digital sarah art joy

a gal's first indivisible meeting

~ 2 minutes to read

Today, I went to my first ever Indivisible meeting. If you've never heard of Indivisible, here's their blurb:

We’re a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.

I was looking for local activist groups in my area and they had a chapter for my city district. I honestly didn't really know what to expect at this meeting, but here are my thoughts afterwards:

  1. I forget how white Portland is. I've been so intentional these past few years about going to and spending time in BIPOC focused and centered spaces, that I forgot how normal it is for me to be the only (visibly) Asian person in the room. This is just an observation, and not a judgement on the group; everyone I spoke to was welcoming, warm, knowledgeable, eager to share.
  2. The closing of the meeting was everyone standing and singing "This little light of mine" which I found really moving.
  3. The majority of this meeting was a training on de-escalation for protest marshals. My biggest takeaway was this phrase "deregulate, not educate". It's referring to what your goal is when de-escalating situations at a protest, but I think it's applicable to vaguely waves at everything. I have a baby-hypothesis that regulated folks don't have the desire to cause others harm, in any way.
  4. I felt overwhelmed on and off throughout the meeting, by how much knowledge there is to learn about our government, by how much news there is to take in, by how much I don't know and how much effort it would take to learn.
  5. The meeting opened with someone reading an excerpt from How We Learn to Be Brave, and a line that stuck out to me was:

decisive moments are preceded by seasons of preparation

So, what's next? There are a couple of events I think I'll go to. And I have an idea for an event series that I'd like to host, or more ideally co-host: a weekly Civics Study Group, where people spend time learning about civics in general as well as what's happening in our local government. Mostly because I want to learn more and understand better. I didn't talk to anyone at the meeting about my idea, but I did join their Slack and will send a message to someone who I think is an organizer? If you're in the Portland area and know about something like that or are interested in joining me, reach out 💞

I think it's important that we build other ways to show and exercise our people power in addition to protests. I came across this article about The Four Roles of Social Activism. Protesting is one of the main actions of a "Rebel". I think I feel most called to being a "Change Agent", someone who

I have a feeling I might make a post titled "a gal's first protest" this year, but for now, this is where we're at.

✌🏽

#reflecting