should all share.

• End with boundaries and strength. Not every conversation will change a mind, and that’s not your burden to carry. Speak your truth, set your boundaries, and let them know you won’t compromise on your humanity.

Here’s the full guide.

Art by @Feminist

DIGGING DEEPER

Folks are really struggling right now…and sometimes asking “how are you doing?” isn’t helpful (despite your good intentions). Here are ways to check in and let someone know you care without asking how are you doing?:

• Offer some insight into how you’re feeling first: “I’ve been having a hard time sleeping and focusing on work. I’ll be ok - but its tough. How have you been feeling?”

• Ask something specific: “What have you been. thinking about?” “How has your day been?”, “How does it feel to be you right now?”

• Offer support (without questions): “I miss you! I’m just checking in! Hope you’re ok, but i’m here for you if you’re struggling”.

• Be curious: “I’m wondering what’s helping you cope right now?”, “Have ou read any good books or watched any good shows lately?”

• Offer an activity to do together: “Want to watch a movie together over zoom this weekend?”

• Hold space: “I care about you and you’re on my mind. No need to respond; just want you to know.”

Art and words by @revelatori

TOGETHERING

Tonight is our last Togethering community meet up of the year. Join us at 6EST/3PST. You can register HERE.

WE-NESS

Take care, folks.

Art by @tiffanygilgore

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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The question I get asked most frequently is “How do I organize?”. Here’s what I wrote about the practice of organizing in American Detox:

Organizing is how we take care of each other. And it starts where we are. What begins at the local level expands so that our efforts and resources aggregate for love and justice. We move on behalf of the whole (not the few) in collective action with social and political movements that advance our values and democratize wellbeing for all. This requires both organizing depth (in how we build trust/relationships and create culture) and scale (in how we engage the disengaged and bridge across movements). It is a holistic approach to organizing through personal practice, community building, and collective action as we transform ourselves and restructure our world to support the conditions of wellbeing for all.

We the people are the heart of this ecology and what we believe about ourselves and one another matters. Which brings me to the following inquiry.

• What do we find personally irresistible about the movement and the work of solidarity? What called us to this work?

• What is our collective worldview? How do we make it irresistible?

• How do we meet people where they are and accompany them along the way?

• How do we build the depth of relationship that can root and anchor the scale that we need?

• How do we make joy amidst the sorrow?

• What do we believe we area capable of? What do we believe is possible?

Let’s make our commitment to one another irresistible y’all.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @kellymalka

NTK (need to know)

• “At the Supreme Court this week I am arguing for my life”. Chase Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court, on what’s at stake.

• In this episode of Movement Memos, Shah and host Kelly Hayes discuss the threats posed by the incoming Trump administration, how organizers are preparing to defend immigrant communities, and what actions we can take to prepare and respond.

• Let them eat deductibles. As UnitedHealthcare faces scrutiny over AI-driven claim denials and vulturous executive compensation, a dark spotlight illuminates American healthcare's deepening crisis.

• Democrats Will Keep Losing Until They Cut Ties With Billionaires and Corporations. Progressive movement leader Alexandra Rojas writes for Zeteo that those in charge of the Democrats’ 2024 campaign should have been fired a long time ago.

• Far from the white-picket-fence propaganda of earlier eras, we must reimagine how we live and whom we live among, embracing the wisdom of limitations and sustainability, interdependence and multigenerational thriving, proximity and tenderness. We Can Solve Our Care and Housing Crises, Together.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

On December 4th, Chase Strangio, civil rights lawyer and co-director of ACLU’S LGBT & HIV Project went before SCOTUS to “argue for his life” in US v Skrmetti, a landmark case challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Here are some highlights from the courtroom. People are gearing up for a culture of care and protection that centers trans rights. Here’s what you need to know:

• United States vs Skrmetti Explained: Everything you need to know about what’s at stake in this Supreme Court Case.

• Map: Attacks on Gender Affirming Care by State: As of August 2024, 39.4% or 118,300 trans youth aged 13-17 are living in the 26 states that have passed bans on gender-affirming care. This includes 2,300 youth living in the two states–Arkansas and Montana–where bans are currently on hold or blocked from enforcement through court orders. Check out what’s happening in your state.

• Get the facts: The truth about gender affirming care. Check out this podcast that addresses what’s at stake and what practical next steps we can take to help protect transgender rights from an avalanche of legal and legislative battles.

• Action for TRANSformation fund: Transgender Law Center and Emergent Fund announce $1 million in rapid response dollars for trans-led organizing through the Action for Transformation Fund. Learn more (apply) here.

• Guide to being an “ally” to transgender and non-binary young people. Here’s a helpful support guide from The Trevor Project on how to get started.

Art by @Feminist

DIGGING DEEPER

In the midst of so much disfunction and destabilization, it feels like systems of power are doubling down. So how do we show up in the face of this onslaught given everything that is at stake in our communities?

I've been playing with this term "mutualing" to represent the practice of actively engaging in relationships and culture of mutuality. Mutuality understands that we interdependent with all of life, that our liberation and wellbeing are bound. Dr King famously said:

“All life is interrelated” and that all of humanity is “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be...This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

Of course, mutual aid and collective care is not new and has a long history in Black liberation movement, disability justice, survivor communities and more. (Here's a great explainer by Dean Spade).

How we meet this moment in order to protect each other and build collective power is rooted in mutuality and collective care. And it is the very medicine we need to push back on systems of consumption and build circles of care. Here are some amazing resources to get you started:

• Mutual Aid by Dean Spade

• Building Power Through Mutual Aid: Lessons From the Field

• Pods: The Building Blocks of

  Transformative Justice & Collective Care, Mia Mingus

• Mutual Aid US Hub

• Healing Justice Lineages by Cara Page and Erika Woodland

• The Care Manifesto

WE-NESS

Become a safer place.

Art by @tiffanygilgore

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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I’m grounding in the teaching and wisdom of Roshi Norma Wong who just wrote a book called When No Thing Works, A Zen and Indigeneous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse. And so much of what many of us are grappling with in this moment is written about in this book - how do we cultivate resilience for uncertain futures and live into an emergent worldview that feels enticingly beyond our reach?

One of the things she shares in this amazing episode of End of the World Podcast with adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown is this:

All freedom only exists in our collective self. We will not survive long in our individual freedom.

It is the practice of being with, resourcing with, caring with, imagining with, story with, creating with, moving with that will lead us in the direction of collective freedom and survival. That’s it. That’s the entire strategy.

So for the next few weeks, as we wind down this year and ready ourselves for what’s next, we’re exploring the practice of togethering and how we move together in mutual care and action (see below).

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

• Liberal democracy’s assumption that political parties must compete for votes in the same way that businesses compete for customers is a dangerous trap. It reduces voting to a mere transactional choice and erases the participatory vision of self-governance

• The wealth of the world’s very richest people — a list dominated by U.S. billionaires, many of whom backed President-elect Donald Trump — has soared to record levels since the election. Trump’s win represents the long triumph of a bipartisan embrace of oligarchy over our politics — and the ultra-rich are about to get even richer

• The desire to turn inward is understandable, and human. It’s a form of self-protection. It’s also a delusion. You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you. A new approach is necessary if America is to avoid the fate that befell so many Russians. Don’t Let Donald Trump Drive You Into Internal Exile.

• What does it mean to live in a world organized around greed and violence that then asks us to adjust ourselves to better endure its harms? Rehearsing the Future: A festival of healing justice models how we practice revolutionary care and liberation.

• It absolutely is a matter of survival to find your people, to build connections with organizations and organizers, to know who has your back. Interdependence is a Survival Skill, But Shouldn’t Feel Like Building a Bunker

COLLECTIVE CARE

You cannot cover up genocide with gratitude. Thanks-taking is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native Americans, the theft of their lands and the relentless assault on their culture. When we reframe this holiday as a time for “giving thanks” we whitewash and erase the violent history (and present) of settler colonialism and the lived experiences of Indigenous people on this land. We honor history by telling the truth and taking action. Here are some ways to start:

There is no “decolonizing thanksgiving”. When a holiday’s origins are rooted in colonial violence, genocide and the erasure of Indigenous peoples, that history cannot simply be rewritten with symbolic land acknowledgement and gratitude rituals. Honor National Day of Mourning by listening to indigenous voices, supporting land back initiatives, paying a Shuumi tax and rejecting the Thanksgiving myth.

Beyond Black Friday. November 29th is International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian people. One way you can support is through economic divestment by opting out of consumerism or shopping at small local businesses. By doing this we not only influence the broader economy but strengthen our networks of local and mutual support.

