Gather around: All in favor of not giving up

Yesterday, I went on a feminist tour of my city. The tour covered feminist Czech icons from the 1800’s and beyond. We visited statues who used to be nameless faces and a couple of buildings that before were inconsequential. Did you know that the city with the highest percentage of streets named after women is Stockholm, Sweden, with only 19%? And that the woman who helped design the new Czech National Theater is left off the Wikipedia page? Small things do make a difference. I left feeling equal parts depressed, inspired, and angry. Which, I think, will be the theme maybe forever until things change.

My best friend texted me this morning to give me updates about what’s going on with the national parks in the US. She’s worked for the forest service for years, in two different parks. She’s amazing at her job and we used to joke that someday she’d be the president of the forest. It looks like now she’ll lose her job and the forest will quite literally be sold as timber to private citizens. Thin gs like this feel hopeless. There’s so many people with the money and power to stop this. There’s so few who seem to care.

It used to be my job to write about environmental and humanitarian issues around the planet. One of the only things I remember from this time was how Earth Day was created–protests with 70 million students all around the country. This led to the formation of the EPA. Other people have written about this more eloquently.

You can get out in the streets and protest, too. In 2020 I planned a Women’s March in my town because the closest one was going to be 45 minutes away. Turns out, there IS a Women’s March chapter in my town but they didn’t feel like organizing because of the Proud Boys. We marched to Mar-a-Lago and we were fine. A little over 50 people showed up. I can’t say much about the outcome of the protest; Trump DID lose the election that year and we were pleasantly surprised by the lack of counter-protesters. I started it all on Instagram, following local communities that might be interested. I reached out to organizations that might be interested in collaborating. A friend of a friend had large signs printed. It at least felt like a moment of solidarity.

On the other side of the country, the westboro baptist church (derogatory) showed up to Claude’s high school for some stupid reason. Him and a friend who was still involved with the current GSA put together a counter protest the week before cause wbbc moves quick but the gays moved quicker. LGBT+ centers in town helped with sign making and the locals, students, and alumni were ready first thing that morning. It was a beautiful sight, someone brought yards and yards of rainbow fabric and drew it across their hateful displays so that the kids could go to school in peace. People young and old showed up to support, pass out waters, and play hippie dad rock cause that was kind of their speed in beach towns.

The way Earth Day was created is not unique, this is how change has happened for centuries. I’m inspired by people getting in the streets, organizing boycotts, sharing information about our past to guide our futures; now it’s our turn.

We too have been here before, since we were young we have been fighting, and in doing so, learning the tools of resistance and local solidarity. As time passes and our humanity becomes more densely interconnected, we are ready for anything. We can’t forget where we came from and how resistance is embedded in our very essence. The internet shows us 100000 fights a day. Just know right where you are is a powerful place to sow the seeds of community, solidarity, and hopes of brighter tomorrows.

The internet is a vast universe for us to organize, don’t be afraid. It connects us to people far and wide who dream just like us. Our activism has become infinitely more complex since our neighborhood protests, and that can be a beautiful thing!

You can dream borderlessly and find community efforts that we are passionate about on our Global Aid page. Cut red cards with your friends, pass them out at the market. Carve community spaces that would only exist in your wildest dreams, you are capable of creating the world you wish to live in today.

One day, maybe we could all just lay down in the forest and write about it. Today, we create our most luminous future one connection at a time.

Keep gathering, keep learning, and never give up.

<3 the editors of Opal Age Tribune

collaborative piece by katie h. & claude joven