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. 💛

Upgrade to paid

I have been a student of organizing and civil disobedience for the last 15 years. I say student because the more I know about how to build power and create change the more I realize I don’t know. I used to think that martyrdom and saving the world was the way forward. That hard work and hustle translated to transformation. But a broken back and chronic pain has taught me that heroic individualism will never get us free. Solidarity is the only way.

Solidarity arises out of mutuality. We practice solidarity when we understand and embody the truth that our wellbeing and liberation are bound. No one person or politician is coming to save us. Only WE can save us.

But working together across difference invites us to acknowledge the ways in which we are impacted (and implicated) in different and disproportionate ways. That means that our right roles and responsibility are different and we can rely on each other to step up and fill in the gaps when needed.

Appreciating this practice of collective care and action as I finally emerge from a chronic pain flare up and get back to work.

Kerri (she/her)

NTK (need to know)

1. One man killed Jordan Neely - but we all failed him. Everything about Neely’s death is a symptom of our collective rot—from the way we treat poverty as a crime to the way we treat soldiers as weapons that can be stowed.

2. Get ready for a hot labor summer. When it comes to addressing our biggest challenges, it’s hard to imagine succeeding without the mass base and resources of a reinvigorated labor movement.

3. Here are 7 everyday patterns to shift systems towards equity. Maybe there were pockets of the future that already exist in the work we were doing that could help transition systems towards equity.

4. It’s happening here. The MAGA drive toward one-party rule based on a white Christian Nationalist agenda, and discuss strategies to block it while building independent progressive power along the way.

5. Intention is not action. New institute aims to enshrine inclusivity in all aspects of neuroscience and psychology research.

Upgrade to paid

Solidarity

Year to date, there have been 14,321 deaths due to gun violence. It is the #1 killer of children in the US. While pundits and politicians will make up all kinds of reasons as to why gun violence is not a problem, the data doesn’t lie: it’s the fucking guns! As we get ready to march in Denver with Here4theKids on June 5th, here is some essential myth-busting to help you go get your people:

MYTH: URBAN HOMICIDES FALSELY INFLATE STATISTICS ON U.S. GUN DEATHS. The common trope is that places like Baltimore or Detroit or Chicago are the reason we have so many gun deaths in this country but the places with the highest rates of death are not Maryland, Michigan, and Illinois. Rather, states with weaker gun laws have higher rates of firearm related homicides and suicides.

MYTH: MASS SHOOTINGS ARE THE RESULT OF MENTAL HEALTH. There is a common misperception amplified by mainstream media and government officials that people “go crazy” or enter some altered state of consciousness and start shooting. Rather, shooters are often linked with ideology, racism, and/or “perceived injustice” versus mental illness in many of these cases.

MYTH: IN MOST MASS SHOOTINGS, PERPETRATORS DO NOT KNOW THE PEOPLE THEY KILL. A study published in 2021 found that in over 68% of mass shootings, the perpetrator killed at least one partner or family member and had a history of domestic violence. 

MYTH: THERE ARE MORE GUN DEATHS IN THE U.S. BECAUSE AMERICA IS A VIOLENT SOCIETY. Most developed countries do not have anywhere close to the rates of homicides that we do. It’s driven by accessibility and ideology. By making guns readily available to almost anyone, we end up protecting those who sell weapons and own weapons versus the protecting the safety of the broader public.

MYTH: WE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO TO CURB GUN VIOLENCE. Yeah no. We have more guns than people in this country, yet we are the only country that continues to experience exceptionally high rates of firearm homicide and fatal mass shootings.

MYTH: THERE'S A POLITICAL DIVIDE ABOUT SUPPORTING GUN REFORM. Wrong. Most Americans, including the majority of gun owners, support evidence-based policies to regulate gun control.

Here4TheKids is organizing a sit-in of 25k+ non-disabled, cisgender white women 18+ from around the country on Monday, June 5 at 5AM in Denver Colorado to demand Governor Jared Polis sign an executive order to ban and buy back all guns.

The focus on non-disabled, cisgender white women 18+ is due to the fact that historically and statistically they possess economic and social influence; and, as a demographic, they are the least likely to be brutalized by police.For those who hold marginalized or vulnerable identities, we ask you to not show up in Denver and instead join our remote campaign.

Artwork: Moms Demand

Let this radicalize you

This has been one of the mantras that has inspired me to keep going over the last decade. And it was inspired by the teaching of Mariame Kaba who reminds us that “hope is a discipline”. In this most recent episode of Movement Memos, Kelly Hayes talks to Mariame Kaba about the the perils of visibility, and how we cultivate hope in our lives and work. And be sure to pick up the forthcoming book: Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care. I really love this book and episode and I hope you will too.

WE-NESS

Right Action = Revolution.

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. 💛

Upgrade to paid