Have Hard conversations at the dinner table. With so much on the line, politics is unavoidable at the holiday table. Here is some good advice about how to approach the holidays with people you deeply disagree with.

Art by @xipi.teca

DIGGING DEEPER

Zen master and Indigenous Hawaiian leader Rōshi Norma Wong’s knows how to hold this collective moment with gravity and tender care. When No Thing Works is a visionary guide to co-creating new worlds from one in crisis. It asks into the ways we can live well and maintain our wholeness in an era of collective acceleration: the swiftly moving current, fed and shaped by human actions, that sweeps us toward ever uncertain futures. Grounded in Zen Buddhism, interconnection, and decades of community activism, When No Thing Works explores questions like:

• As we stand at a threshold of collective change, what leaps must we make?

• How can we push through discord and polarization and meet these critical changepoints collectively?

• What practices, strategies, and spiritualities can align to vision a sustainable future for our communities and descendents?

• How can we step out of urgency to tend to our crises with wisdom, intention, and care? 

Please get this essential book 💛

While we may not know what to do next, we know that we must do it together. Over the next few weeks we are coming together to explore the practice of togethering and what it means to build community, get organized and care for each other. Register here.

WE-NESS

Return to the sacred.

Art by @brandoncollingsworth

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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There are a million blogs/articles out there telling you why this happened and how we got here. This isn’t one of them.

I’m pretty sure the only thing we know is that we don’t know. Any pronouncements of certainty about who is right, who is to blame is a waste of energy much needed for the work ahead.

What we don’t need right now is more opinions. We need inquiry - deep, honest, critical, accountable, embodied inquiry. Inquiry doesn’t cling to old stories and structures. It demands new ground and reaches for new horizons. Inquiry is the doorway into what’s beyond and what’s possible. Here are some questions we are leaning into right now:

• Where is my growing edge right now? What am I learning about myself and my relationship to the whole?

• What can we learn from this moment that prevents us from repeating history?

• How can I digest the grief and despair in real time?

• How do we restore trust where there is rupture?

• How do we build circles of protection and possibility?

• What is needed for long-term engagement? How do we keep going together?

How is lack of imagination holding us back? How do we dream bigger?

Beware: everything will try to squash our imagination and stomp out our dreams. We must be relentless in reaching beyond the status quo, defying institutional normals, refusing someone else’s idea of freedom. We must forego the politics of rightness and embrace the party of imagination. Abolitionist author and organizer Mariame Kaba invites us to “begin our abolitionist journey not with the question, ‘What do we have now and how can we make it better?’” but instead with, “‘What can we imagine for ourselves and the world?’ If we do that, then boundless possibilities of a more just world await us.”

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

• A Return to Leftist Self-Defense. Communities targeted by escalating right-wing violence are learning from their own histories how to keep each other safe.

• Fascism cannot be overcome at the ballot box. A nice mixture of fear, the disempowering electoral system, and representation politics have helped the Republican Party amalgamate the liberal base into their policy positions

• Defiance must be woven into the fabric of our daily lives, rather than simply proclaimed at marches or on social media. Kelly Hayes on collective survival, adaptation and direct action.

• Trump’s Project 2025 is already underway in Argentina, and it’s terrifying

  If you can bear to see how Trump would implement Project 2025, look to Argentina – a lab for the global far right. We know a little about what lies ahead…and we must get ready.

• “If a 3-year-old can dream of cats building skyscrapers, dancing snowpeople, and melodies in the silence of aching grief, then surely, if we put our minds together, we can imagine — and build — a world without cages”. “An Imagination Party”: How My Toddler Fuels My Vision for Liberation

COLLECTIVE CARE

Organizing is how we take care of each other. And it starts where we are. What begins at the local level expands so that our efforts and resources aggregate for love and justice. We move on behalf of the whole (not the few) in collective action with social and political movements that advance our values and democratize wellbeing for all. This requires both organizing depth (in how we build trust/relationships and create culture) and scale (in how we engage the disengaged and bridge across movements). It is a holistic approach to organizing through personal practice, community building, and collective action as we transform ourselves and restructure our world to support the conditions of wellbeing for all. 

Activist and author Shane Burley says “A strong community is what keeps people safe in times of crisis, and that can be as simple as a tight-nit, autonomous group of trusted friends who can be relied on as things get worse. This type of relationship is the centerpiece both of staying safe as state repression worsens, but also has the effect of creating a model for the types of relationships a new kind of society could be built on."

We come together from where ever we are. Pods were created by Mia Mingus and the Bay Area Transformative justice Collective. It is simply a group coming together to take care of each other, forming a link in a larger web of mutual support and resistance. And it can be activated for any number of things including mutual aid, direct action, sanctuary and protection, healing support, ritual, repair and accountability and more. Here’s a pod mapping workshop to get you started.

And join us NEXT WEDNESDAY for special community of practice that explores how we meet this moment and how we move into the next - together. November 20th, 6EST/3PST.

Art by @FaviannaRodriguez

Perhaps the most important thing we can do right now is get ready for what’s to come. That means educating ourselves about fascism, harvesting best practices from past movements, building our capacity for repair and solidarity, and dreaming into new possibilities and futures. Here are some favorites from our book list:

• Let This Radicalize You: Organizing & Revolution for Reciprocal Care, Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba

• Beautiful Solutions: A Toolbox for Liberation, Eli Feghali (Editor), Rachel Plattus (Editor), Nathan Schneider (Editor), Elandria Williams (Editor)

• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder

• On Freedom: Four Songs of Care & Constraint, Maggie Nelson

• Loving Corrections, adrienne maree brown

• The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon

SOUNDTRACK FOR SELF-REGULATION

A sweet playlist to accompany your resourcing and recovery into this next phase of our work. You can access HERE.

WE-NESS

Permission to go as slowly as you need to go.

Art by @maharose

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last several years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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Heartbroken? Yes. Shocked? No.

As long as we continue to underestimate the force of the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy on all aspects of our lives, we will find ourselves inevitably here.

I don’t say this to be cynical or to fill you with despair. It is essential that we reckon with where we ARE so that we can work with it and through it in all the ways - at the level of systems in how they’ve been designed and shaped around racial capitalism, at the level of culture and how it continues to shape shift to uphold and maintain dominance, and at the level of self in how WE have internalized the very logics we are resisting and raging against.

And so here we are and what little I know is that the work is still the work. We keep going. We let this “new” reality jolt us into the understanding that the practice of politics is not just cyclical but everyday. We chop wood and carry water. Here are some ways to get started:

• Don’t scapegoat. Organize. People are going to try to blame those who are most impacted for the election results - Black women, Arab and Muslims, immigrants, disabled folks, trans and non conforming people and poor communities. Recognize these as fascist tactics and stay focused on the work of getting organized.

• Embrace follower-ship. Everyone has a “hot take” right now. Resist the neo-liberal temptation to be right or to become another pundit or expert. Rather, listen and follow the people who know the way; those on the front lines of survival, those who have seen this coming for some time, those who are already doing the work.

• Get ready. The work ahead is going to demand more courage and capacity from all of us. Take this time get educated, to rest and nourish yourself, to build relationships of mutual care, to reorganize yourself and your life for more engaged action and to cultivate imagination and faith in a better future.

• Build care infrastructure. We cannot rely on the state to take care of us. We must take care of us. If you haven’t already, find your pod - the people you can rely and who can rely on your on for help, support, protection, nourishment, grief, care and joy.

• Be kind to each other. Be mindful of how you talk to each other. Getting free is going to require us to listen for understanding, organize with people we don’t agree with and find common ground.

• Hope is a discipline. I know this might feel out of reach right now, but hope is not positive vibes only. Hope is rigor, consistency and action in the face of uncertainty and chaos. Hope is an “axe you break down doors with in an emergency” (Rebecca Solnit). It is the smoldering fire that keeps us fired up, that keeps us moving. Don’t lose hope. Practice it.

I don’t know where we go from here; but I believe we must go together.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @debbiemillman

NTK (need to know)

• “The working class feels abandoned”. Robin D G Kelley on why the American working classes and poor have been socialised for decades into believing the solution to their political and economic woes are to be found among the very architects of them.

• There’s No Denying It Anymore: Trump Is Not a Fluke—He’s America

  The United States chose Donald Trump in all his ugliness and cruelty, and the country will get what it deserves.

• Small tweaks won’t cut it. If Democrats continue to rely on cautious reform and appeals to institutional norms, they may find that they’ve left a vacuum, one that far-right authoritarians are all too eager to fill with promises of radical change. Waleed Shahid on how Democrats Need to Fundamentally Rethink Everything.

