Once upon a time, when I would get annoyed by someone’s actions—particularly online—I would feel the immediate need to respond, but with age comes the ability to sit with things. To think about whether it’s just my ego talking and to decide if it’s really an issue worth addressing openly. It turns out that if you read the Four Agreements enough times, that one chapter on not taking things personally really does stick.
Which is why I have waited several days to sit down and write this piece, because I was really struggling with whether it was my ego or whether my feelings were indicative of a larger issue with the world. I decided it was the latter and here we are.
My last post was about HR 9495, which no doubt by this point you have heard about, but if not, here is a brief recap from that piece.
The bill would let the Treasury secretary designate an organization as “terrorist-supporting” without any explanation or proof, and then end its 501(c)(3) status. That language is paired with legislation to provide tax relief for people detained or held hostage abroad and their spouses, a decision that critics say was made to force through the nonprofit policy.
This bill is not just a threat to free speech, it is a threat to non-profits, the only sector that might be able to push back against the incoming administration. Here’s the thing: Any organization could get caught in the Treasury department’s web. Your mission might be straightforward, but as I am reading this—as someone with 27 years of non-profit experience and 16 as an executive director, with a masters in non-profit management—if you ever issued a statement in support of saying the Palestinians are being oppressed, for example, you might find yourself at risk of losing your exemption. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like calling for defunding the police might not get the same treatment under the incoming administration.
I wrote and published my piece on Sunday, November 17, 2024, almost a full 24 hours before it started being talked about widely. Not only did I write the piece and put it on all my platforms, but I was in conversations with other non-profit directors and organizers as we were all in a state of disbelief but also realizing that we need to activate.
One of the reasons I wrote the piece was because as the director of a 56-year-old racial justice organization, it has become extremely clear that while things look unchanged in this moment before Trump officially takes office, the terrain has already changed. If organizers and activists plan on working during the next Trump term, there is little time to rest. Knowing the bill was going to a vote on Monday, I knew there was very little time to get folks on the phones and sending emails out to representatives.
While many people appreciated the information and did spring to action, I had several people question my information because they had done their own “research,” and they believed the bill was dead. Well, if you read my piece and you decided to Google whether I was accurate, it would indeed seem that the bill was dead—unless you spent significant time scrolling. The speed at which the GOP was moving with this thing meant that the bill’s sudden resurrection didn’t get much coverage at first. In fact, there was more international coverage on this bill and its status than there was domestic coverage, which should also tell you something about the state of our media and the suppression of news domestically.
The only reason I found out was because of several emails that landed in my work inbox that were marked urgent, and they weren’t from mainstream media outfits—they were from activists’ organizations; smaller grassroots ones. Ones like mine that often have folks on the ground and not just chronically online, because they don’t have the time or energy for that. Or as in our case, we no longer have a communications person because we can no longer afford that position which means our social media is rarely updated.
Hell, not even the ACLU at that point had updated their socials—most likely because it was Sunday afternoon before it became absolutely clear that we were not in the clear on this bill.
While it is important to verify information to avoid spreading misinformation, the rapidly changing nature of things means that increasingly you may be presented with information that is important and requires action, but you can’t independently verify it with the Google machine. That means you are going to have to build trust with who you are receiving your information from and that will mean vetting who you are getting this information from.
It is popular to follow activist creators on various platforms. Many of these folks are knowledgeable, but being a creator on TikTok or Instagram is not the same as being affiliated with groups and organizers on the ground. We saw this in Ferguson, in the aftermath of Mike Brown’s death. Many of the most visible people who we came to associate with the work were not the people doing the work. They were not the folks whose lives were turned upside down because of their organizing. In some cases, their visibility allowed them to grow financially comfortable and led to endless opportunities because that’s what the social media machine does. It rewards visibility, not necessarily the truth, integrity or commitment to the cause.
We see people with large followings and mistakenly assume they are the people in the know when most people closest to the work don’t have time to be posting online for a myriad of reasons, including safety. This isn’t to say that these more prominent folks don’t know anything, but there is a huge difference between being a social media personality or an activist who uses social media to discuss social issues and build a platform, and someone who does the work and knows the players and has access to direct information who uses social media. They appear similar but they are not.
I have always occupied a rather niche space. I am online, I have a modest platform, but I was doing this work long before these platforms existed. I will be doing it even if they go away. The limitations of my time and what is safe for my team and myself has always meant being mindful of what I am putting out there, but I will say that a lot of online activism is just social change marketing, especially when it became “profitable” to discuss social justice issues.
When I started my blog in 2008, despite being nationally recognized early on, no advertisers or brands wanted to work with me. Why? We were post-racial, man! Obama had been elected, racism was supposedly gone and here my Black ass was in Maine, the whitest state in America, saying racism wasn’t over. It’s why there has never been advertising on my site. Initially, no one wanted to and when it was finally cool enough to talk about racial and social justice, I didn’t want to participate in branded or corporate platforms because it was bullshit.
In recent years, especially after George Floyd’s death, we have seen the rise of the social justice creators and while they can bring awareness, there are limitations. Who are these people in community with, and how can they bring you into that community or deepen your own community? At this moment, as we face the barrel of a Trump-branded shotgun, how are they moving and are you getting practical tips on moving differently from them?
I stole this saying from a former colleague, and I use it a lot because I feel it in my bones: we build at the speed of trust. It’s no longer enough to be aware or informed of an issue; Trump’s cabinet picks are signaling that we must be ready to activate and move in formation—and to do that, we need community. If we don’t have it, we need to plug in where we can and we also have to accept that soon it may not be safe to post as much as we have on these platforms.
While I don’t consider myself to be in the radical left, as far as people in the Trump world are concerned, I probably am seen as the radical left—and, well, he’s already made it clear how he feels about people like that. As a result, I am deeply mindful of what I am writing and posting publicly. Also, with how the world is shifting, it means that you may increasingly find that verifying with a quick search may not yield what it once did.
Trump is in league with one of the richest man on the planet, who is also a tech bro, so osting everything online is no longer a good idea and that’s all I am going to say.
Instead, make sure you trust the people giving you information, Know that they have connections and community and that if they are telling you about actions that need to take place, you trust them. Now is a great time to examine whose voices and views you are listening to and make sure they serve something larger than themselves and their egos.
I think there is always a little ego involved in folks who have regular and sustained platforms, but is the ego mastering them or are they mastering their ego? Whose interests are they looking out for? Are they seeking to gain from societal upheaval? Are their followers more like cult members? How do they treat people? Ask the questions.
As for HR 9495, it didn’t die this week and will go to the full Senate, which means we have only a little time to catch our breaths and then activate like our lives depend on it—because they might indeed. It is clear that no one is working to contain this Trump reimagining of America nor his sidekick/co-president Elon “I didn’t get enough love as a kid” Musk.
We save us and that requires trust as our foundation.
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