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We're still buzzing from CTZN Summit and feeling ready for the work ahead. Navigating the next few weeks and months is going to demand not just action, but rigor and resilience. Feeling grateful for the spiritual sustenance we received this week and community connection that reminds us why we are showing up. Because the stakes are high and only getting higher. And when good people don’t act, evil reigns. [[link removed]]How we show up in this moment is going to determine who we are as a community and as a country.
This weekend, Prentis asked:
This moment is asking you to change. Are you ready to be a real person now?
Now is the time to put our practice into action and become the people we have all been waiting for.
Join us tomorrow for a VOTEWELL Community Call (7pET) as we reunite in practice and action and prepare ourselves for the work ahead. [[link removed]]
Kerri (she/her)
Stop thinking that the horrors of the world will simply work themselves out. When good people don’t act, evil reigns. [[link removed]] [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
Those fighting to make America less racist are not our law-and-order problem. America’s real law-and-order problem is, and always has been, racism [[link removed]]. Check out this interview between Anand Giridharadas and Senator Chris Murphy. [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
The recent discovery of coerced hysterectomies in ICE custody can be seen as another episode in a much longer trajectory of sterilization abuse and reproductive injustice against black and brown women. Here’s what you need to know [[link removed]]. [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
The women making conspiracy theories beautiful. How the domestic aesthetics of instagram repackage QAnon for the masses [[link removed]]. [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
We have been set up to fail. [[link removed]]In shifting so much responsibility to individual people, America’s government has revealed the limits of individualism. We’re left with no good choices and navigating risk at every turn. [click to tweet] [[link removed]]
Democracy isn’t democracy if the people don’t vote. Between the dismantling of the USPS, the myth of voter fraud, disinformation and conspiracy theories, the looming pandemic and voter apathy, we’ve got our work cut out for us. One of the most important strategies to turn out the vote is to make sure everyone you know knows their local voting rules and makes a plan to vote. On September 22nd, National Voter Registration Day, we’re inviting you to host a “Plan Your Vote” zoom call with your local community so that you can get prepared and ready to vote! Sign up to get your downloadable “Plan Your Vote” guide. [[link removed]]
Join us TOMORROW NIGHT (7pET) for a VOTEWELL Community Call as share resources and map out the work ahead. [[link removed]]
This week, wellness leaders stood up against QAnon and the conspiracy theories that are trying to undermine liberation and wellbeing for all. Here’s what you need to know:
Where did it come from? The beliefs associated with QAnon are not new. Conspiracy theories have been an American obsession. But the most recent iteration stems from the idea that President Trump will save the world from a “deep state” cult of pedophiles who eat children, worship the devil and run the country’s most powerful institutions. But what you might see on the surface are calls to #savethechildren and end sex trafficking, anti-vaxx sentiment, criticism of the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist organization and hyper individualized self-determination that looks like anti-mask rhetoric, pro wellness immune boosting strategies and demands for greater personal responsibility.
What do we need to know about them? QAnon is not just a conspiracy theory, it’s a decentralized cult that feeds off of other alternative movements and funnels people into a pro-Trump front. People are often drawn to conspiracy theories from a place of insecurity, uncertainty and isolation, so pandemics, nationwide protests, the coming election have provided fertile ground to scale. But it’s reaching new audiences in anti-vaxx communities, anti-mask activists, mommy bloggers and alternative health advocates who are uncomfortable with the state of affairs and searching for meaning. In other words, QAnon followers are among us.
Why does it matter? People turn to conspiracy theories in times of great uncertainty and fear (sound familiar?), so it’s no wonder there is a resurgence during this time. But the mainstreaming of QAnon is real, infiltrating news media, congressional races, social media influencers and the wellness community. That’s right, QAnon is closer than you think, leveraging spiritual and wellness rhetoric to bypass social justice and justify hyper individual practice and policy. And all of it is working to undermine advances towards social justice, collective care and the 2020 election.
How do you talk to people who support QAnon?
Be informed and able to identify the signals of QAnon messaging so that you can engage in skilled and effective ways.
Don’t fact-check and myth bust conspiracies. One of the challenges about his movement is that there isn’t one singular conspiracy or rationale. Thus, combatting it with criticism is futile and only reinforces their position and belief system.
Do disrupt by asking questions, listening to understand, sharing personal stories and appealing to their values. It also looks like speaking out on our own platforms about social justice values and collective care (and refraining from commenting on their feeds as that just fuels the algorithm).
Build culture for collective care and against hyper-individualized wellness strategies. Peer pressure is real and the more we can build collective power around values of interdependence and mutual care, the more likely we are to overcome this toxic trend.
Lastly, the point is to save democracy, not center QAnon. This purpose of this is to give you the information and skills needed to head conspiracy theories off at the pass and keep your eyes on the prize (winning in November and building a politics of care).
For more on all things conspiracy theories, check out the podcast Conspirituality [[link removed]] and Nothing Can Stop What is Coming. [[link removed]]
48 days to go until election day. But our work doesn’t stop there. There will be no neat and tidy result to this election and the certainty about the future we are all so desperately seeking is unlikely. So, the transition integrity project built a series of post-election scenarios to help us plan for the inevitable “what’s next”. [[link removed]] What they discovered, was that the scenario that generated the least harm was a landslide victory for Biden in both the popular vote AND the electoral vote. Beyond that, the election will likely spark violence and a constitutional crisis. The point of this is not to scare you, but to prepare you. So we must be rigorous in action for the next 47 days and do everything in our power to get our friends, co-workers and family members to vote our values up and down the ballot. But we must also be resilient in spirit and prepare to defend our democracy and care for our communities for whatever comes next. This is not a drill. This is a calling to embody the practice of collective care that we have been training for. Now it’s time to put our practice into action.
Reminder:
WELLREAD is community powered and crowd-sourced. That’s how we keep it real. Join us on Patreon [[link removed]] for as little as $2/month so that we can keep creating content that matters for CTZNs who care.