• 10 ways to be prepared and grounded now that Trump has won

  The key to taking effective action in a Trump world is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion and disorientation.

• While there are plenty of reasons to feel anger and despair this morning, the news from Tuesday night wasn’t all bad. Some actually good news from election night.

HOW WE MOVE

There is this saying that I keep coming back over the last few days - “we blame society, but we are society”. It speaks to how we are impacted AND implicated. It also speaks to how we have the power to change the present and shape the future. In “On Going Along” Howard Zinn offers some advice on how we can stay engaged…”we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an endless succession of presents, and to live now was we think humans should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory”.

1. Don’t let those who have power intimidate you. No matter how much power they have, they cannot prevent you from choosing to live your life, speaking truth, taking care of yourself and each other, imagining beyond the status quo.

2. Find people with who have your values, your commitments but also have a sense of humor. Remembering that you are not alone in your heartbreak and in your hope is essential nourishment for the long haul.

3. Understand that the major media will not tell you all the acts of resistance taking place every day in the society, the strikes, the protests, the individual acts of courage in the face of authority. Look around and be willing to see, acknowledge and celebrate the small and big acts of resistance that are happening all around you.

4. Throughout history people have felt powerless before authority, but that at certain times these powerless - by organizing, acting, risking, persisting - have created enough power to change the work around them, even if a little. Look to the Black feminist movement, the labor movement, the anti-war movement, the disability justice movement, the LGBTQ+ movement for inspiration and guidance.

5. Remember that those who have power depend the obedience of others, and when those others begin withholding that obedience., begin defying authority, that power at the top turns out to be very fragile. When we refuse to consent and comply, when we withdraw our support…whether that be consumers boycotting corporations, workers striking employers, soldiers objecting and withdrawing from violence…the people in power are no longer powerful.

6. When we forget the fragility of that power on top, we become astounded when it crumbles in the face of rebellion. History teaches us that revolution is possible.

7. Don’t look for a moment of total triumph. It is not the destination but the journey. Along the way we will have wins and setbacks, we will learn from our mistakes and adapt, and we will cultivate the capacity to keep going. Because we are worth the effort. Keep going.

Art is by an unknown source, content by @theloveartist

CARE WORK

In the absence of systems that take care of us, WE must take care of us. Mutual care is a practice and politics of mutual responsibility. Mutual aid is not new, of course. Communities who have been marginalized by and excluded from systems of care have been figuring out how to survive for all of human history. Indigenous, immigrant, poor and working class, and disability communities have long engaged in creative and subversive community care outside the system to ensure people had what they needed to survive. The Black Panthers built an extensive system of mutual aid including free breakfast, free ambulances, free medical clinics, free rides to the elderly, and free education to children. And the Young Lords, a collective of Puerto Ricans in New York, confronted oppression head-on by taking survival into their own hands by commandeering an X-ray truck and hospital wing to provide direct healthcare to their community. But mutual care doesn’t just fill the gap. It also confronts the shame and stigma implied by capitalism - that our suffering is the result of our personal, moral failings as opposed to the exploitation and misappropriation of resources. And it calls us to confront our systems of scarcity, imagine and practice alternatives of care and build a culture that doesn’t leave anyone behind. Mutual care exposes how our systems are not only failing many of us, but that they created the crisis in the first place. It encourages us to build horizontal structures of care and cooperation rather than relying on the state or wealthy partnerships. Mutual care is a radical act of taking back our power and taking care of each other. Over the next few weeks/months we will be sharing resources on how to build care capacity and structures to survive the next few years and beyond. In the meantime, here are some spaces of courage and care to meet up and support one another:

• 11/8 @ 7PST: Love Power and Liberation with Angela Davis, Lama Rod Owens, Prentis Hemphill

• 11/13 @3PST: How We Move: Building a Politics of Care with CTZNWELL & friends

• 11/12 @9PST: Joy and Grief in Movement Power Building with adrienne maree brown, Malkia Devich Ceril and more.

WE-NESS

“Sometimes you don’t survive whole”. Essential wisdom from the great Toni Morrison

Art by @tinypricksproject

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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There will be no clear winners in this election - not when elected figureheads cater to corporate lobbyists over governing for the people (see Princeton University Study).

But there can be possibility.

Ash-lee Woodard Henderson reminds us that we must “Do today what makes tomorrow more possible…both in the living, in the abundance, in the joy that will be possible, but also in the resistance that we will be able to build to fight corporate democrats”.

What is needed in this moment - given everything that is at stake - is for all of us to channel our grief and rage into fighting for the conditions that allow us to resist dominance, build power, protect each other and demand a future that we all deserve. That means doing your part over the next 24 hours to got get your people and get out the vote.

Then, on November 6th, we get resourced and ready for the work ahead.

Let’s go.

Kerri (she/her)

5 things your need to read

• That “Little Secret” Between Trump and Johnson? Here’s What It Could Mean.

  The “secret” almost certainly involves a plan to install Trump in the White House if he loses the election—but this plan could be even worse than you think.

• How Will White Women Vote? It’s a Question With a Fraught History. White and Black women have joined together to power progressive causes — from abolition to civil rights — but it’s a tenuous alliance.

• Lesser of Two Evils? Our Fight Is Against Both, No Matter How We Vote. Pulitzer Prize Winner Viet Thanh Nguyen’s sobering message on the Quiet American versus the Ugly American in the US presidential election.

• What if there was an event in the future, the outcome of which you couldn’t personally control, but it was still causing you anguish? Rev. angel Kyodo williams on how to sit quietly in the middle of a storm.

• Can the Uncommitted Movement Realign the Democratic Party? Ending the genocide in Gaza and challenging the U.S. war machine require trying new tactics and refusing to cede political terrain.

5 things you can do…

AOC reminds us that we are not within the margin of error, “we are within the margin of effort”. The outcome of this election will be determined by who puts in the most work over the next 24 hours or so. And not only are you not alone in this, but you don’t need to do everything! Whether you’re on team GOTV, team election protection, or team mutual aid, we can all play our part in protecting democracy and creating the conditions for more/better. LFG:

1. TEXT YOUR FRIENDS: An easy and relational way to GOTV is to rally your friends. And now there is an easy and legal way to check to see if they’ve voted. Check out this tool and send along a sweet text asking if they have a plant to vote and what they might need 😜

2. PHONE BANK: One-on-One conversations are proven to be the most effective way to increase voter turnout and enthusiasm, and phone banking is the best way to reach voters remotely. If you’ve been wondering how you could do more to help win this Election, phone banking is for you. Sign up for election day phone banking with Working Families Party!

3. KNOCK THE BLOCK: Conversations with voters at the door are the most effective thing we can do to get people to vote. Consider reaching out to your neighbors and to make sure they have a plan to vote, understand what’s on their ballot, know their voting rights and to see if they need support.

4. SHARE YOUR BALLOT Local elections have the greatest impact on our lives; and yet 30% of people don’t vote down ballot. Research shows that that people who fill out their ballot in advance of voting are more likely to 1) show up 2) vote all the way down the ticket. If you’ve already researched your ballot, consider sharing what you learned with other people in your district.

5. COLLECTIVE CARE: As democratic structures continue to erode, creating infrastructure for collective care and mutual aid is becoming more and more important. Who are five people you can circle up with to 1) make sure they have a plan to vote 2) discuss whats at stake on your ballot 3) support one another as results come in over the coming days/weeks 4) build capacity with to take care and take action 5) share resources and protection if/when needed

WHAT’S AT STAKE

While the presidential election continues to take up all the space in our discourse, there is a lot at stake down the ticket. Local elections have the greatest impact on our lives; and yet 30% of voters don’t vote down ballot. Here’s what’s at stake:

• State Legislatures: State legislatures have been reshaping the daily lives of millions of Americans from abortion to education and several are in contest in this fall including Arizona, where Republicans hold majorities in the state House and Senate; Michigan, where Democrats control both chambers; Minnesota, where Democrats are defending the state House; New Hampshire, where Republicans are aiming to hold on to the state House; and Pennsylvania, where the Democratic-held state House is in play.

• Criminal Justice: Prosecutors, District Attorneys, supreme court judges will play a big role in determining whether and how state’s prosecute issues like abortion bans, climate accountability, police violence, gun control and more.

• Ballot measures: Voters across the country are set to decide on nearly 150 ballot measures next week that will shape the future of a wide variety of policy issues in their states including abortion, voting and elections, immigration, marijuana, economy and crime.

• School Board: More than 82,000 school board members in the United States make important decisions about school districts’ budgets, curriculum, and leadership every day. Yet school board elections are plagued by low voter turnout, sometimes as low as 5 to 10 percent. Uncontested seats and vacancies are also common. A Ballotpedia study of more than 5,400 school board elections in 2023 found that about 53 percent of school board seats were uncontested. Here are five reasons to pay attention to local school board elections.

CTA: Make sure you people are voting all the way down the ballot by checking in and asking if they have questions about what/who is on the ballot. You can even share your ballot if folks are interested to ensure people have what they need to vote all the way down the ticket!

Art by @theunapologeticstreetseries

FASCISM BAROMETER

What is fascism? Is it rising? How can we stop it? Organizers like Ejeris Dixon and Ash-lee Woodard Henderson have been warning us about the emerging movement of fascism for years. This episode of “The Fascism Barometer” is essential in helping us understand electoral fascism, measure the pressure on our communities and explore what we can do about it. It breaks down The Fascist Emergency Playbook which highlights what to look out for that is shaping this political moment (and the next):

1. Use the emergency to restrict civil liberties (ie: movement, protest, freedom of the press, a right to a trial and freedom to gather)

2. Use the emergency to suspend governmental institutions, consolidate power, reduce institutional checks and balances, and reduce access to elections and other forms of participator governance

3. Promote a sense of fear and individual helplessness, particularly in relationship to the state, to reduce outcry and create a culture where people consent to the power of the fascist state

4. Replace democratic institutions with autocratic institutions using the emergency as justification

5. Create scapegoats for the emergency - such as immigrants, people of color, disabled people, ethnic and religious minorities - to distract public attention from the failures of the state and the loss of civil liberties

Art and wisdom by @thefascismbarometer

ELECTION C0-REGULATION

PRACTICE: How do you sit quietly in the middle of a storm? In this episode of Search Engine Rev. angel Kyodo williams helps us learn how you could begin to quiet all the fears in your head that kidnap you from your actual life.

JOIN: Navigating the stress and anxiety of this political moment is A LOT. But we cannot let ourselves become burned out. Because November 6th is just the beginning. How we take care of each other in this moment and the next is going to determine our future. Join us RESOURCED & REGULATED (tomorrow @530EST) for a community of practice to support one another in taking care and taking action in these final moments of the election. It will be a space to get resourced and ready for the work ahead. Register here.

WE-NESS

You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it…

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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There is a lot to say about this election - about all that is at work and all that is at stake. I’ve done my best to aggregate in this toolkit helpful resources for understanding where we are, what is needed and how to take action and take care.

But the thing I’m feeling most deeply in this moment is how we need to do many things simultaneously. We must to do everything we can to block a racist authoritarian from seizing power and destroying our democracy. AND we also need to be relentless in demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo in the Middle East. For some people, these two things are in opposition. But I would argue that not only is blocking fascism and ending imperialist violence related, but our ability to hold and navigate these urgent needs at the same time is what is going to prepare us for what is sure to be an increasingly complicated and uncertain future.

As we navigate the next few days/weeks, I’d invite us to center these questions in all the things:

• Who are we accountable to in our votes and actions?

• What strategy creates the conditions for us to get more of what we need?

• What move is most aligned with ending genocide and imperial violence around the world?

• How can the practice of small democracy get us through this wave of fascism?

• How are we organizing the broader ecosystem?

• How do we grow a viable left third party space inside late stage capitalism?

• How are we building capacity for the long haul of libratory work?

• How do we be accountable to our imperial impact even as we organize within it?

Lastly, it is not enough to confront and navigate social and political systems of power. We must also tend to our individual and collective nervous systems if we are going to have the capacity to keep going, the courage to be accountable and the creativity to imagine beyond what we have inherited.

LFG.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @Amplifier

NTK (NEED TO KNOW)

• What the Movement for Palestine Can Learn From the Fight Against Apartheid. The successful push to change US policy toward South Africa provides a useful blueprint for our current moment.

• You’re not burned out, you’re being burned out. Joshua Hill on how we’re set up for burnout and why the only way out is through each other.

• In 2024 progressives are facing a tough choice—how to defeat Trump and put the Democrats on notice. Here’s 7 Strategic Axioms for the Anxious Progressive Voter.

• Naomi Klein on why Harris is “running an extremely high-risk, dangerous campaign” by abandoning the base and how we absolutely must take Trump's threats to "the enemy within" seriously. It can always get worse. Much worse.

• Why Is the Election Between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris So Close? By refusing to learn from the past, Democrats risk handing the White House back to Trump.

PRACTICING SOLIDARITY

The outcome of this election will be determined by who puts in the most work this week. Our democracy works best when it includes all of us. And that means having hard conversations, texting our friends, phone banking voters, knocking on doors, having ballot parties and using our voice and votes to make our demands clear. Here’s how you can play your part:

TEXT: There are a lot of ways to talk to potential voters about how to cast their ballots, and this is one of the best ways to engage and mobilize voters where they are—on their phones. Engage in peer-to-peer texting with When We All Vote.

PHONE BANK: One-on-One conversations are proven to be the most effective way to increase voter turnout and enthusiasm, and phonebanking is the best way to reach voters remotely. If you’ve been wondering how you could do more to help win this Election, phonebanking is for you. Check out phonebanking for introverts and newbies with WFP.

KNOCK DOORS: Conversations with voters at the door are the most effective thing we can do to get people to vote. No matter where you live, Seed the Vote can help you participate in the most powerful voter outreach efforts in swing states.

THROW PARTIES: Local elections have the greatest impact on our lives; and yet 30% of people don’t vote down ballot. Ballot parties invite us to gather with our community to get informed about what’s at stake in our local elections, have mindful debate about issues and candidates and complete our ballots so that we can turn them in and turn out the vote. Download the VOTEWELL ballot party guide.

SWAP VOTES: Many of us absolutely want to defeat Trump, but we also don’t want to just roll over and endorse a broken two-party system by voting for Harris.
Luckily Americans across the country have found a way to vote with our head AND our heart: #SwapYourVote. The key lies in teaming up to vote against Trump in the swing states that will decide the election, while lodging protest votes in safe states.

DEMAND AN ARMS EMBARGO NOW. On November 2, just days before the U.S. Presidential election, people will take to the streets across the entire country to say NO VOTES FOR GENOCIDE! The US government has the ability to enact an arms embargo, it has the ability to stop this genocide. This is the moment - while the race is razor thin - to leverage our collective voice and votes and demand an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo.

ELECTION PROJECTION: The 2024 November election is approaching and for many left movement groups, this means increased safety threats. Whether your group is door-knocking, protesting, or coordinating mutual aid, building safety infrastructure is critical to protect our communities Check out this electoral safety kit from Vision Change Win.

Art by @WorkingFamiliesParty

TURN OUT THE VOTE

While the presidential election continues to take up all the space in our discourse, there is a lot at stake down the ticket. Local elections have the greatest impact on our lives; and yet 30% of voters don’t vote down ballot. Ballot parties invite us to gather with our community to get informed about what’s at stake in our local elections, have mindful debate about issues and candidates and complete our ballots so that we can turn them in and turn out the vote. Here’s what to look out for:

• State Legislatures: State legislatures have been reshaping the daily lives of millions of Americans from abortion to education and several are in contest in this fall including Arizona, where Republicans hold majorities in the state House and Senate; Michigan, where Democrats control both chambers; Minnesota, where Democrats are defending the state House; New Hampshire, where Republicans are aiming to hold on to the state House; and Pennsylvania, where the Democratic-held state House is in play.

• Criminal Justice: Prosecutors, District Attorneys, supreme court judges will play a big role in determining whether and how state’s prosecute issues like abortion bans, climate accountability, police violence, gun control and more.

• Ballot measures: Voters across the country are set to decide on nearly 150 ballot measures next week that will shape the future of a wide variety of policy issues in their states including abortion, voting and elections, immigration, marijuana, economy and crime.

• School Board: More than 82,000 school board members in the United States make important decisions about school districts’ budgets, curriculum, and leadership every day. Yet school board elections are plagued by low voter turnout, sometimes as low as 5 to 10 percent. Uncontested seats and vacancies are also common. A Ballotpedia study of more than 5,400 school board elections in 2023 found that about 53 percent of school board seats were uncontested. Here are five reasons to pay attention to local school board elections.

Local elections have the greatest impact on our lives; and yet 30% of people don’t vote down ballot. Ballot parties invite us to gather with our community to get informed about what’s at stake in our local elections, have mindful debate about issues and candidates and complete our ballots so that we can turn them in and turn out the vote. Download the VOTEWELL ballot party guide.

Art by @Calendow

RESOURCED

I am every day amazed by this community and how much wisdom and power we have between and around us. Here’s a quick round up of of my favorite resources and gatherings over the next few weeks:

• TOOLKITS AND RESOURCES

  • Election Time with adrienne maree brown podcast series

  • The Fascism Barometer with Ejeris Dixon and Ash-lee Woodward Henderson

  • Electoral Safety Toolkit from Vision, Change, Win

  • Working Families Block & Build Toolkit

  • The 2024 Elections & Beyond: A toolkit on fortifying ourselves, our institutions, our ecosystems

  • VOTEWELL Ballot Party Guide

• VIRTUAL GATHERINGS AND CIRCLES

  • 10/30 Resourced and Regulated: A CTZN Community of Practice (530EST)

  • 10/30 Working Families Party Mass Call on “Election Day Survival Kit”

    11/5 *Election Day* Frontline Sanctuary with Gina Breedlove

    11/11 Where do we go from here with CTZNWELL

    11/12 Joy and Grief in Movement Power Building with adrienne maree brown, Malkia Devich Cyril & Linda Sarsour

    11/13 When No Thing Works with Roshi Norma Wong

Art by @Favianna1

CO-REGULATION

Navigating the stress and anxiety of this political moment is A LOT. But we cannot let ourselves become burned out. Because November 6th is just the beginning. How we take care of each other in this moment and the next is going to determine our future. Here are some tips on how to regulate and recover along the way….

• If you’re hyper-vigilant (non-stop scrolling, obsessively reading the news). Set a time each day to do a digital detox. Create a space of refuge in your home that can offer comfort and safety. Affirm that your vigilance exists to protect you but that you are allowed to let your guard down. Reach out to a friend.

• If you feel numb (disconnected, emotions locked behind a wall). Acknowledge that numbing your feelings is a way you protect yourself. Find safe spaces to feel your feelings. Try writing what you are feeling, witnessing and how you are reacting to it. Connect through physical sensations like taking a hot or cold shower, gentle movements, consensual intimacy.

• If you feel hopeless (disempowered, pointless, incapable). Look out for stories of people who are fighting for positive change (books, podcasts, songs). Reach out to a trusted friend. Take one small action (donation, sign a petition, provide water/supplies at protest)

• If you feel overstimulated (buzzy, sensitive, retreating). Make some space to lay down in a darkened room. Selectively turn your tech on/off, turn off non essential notifications. Take your shoes off and feel your feet on the ground.

• If your heart is breaking (despair, inaction, grief). Give yourself permission to rage and grieve. Join a grief circle. Make time to rest.

• If you feel stuck (frozen, indecisive, overwhelmed). Go for a walk or dance and get your body moving. Create a short and accessible to do list. Find an accountabuddy to check in with periodically.

• If you feel alone (isolated, unsupported). Start a group chat with people you love and trust. Explore local organizing or volunteering efforts. Join an online

Starting tomorrow we’re getting RESOURCED & REGULATED. Each day at 530EST we will gather in a community of practice to support one another in taking care and taking action in these critical days leading up to the election. It will be a space to get resourced and ready for the work ahead. Register here.

Art and wisdom by @FeministSexEd

WE-NESS

This. Truly.

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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On Friday, August 23rd, we’re coming together to debrief the DNC and explore what’s at stake, what’s possible and what’s next. This powerful gathering led by adrienne maree brown, Maurice Mitchell, Ash-lee Woodward Henderson and more will be a space for critical reflection and strategy as we make meaning of this moment and determine the best path forward.

The People’s Response with Working Families Party

Friday, August 23rd, 1EST, 10PST

Register HERE.

Everyone is welcome.

Register for the People's Response

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While there’s been a lot of hot takes, opinions, and pundits over the last few months. I’ve taken a step back from the fray to observe what is happening and listen for what is needed. In my older age, I’m learning (the hard way) that not everything warrants a reaction and that - perhaps - it is skillful to slow down and stay alert.

The speed at which things are moving and changing is faster than we can observe. In the last few weeks the political landscape has changed dramatically leaving many of us anxious and disoriented. What comes next, we don't know. There is no handbook for how we navigate unprecedented times. 

Things are not going to slow or settle down. The future will not be less uncertain or chaotic. These are the conditions of our reality - much of it an outgrowth of the unresolved trauma and gross inequality that we have inherited. 

The only questions are Will we rise to the occasion? Do have the capacity to adapt to the conditions as they emerge? Are we willing to be accountable for our part? Can we imagine better futures? 

These are some of the questions shaping our response and strategy over the next few days and months…for the sake of building collective capacity to meet this moment with the “fierce urgency of now” (as Dr King reminds us) AND be accountable to a future of greater political possibility and progress.

After this week’s convention, we’ll be kicking things off with a People’s Response THIS FRIDAY hosted by our friends at Working Families Party (details below).

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @wordsarevibrations

NTK (need to know)

• Ta-Nehisi Coates on how the DNC is preventing Palestinians from speaking for themselves, even as it touts diversity in Chicago, home to one of the highest concentrations of Palestinians in the U.S.

• Biden’s Gaza policy is a liability for Kamala Harris. She must break with Biden now and back an Israel arms embargo if she wants to win key states.

• Considering Project 2025’s explicit intent to reshape the federal government and decimate civil and human rights, this moment calls for an equally bold response that centers human and planetary needs—and uplifts the solutions that make them possible. Enter Progress 2025.

• “Billionaires in both parties should not be able to buy elections, including primary elections”. Bernie Sanders puts overturning Citizens United on the top of our list.

• Bombed hospitals, buried children: we have become numb to Gaza’s destruction. Hala Alyan on dehumanization as a prerequisite of most forms of violence.

Solidarity (pt. 1)

The energy at this week’s DNC is undeniable. But energy doesn’t translate to change unless we engage it. So we are coming together and holding space for strategic being, blocking and building towards a future of political possibility. Here’s where we’ll be this week:

DNC WATCH PARTY: Tune in Thursday at 945EST/645PST to watch Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris address the public and her party.

WFP PEOPLE’S RESPONSE: Join us Friday, August 23rd at 1EST/10PST as we make meaning of the DNC and engage in conversation about what’s next and what’s possible. Featuring the amazing Maurice Mitchell, Ash-Lee Woodward Henderson, adrienne maree brown and other amazing movement leaders.

NOT ANOTHER BOMB: We know that in order to achieve a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the U.S. must stop arming Israel’s war and occupation against Palestinians. That’s why we are calling for an immediate embargo on US arms to Israel. Join us in calling on presidential candidate Kamala Harris to enact an immediate arms embargo on Israel’s assault and occupation against Palestinians as a material step towards a permanent ceasefire.

SEED THE VOTE: Join WFP, Seed the Vote, and local partners on the ground in each swing state to talk to voters from the first week of September through Nov 5th, election day.

Art by @WorkingFamiliesParty

Solidarity (pt 2)

Shout out to the Uncommitted Movement for showing how democracy works. What began as 30 delegates at the DNC, has now expanded to 270+ delegates demanding a ceasefire and arms embargo. These delegates represent the majority of Americans who want a ceasefire. We also know from polling that with a policy change that conditions weapons to Israel is a winning strategy (especially in swing states).

Empathy, talking points and social media solidarity are good. But what we really need is policy change. We cannot have a cease fire while we supply the fire. Rather, this administration and the next needs to enact an immediate arms embargo on Israel’s assault and occupation against Palestinians as a material step towards a permanent ceasefire.

As people gather in Chicago for the 2024 DNC, we’ve joined a growing collective of voters in urging VP Kamala Harris to break with Biden and put her words into action. You can sign on here.

Art and Resources: @Uncommittedmvmt

Digging Deeper

As we navigate the complicated and often contradicting reality of this political moment, we’re spending a lot of time talking strategy. Strategy is not about what we believe to be true or possible. Strategy is discernment about HOW we move in the direction of truth and possibility. While principles help us dream up and define what collective liberation looks like, strategy is creating the conditions for change to be possible. It is a long game, made up of many small steps by many different people which weave together to reveal a new and different reality. Strategy is the steady relentless rhythm of our intentions and actions towards a better future. Here are some strategic questions that informing how we navigate the way forward.

• What is at stake in this election?

• What structural obstacles are in the way of political possibility?

• What do we need to build power?

• How are we building, blocking and being our way towards change?

• How do we respond in the short term to deliver in the long term?

• What is the strategy that includes ending genocide and colonial violence at home and abroad?

• How do we practice politics every day (and not just during election season)?

• What is our political strategy beyond electoral politics?

• How are we organizing the broader ecosystem to build a united front for collective wellbeing?

• Who are we accountable to?

Art and wisdom by @raeekayassaie

We-ness

Our love language.

Art and words by

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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I want to own that we have NOT done enough to bring attention to the crises in Sudan and Congo. Sudan and Congo are suffering from long standing conflicts with devastating humanitarian and environmental consequences. And yet these crises have received considerably less coverage and support around the world (despite the severity of suffering). According to @SudanInGermany

“It’s really sad and heartbreaking to see how unnoticed the pain of the people of Congo and Sudan goes. It’s sad to see how no one seems to hear, see or listen of what’s going on. For context: Selective activism refers to the tendency of individuals or groups to focus on specific issues or causes while ignoring others. In the context of the wars in Sudan and Congo, selective activism may manifest as disproportionate attention given to certain conflicts while others receive less awareness or advocacy.”

Responding to the accelerating and accumulating crises around the world requires that we go to the root to see how the threads of white supremacist colonial patriarchy binds us together. There is no liberation for any of us as long as people around the world are suffering at the hands of western power and greed. Our struggle like our resistance is intertwined. Together, we can build a collective capacity to hold all of the world’s pain and imagine a future big enough to care for us all.

Kerri (she/her)

Art by @RedMaat

NTK (need to know)

• For many American Jews protesting for Palestinians, activism is a journey rooted in their Jewish values. Powerful piece by the brilliant Atalia Omer

• No more excuses: The ICC prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants against Israeli leaders puts it beyond doubt: It’s time to cut off the weapons.

• Massachusetts taxed the rich. Now they have an extra $1.8 billion to spend. This tax-payer approved hike can now pay for free public school meals, free community college, and public transit.

• The participants in the student encampments “have rejuvenated us after months of militant protest, taking bold action for our transgenerational, collective vision of liberated peoples and lands across the world.” A Love Letter To the Student Encampments.

• Why school segregation is getting worse. Seventy years after the Brown decision, many students are divided by their race and socioeconomic status.

Solidarity (pt. 1)

Sudanese people are experiencing the largest displacement crisis in the world featuring genocide, famine, mass rape and ethnic cleansing. It is estimated that 5 million people have been displaced to date and 20,000 people are forced to leave their homes everyday by the fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces. According to the World Food Program 19 million people are facing extreme levels of hunger and very little international humanitarian aid is reaching the country. Here’s how you can support:

SUPPORT SUDANESE FOOD KITCHENS including the Khartoum Kitchen appeal,

PROVIDE HUMANITARIAN AID to 100 displaced families in Kassab camp and help bring sustainable aid to Sudanese families in Cairo.

EMERGENCY FUNDS Here are local and international organizations and campaigns that need your donations to help provide emergency aid to the millions affected by the ongoing war in Sudan:

BOYCOTT: The United Arab Emirates is a major player in the destruction and genocide happening there, and you have the power to impact their involvement. Start by boycotting all UAE merchandise, products, and tourism.

CONTRIBUTE TO ACTIVE EVACUATION CAMPAIGNS here.

FOLLOW THE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE WAY: @red_maat
@bsonblast @foreverjuicebae @project.taghyir @nasalsudan @yousraelbagir @sudanese_american_physicians @sudansolidaritycollective @womenofsudan @forsudaneseliberation

Resources: @lovediaraist @sudanupdates, Art by @sudan.zaman

Solidarity (pt 2)

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is considered one of the ‘richest’ countries in the world. That same country suffers from extreme levels of poverty while the country’s valuable natural resources are being looted from imperialist powers. The region’s vast mineral wealth (Cobalt and Coltan) fuels western technology industry and consumption trapping the Congolese people in a vicious cycle of exploitation and modern day slavery since 1996. What’s happening in the Congo is one of the most brutal and overlooked crises in modern history, with over 6 million people murdered, millions more severely injured and nearly 7 million displaced. While in the hands of capitalist greed and imperialist investment, there is no justice for the Congo. Here’s what you can do:

WATCH “When Elephant’s Fight”, a film documenting the illicit mineral trade in the DRC and the story of complicity that multinationals and global tech corporations don't want you to know about.

READ: Cobalt Red: How the Blood of Congo Powers our Lives, an unflinching investigation reveals the human rights abuses behind the Congo’s cobalt mining operation—and the moral implications that affect us all.

CHECK YOURSELF: The crisis in the Congo is tied directly to all of us and our gross consumption of smart phones, laptops and electric cars since 70% of the world’s cobalt is minded in the DRC (mainly by children). It is one Check out this tutorial and this one for more information on this environmental and human rights crisis.

DONATE: Here are some of the organizations that are doing amazing work and that know exactly what’s going on and what people need: @gomactif @panzifoundation @iheartafricadotorg @congofoodweek @congoliciousfoundation @congofriends

FOLLOW: @freecongodrc @congofriends @pappyorion @congoleseactionyouthplatform @focuscongo

Art and Resources: @freecongodrc

Digging Deeper

What does decolonizing look like as a practice and not just an idea? Education and conversation are important. But we must also ask ourselves if we are living into a decolonized way of being in our lives. Decolonization is an everyday practice of unlearning, divesting, reimagining and embodying another way of being. Here are some ways to engage:

DIVEST: One of the key strategies in decolonization is divesting from systems and structures that maintain and reinforce colonization and oppression. Turning away from systems of harm demands that we deprive complicit corporations and systems our support including consumer goods, voting, financial institutions, academia, gender norms, fast fashion, celebrity culture, policing, respectability politics and more.

INVEST: Building alternative systems of care and mutuality is also how we can untangle ourselves from the traps, addictions, attachments to colonization. This includes getting organized, building power and exploring new ways of being together and taking care of each other. This could include investing in community based medical clinics, education and daycare, affordable housing, indigenous leadership, alternatives to policing, mutual aid, cooperative economies and more.

NATIVE SOVEREIGNTY: Essential to the process of decolonization is returning land and restoring sovereignty to indigenous people. This includes centering indigenous wisdom (without appropriating it), deferring to indigenous leadership, fighting for the protection of indigenous land and land stewardship, and land back.

RECOVER YOURSELF: White western bodies should also focus on their own healing through ancestral healing and accountability, recovering lost culture and medicine, unlearning dominant patterns of separation and supremacy, and recalibrating our lives around interdependent values and action.

Resource from @theindigenousanarchist, Art and words by @NikkiBlak

We-ness

Be grateful you can feel…

Art by Laura Matsue

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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When leaders fail us, students lead. Student led “liberated zones” are popping up around the country to expose the system and demand better. These students are all of our teachers; not just in their demonstration of strategy and skillful action, but in their courage and commitment to justice. They are risking their individual futures for the promise of our collective liberation.

In return for their commitment to the more just world that we all deserve, students are met with snipers and military style tanks, rubber bullets and violent arrests, and a whole lot of gaslighting from powerful politicians, university administrators and major media outlets that demonizes protestors and weaponizes fear and anti-semitism as a cover for real truth - that western institutions/governments are more interested in maintaining power and accumulation than protecting lives and restoring democracy.

As James Baldwin said:

Americans keep wondering what has “got into” the students. What has “got into” the students is their history in this country. The question which they present the nation is whether or not we really want to be free.

Students are reminding us that we, the people, have power, that we are not alone, and despite the force of empire, we will prevail.

Keep going.

Kerri she/her

NTK (need to know)

• An anti-war movement is spreading on college campuses across America and beyond. Protests have been met with police violence, mass arrests and an unbending political class – all of which have only fueled the demonstrations further. Gen Z sees the Gaza protests as their 1968 moment: ‘We built this on their legacy’.

• Too many leaders, on campus and in government, are failing to uphold the First Amendment rights they claim to champion. Those Who Preach Free Speech Need to Practice It.

• As Biden administration and U.S. college and university administrators increasingly accuse peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters on school campuses of antisemitism, Israeli Holocaust Scholar Omer Bartov says they’re just weaponizing antisemitism & silencing dissent.

• “You are keeping no one safe, except for your donors, trustees, and the university’s endowment.” A letter to Columbia President Minouche Shafik from former Columbia University faculty, Robin G Kelley.

• Summer Lee Proves That “Opposing Genocide Is Good Politics and Good Policy”. Last week, the Pennsylvania representative voted against unconditional military aid for Israel. This week, she won what was supposed to be a tough primary by an overwhelming margin.

Solidarity

Why are students taking action? Students are demanding that universities divest from and cut ties with companies that do business with Israel. They follow a long legacy of protests in the spirit of harm reduction through boycott, divestment and sanctions. During the 1970s and 1980s, students at Columbia and other universities successfully pressed administrators to sell off investments in companies doing business with South Africa over the country's apartheid policies. And more recently, students have successfully called for some universities to divest themselves from companies tied to fossil fuels. Now 120+ schools around the country are collectively organizing to pressure institutions to withdraw their investments/support from Israel’s occupation. Here’s what they are asking for:

DIVEST: Students are demanding the institutions withdraw funds from companies and institutions that are contributing the Israeli occupation and apartheid. And some schools are listening….Brown, in an unprecedented move, struck a deal with its students to end their peaceful protest and encampment in exchange for a formal divestment vote from Israeli interests (and no students will be punished).

DISCLOSE: Provide full transparency of all assets including investments portfolios and funding through donations and grants.

ABOLISH POLICING: End the targeted repression and policing of pro-palestinan advocacy on campus and sever ties with law enforcement.

END THE SILENCE: Call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to the occupation and genocide in Palestine.

BOYCOTT: Sever all ties with Israeli universities and exchange programs.

For more on how we hold the line: follow the BDS movement.

Digging Deeper

Mainstream calls for “these students” to be more like the civil rights movement only shows how white washed our memory is. Empire has never allowed for peaceful protest. When thousands of school-aged children in Birmingham marched to protest segregation 61 years ago this week, they were met with hoses, attacked by police dogs and incarcerated. Students sitting at lunch counters, in movie theaters, in bus terminals and marching in public parks were met with violent suppression. We need to stop being surprised when protestors are demonized and met with violence..it is a direct replica of the violence enacted in justice movements of the past. Young people who are working to end mass slaughter are not the threat. The threat is the systemic effort to silence anyone who speaks up against the state. The threat are the riots squads that are sent in to brutalize peaceful protestors. The threat is the west’s obsession with dominance and greed that justifies horrific acts of colonization and violence. The kids are all right. Let’s follow them.

Art from @desireadee

We-ness

In these times, we’re turning to the words and wisdom of Grace Lee Boggs:

“A revolution that is based on the people exercising their creativity in the midst of devastation is one of the great historical contributions of humankind.”

“To make a revolution, people must not only struggle against existing institutions. They must make a philosophical/ spiritual leap and become more 'human' human beings. In order to change/ transform the world, they must change/ transform themselves.”

“People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative. We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity require a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.”

“We need to connect Visionary work with Resistance work. One is not possible without the other. Both are essential parts of a more holistic movement for change.

“These are the times to grow our souls. Each of us is called upon to embrace the conviction that despite the powers and principalities bent on commodifying all our human relationships, we have the power within us to create the world anew.”

“Love isn't about what we did yesterday; it's about what we do today and tomorrow and the day after”

Words by Grace Lee Boggs, Art by @chrisyisuh

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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I was inspired to write today because this eclipse feels like a much needed opportunity to reckon with ourselves. The world is on fire and we keep doing the same shit over and over and over again. This eclipse is here to shake things up and shatter the delusions that have shaped our reality for too long.

What would it look like if we - western society - finally did the shadow work of decolonizing, dismantling white supremacy, destroying the patriarchy, divesting from capitalism, detoxing from ableism? What if we - all of us - looked deep inside ourselves to interrogate the ways we have internalized the logic of dominance, how it has shaped us into soldiers of supremacy and how it has held us back from ourselves and each other?

It’s time to stop living from our wounded selves and start healing. It means growing up and taking responsibility for our part in this mess.

This eclipse is presenting us with a critical choice point:

Will we continue to be complicit in the vicious cycle of dominance and harm?

OR will we choose something different and move towards the the unknown realm of unconditional love and liberation?

May this eclipse reveal whatever is needed to set us all free.

Kerri she/her

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NTK (need to know)

• Those mobilising against the Israeli genocide face exhaustion and burnout. This is the result of Israel’s ‘war of attrition’. Palestinians and the world must not lose hope.

• The administration seems to think that Democratic voters are idiots who can’t tell the difference between rhetorically repackaging a policy and stopping the policy. Primary voters in swing states are putting Biden on notice (and building power).

• When we learn about crime we’re told to focus on the robbery, but never on why someone might turn to theft. It’s always the actions of an individual that we’re told to judge, and never their circumstances, or the system they live under, or the policies that have shaped their life. Who decides what violence is?

• Our survival on this planet depends on creating nimble responses to accelerating scales, scopes, and speeds of change. By creating containers for collective imagination of what the future can bring, speculative futures helps us create those responses together. What If The Best Times Are Still To Come?

• What our movements get right, what they get wrong, why they must learn to celebrate their own victories and grow more inclusive, how we should think and talk about America as a country, and so much more. Rebecca Solnit wants a joyous, inviting left — not an angry, Puritanical one

Solidarity

This week we are reaching beyond trans visibility into action. Visibility is essential but does not ensure safety for trans people in an increasingly hostile environment. In 2024 alone, 479 anti-LGTBQ bills have been introduced across the country. What is needed is for all of us to take actions towards a future for trans people. Chase Strangio, trans lawyer and activist, says “to *see* us means recognizing that static notions of power, embodiment and desire can never capture human experience; to celebrate us means recognizing that which is deemed immutable is in fact contingent; and to love is us is to realize that our stories (like all stories) are ever in process, always uncertain, necessarily subjective, and deeply beautiful. No amount of violence can reduce us to something as inadequate as a coherent legal subject. We are so much more. Shapeshifting, invisible, deviant, defiant, I love us.” Here’s how you can show up and take action:

USE AFFIRMATIVE LANGUAGE: “Language can harm or heal, create oppression or liberation. The choice is ours.” Check out Alex Kapitan’s Radical Copywriter blog for best practices for how to talk about trans liberation.

FIGHT ANTI-TRANS BILLS: Contact state legislators and governors in states where anti-trans laws are on the table. Check out this tracker to to know what is happening where you live.

SUPPORT TRANS GROUPS ON THE GROUND: Follwo the people who know the way. One of the best things you can do is donate to local groups that help trans people in states across the country. Here’s a useful list of some other groups and organizations that could use your help in states where anti-trans bills are law or are close to becoming law.

Art by Fox Fisher

Digging Deeper

Eclipse season is when times starts to blur. The past converges with the present making new futures possible. The moon represents the subconscious - memories, intuition, past lives - while the sun represents the conscious - present, sight, clarity. When the moon covers up the sun, our shadows come forth and demand to be seen, heard and felt. While this can be an uncomfortable process, it sets us free from the binds that have been holding us back. This eclipse is inviting us to ask hard questions of ourselves and each other. Here are some questions to guide your eclipse journey today and beyond:

• What shadow elements (historical or present) are blocking your growth and vision?

• What lessons can you learn from past mistakes/experiences ?

• What are the messages you are receiving that can point the way forward?

• How can you nourish this transition?

• What does it look like to do something different?

Art and words by Medicine Mami

We-ness

Everything is bad…but the moon and the sun and the stars!

Art by Tracy Rector Art

Spring is a time for purification, renewal and birth. Join Kerri Kelly for a powerful home retreat to cleanse the body, clear the mind and catalyze change. Throughout 7 days, we will embark on a transformative process of mind-body purification using the chakra system as a guide to expose the places where we are stuck so that we can discover new capacities for change and creativity. Together, we will move through an experience of grounding and detoxification, reflection and reconciliation, creativity and manifestation as we make the journey from where we are coming from and where we are going. Our journey will include daily customized practice, journaling assignment, LIVE community coaching and tools for transformation and daily self care rituals. It will be a powerful and nourishing experience that will soothe your soul and seed your highest intention. Sliding scale. Register HERE.

Thanks for subscribing to WELLREAD. For the last six years we’ve been providing folks with the need to know (NTK) news, calls to actions and resources for how to stay engaged and resourced along the way. But now, we’ve added an option to “upgrade to paid” to help sustain our work. While we will never put our content behind a pay wall, we depend on the support of our community to keep us going. 💛

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Trying to be “normal” in a world that is collapsing is intolerable. Scrolling through instagram, my feed alternates between horrific and unimaginable images from Gaza and the anti-aging benefits of ice baths. It is a brutal paradox made worse by the likelihood that these poly-crises are culminating to a disastrous future.

I feel the dissonance in my own body. The seduction of getting distracted and buying into the familiarity, comfort and convenience that fascism is selling us.

But when I’m rooted in remembering - I can see how oppression and apathy have the same rotten root. But so does liberation and with-ness. And if we can learn to be with one another during this time and trusted in our true nature and inherent interdependence, then anything can bloom.

Angela Davis reminds us “During this coming period, our primary job will be to build community, to create community…in ays that allow us to understand that the work that we do now does matter, even if we cannot see in an immediate sense the consequences of the work we are doing. It will matter eventually.”

This week’s WELLREAD is full of really good questions. Answers, not so much. But I am learning that questions are so much more generative than answers. Questions often breed more questions, better questions, whereas answers cut us off from what lies just beyond our knowledge and limited imagination. Here are some questions that are inspiring us this week:

• Bayó Akomolafe asks “What do we do about a world in peril?”

• Robin G. Kelley asks “Why is colonialism not a crime against humanity?”

• Hala Alyan asks “What is the task of the diasporic witness?”

• Arundhati Roy asks “Does extreme suffering always kindle cruelty? What hope does this leave the human race with?”

May we living into these questions with curiosity and compassion as they reveal to us what is needed and where to go next.

Kerri she/her

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NTK (need to know)

• “Our chants of “Cease-fire now” should ring in every conflict zone, and the lessons of Palestine, South Africa, Namibia, Vietnam, Algeria, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, India, the former Yugoslavia, and others ought to be remembered”. Robin G Kelley on how colonialism is what got us here.

• “We do not act upon the world. We are the world in its unspeakable tensions, contradictions, experimentations, creativities, and messy alchemies. It is not left to us to save the day”. Bayo Akomolafe invites us to consider a Politics of the Third Way.

• “No amount of commentary about the cruelty, no amount of condemnation of the excesses committed by either side — and no amount of false equivalence about the scale of these atrocities — will lead to a solution”. Arundhati Roy on why we must stop this slaughter in Palestine (for the sake of all of us).

• There’s no denying the grief that permeates everyday life. It’s in the news, in our communities, and in our personal lives. The thing is - we never really talk about how much this grief connects us. Malkia Devich-Cyril on it’s ok if you’re not ok.

• The violence of modernity has cut us off from ourselves and each other. Which is why in order to win, we must feel. Reclaiming the language of sensation for times of polycrisis.

Solidarity

Art by Just Seeds

A terrifying new report from Louisiana shows just how dangerous and disruptive the abortion ban is to pregnancy care. The report finds pregnant women have been denied timely treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, given risky, unnecessary surgeries, and forced to wait until their life is at risk before getting an abortion. Here’s what you need to know:

VOTEPROCHOICE: Protecting abortion means electing candidates up and down the ballot who will increase access to reproductive health care, especially in states and areas where reproductive freedom is most on the line. Follow VOTEPROCHOICE to get the latest on what’s at stake in your state.

State Ballot Initiatives: Since Dobbs, 6 states – California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Vermont, and Ohio – have voted on abortion related constitutional amendments, and the side favoring access to abortion prevailed in every state. There are efforts underway in 13 additional states. Find out what’s happening in your state.

Digging Deeper

Art by Dylan McGarry

I’ve spent a lot of time with this powerful article by Hala Alyan this week on what it means to be a witness. Dylan McGarry writes: “To be witness is to be with. Wit(h)nessing is where most of us find ourselves, being present with and holding vigil. For many of us, it is within the most horrific moment for humanity to witness -to become with - in our lifetimes.” The spirit of being-with vs by-standing is more active. It says that we are both implicated and impacted by what is happening all around us. Therefore, it is not enough to be moved by it, we must move with it towards collective healing and action.

We-ness

We love this reminder from @disssgrace.

Check out this special workshop happening THIS WEEKEND for white people who are ready to reckon with white supremacy and explore what it’s going to take to heal. REGISTER HERE.

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Hey y’all,

This is my first post in a while as I am just returning from a 3 month learning-sabbatical in Brazil. Being outside the US where the global majority is unified in its outrage and solidarity with Palestine, only to return to a place where people are still debating what to call it and who is more worthy of peace is disorienting and discouraging.

But I found some hope this week in the small and big acts of people around the country who organized to use their votes to hold this administration accountable and say “no more no further”.

We only have power if we use it. And at a time when the political process is becoming increasingly divorced from the will of the people, it is essential that we not just use it, but we use it skillfully and strategically. Palestinians and protestors around the world have shown us what it looks like to use our power. Now we, Americans, have to do our part and use our power to demand a permanent ceasefire and an end to the violence. And that is just the beginning of our work to decolonize ourselves and this system we are a part of.

Che Guevara once said “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all—you live in the belly of the beast.” This moment is calling us to play our part in dismantling the imperialist beast from within. May use and organize our power towards a better future for all.

Kerri she/her

Art by @Raeekayassaie

NTK (need to know)

1. Never Again. While “the richest, most powerful countries in the western world, those who believe themselves to be the keepers of the flame of the modern world’s commitment to democracy and human rights, are openly financing and applauding Israel’s genocide in Gaza”, the people (who have flooded the streets around the world millions of protestors on the streets of Europe and the US) are the hope for the future of the world. Arundhati Roy on “never again”...again.

2. Whats at stake? Everything. Besides the catastrophic global implications of an ongoing siege of Rafah and what is left of Palestine are more intimate threats to us at home. Enter Project 2025 - The Christian tight’s dystopian plan to destroy civil rights and dismantle democracy as we know it. The plan is a very real (and terrifying) glimpse into the future if Republicans gain control of the WH.

3. The commitment of the uncommitted. Over a quarter million Democrats have voted “uncommitted” in the primaries (including in multiple “swing states” that were essential to Biden’s 2020 victory) sending a clear message that our votes are not a given, but need to be earned. Uncommitted or “no preference” voters are abandoning Biden so much as they are holding him accountable for not honoring the will of the people. The growing movement is a testament to our power and what is possible when we wield it. Here’s what you need to know and where the movement goes next.

4. Where we go from here. As we continue to organize and build power, we must wield it strategically. So much is hinging on whether or not the Biden administration will finally listen and respond to the majority of Americans who want a permanent cease-fire and end unrestricted military aid to Israel. Tune in tonight as WFP responds to the State of the Union and puts forth a plan for economic, social and racial justice in this election and beyond.

5. The future. “Palestinians are one of the final reminders that a future without colonialism is possible. Right now, we continue to prepare for a future without colonialism while so many powers across the world are preparing for a world without Palestinians. Our presence and persistence reveal a dangerous truth. We are not only a register of love and life in the most precious and precarious of ways, we are a register of what is real.” Devin Atallah AND Sarah Imhoud on what’s at stake in a world without Palestinians.

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Solidarity

But the electoral process is not the only way (nor the best way) to bring about transformative change. Politics is one critical tactic towards harm reduction (especially in this moment), but we need to work change at every level - the level of personal in how we examine our beliefs and behaviors, the level of social in how we take care of each other and repair harm, the level of culture in how we build new stories of who we are and what’s possible, and the level of spirit in how we recover our human nature from the project of domination.

STAY CURIOUS, ASK HARD QUESTIONS: It is especially important that we, the creators of change, change ourselves. Because systems don’t just create themselves, people create them. So we need to become the change we wish to see in the world - which means taking a good hard look at how we’ve been shaped, howe we’re internalizing and replicating dominant patterns and tactics, how we be with each other across difference and conflict, and how we decolonize our imagination so that we can bring forth a future that is beyond that which we have inherited.

EMBODY YOUR VALUES: This where the personal meets the political and turns theory into praxis…through where we put our attention and energy, how we show up. and speak up for justice, how we spend our money, how we vote, etc.

DO SOMETHING: Being a citizen comes with responsibility. It is our job to hold our elected officials accountable to the will of the voters. That means doing your homework, making calls, having conversations with your peers and voting up and down the ballot.

Art: @ARestfulSpace

Digging Deeper

I frequently get asked the question whether I feel hope or despair in these times. To be honest, I struggle to answer it… think because I often feel both at the same time. I really love this take from @DismantlingTheMastersTools that suggests the two can co-exist. She asks “what if we could relate to despair less as a destination to which we are eternally doomed and more as a data point that illuminates the gaps in our relationship with hope in any given moment.” In fact the etymology of the word “despair” means “down from hope” Here are some reflection prompts to help us discern and dig deeper:

• Are we away from hope because we are not clear or aligned on where we are going (goals)?

• Are we away from hope because we are afraid we will not reach this goal?

• Are we away from hope because we are struggling to tolerate disappointment?

• Are we away from hope because upon encountering obstacles we cannot find alternatives to reach our goal?

• Are we away from hope because we ultimately do not belief we will get there?

There are no wrong answers to this inquiry, rather more clarity on where we are and what we need to practice hope.

Source: Dismantling The Masters Tools

We-ness

Stay human.

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