Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Not the “oh Einstein was probably autistic” or the sanitized Helen Keller story. but this history disabled people have made and has been made for us.
Teach them about Carrie Buck, who was sterilized against her will, sued in 1927, and lost because “Three generations of imbeciles [were] enough.”
Teach them about Judith Heumann and her associates, who in 1977, held the longest sit in a government building for the enactment of 504 protection passed three years earlier.
Teach them about all the Baby Does, newborns in 1980s who were born disabled and who doctors left to die without treatment, who’s deaths lead to the passing of The Baby Doe amendment to the child abuse law in 1984.
Teach them about the deaf students at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts school for the deaf, who in 1988, protested the appointment of yet another hearing president and successfully elected I. King Jordan as their first deaf president.
Teach them about Jim Sinclair, who at the 1993 international Autism Conference stood and said “don’t mourn for us. We are alive. We are real. And we’re here waiting for you.”
Teach about the disability activists who laid down in front of buses for accessible transit in 1978, crawled up the steps of congress in 1990 for the ADA, and fight against police brutality, poverty, restricted access to medical care, and abuse today.
If you’re new to actions with an arrest risk and you don’t have experienced protestors with you, there’s stuff you can find online about having a legal team, writing the name of a lawyer on your body, saying NOTHING to the cops except the name of your lawyer, etc. That’s all good advice.
But let me give you a bit of advice that is just as essential as all that:
If one of your comrades gets arrested, and you know they can be held for 6, 9, 12 hours, depending on where you are, you get a group of people together and you wait outside the police station.
You may be tired, you may be stressed, it may be freezing, you may need to take turns, but you take whoever can still physically and mentally bear it and you go to that police station and you wait for your comrade. You can spend the time taking care of each other, drinking hot drinks, doing whatever gets you through, but you wait.
And when your comrade gets out, you make sure they do not walk home alone in the dark thinking about the fucked up experience they just had, you make sure there’s a big fucking crowd of their comrades there to greet them with hugs and hot drinks and a cigarette if they smoke.
And whether the arrested comrade that just got out is happy or sad or pissed off, you take that for what it is and give that space and you support that. And you get them a hot meal and you hang out with them and you offer to let them stay at your place or you stay with them so they don’t have to spend that night alone with their thoughts.
You do this every damn time, regardless of whether you really like that comrade and regardless of how you feel about the thing your comrade got arrested for, regardless of how often they’ve been arrested. Because you never know how shitty their experience is going to be in there this time.
Trust me. This is absolutely essential. Once you’ve been arrested and have felt the difference between walking home alone or having your friends waiting for you, you’ll understand.
Be good comrades
I can’t stress how important this is. When my father and I were arrested in Seattle some years back for agitating for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, we were greeted outside the jail by the event’s organisers. They cheered us, had cokes and munchies for us. They drove us to our car and, during the drive, asked if we wanted to stay the night in Seattle with one of the organisers, they filled us in on what had happened after our arrests, they asked about and listened intently to what we experienced from arrest to release. They did so much so well that when another call went out for potential arrestees, we were amongst the first to raise our proverbial hands.
Read the post. Re-read the post. Remember it. And, when the chance comes, do it.
When I was arrested at a Black Lives Matter protest a few years ago, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice were doing Jail Support when I was finally let out of One Police Plaza at around 6am.
They had gotten a klezmer band to stand along the hill you have to go up to leave the jail, and as I walked to where the volunteer lawyers were waiting (they were there to make sure all 200+ people who were arrested that night would be represented at their later hearings. They also were surrounded by volunteers who had food, phone chargers, directions to all the nearby subway stops, and one of them let me borrow her phone to call my mom when I got frustrated with how slowly my phone was charging) the band played music, cheered and applauded.
Honestly? That band playing klezmer for me as I left jail, cheering me on and making me laugh… it’s a memory I really treasure.
It’s also one of my mother’s favorite stories. Before I told her about that band, she got so upset and agitated whenever anything reminded her of my arrest. She’d freak out, cry, start fussing over me, and so forth. After I told her about the klezmer band though? It became something she’d tell her friends about, over and over again, laughing each time. She stopped calling me to beg me not to go and protest every time she knew a big one was happening, and instead would call to make a joke about how if I want to listen to klezmer she has some CDs I can borrow.
When I think about that night, rather than any of the many many terrible things that happened from the moment the cops grabbed me onward, the first thing I remember is the klezmer, and how it made me laugh, and the popcorn someone gave me as I gave the lawyers my name and info, and the kindness of strangers.
After the dehumanization of even a few hours in police custody, those volunteers made me smile, and gave the night a new fun and funny angle to be remembered from. I actually laugh when I think about that night, thanks to them.
Jail Support is a beyond vital part of protesting. It really really is.
the one time i was arrested it was with occupy chicago in 2010, during a mass attempt to set up a camp in grant park. previously, for weeks? months? occupy chicago had been on the sidewalk outside a federal reserve building, no permanent camp to better organize, just constant shuffling as the CPD harassed the protestors. so…we tried to set up a camp.
i was among the first in the van, and we were held at the first precinct from about 1am to 4am. none of us inside the cell had any idea how long we’d be there, but we joked about getting breakfast together if we got out. we were all sitting side by side in a holding cell for hours, hundreds of us, overwhelming the jail. so…they let us out. in the dead of night, pre-dawn. and on the other side of that door? hugs. and cookies. and coffee. and celebration that we were getting out. and the national lawyer’s guild. i will never forget the hug from a stranger that night.
years later in my home town i have attempted jail support two times for political actions. the first time, folks were pretty green to experiencing this, and they listened to an old head who was single-handedly handling the situation. the one guy with a lawyer connection, said they’d go to court at 11am and we should go home. i, on the other hand, knew they’d be let out in the dead of night when no one was around. cell phones dead, no coats, no buses running. but no, this guy was the authority, he said they’d have to go to court at 11am and we should go home. we shouldn’t have listened to him because the police did exactly as i predicted.
people put a lot of emphasis on having a lawyer’s info on your body if you get arrested for political action, but sometimes they don’t even hold you long enough. just let you out at the dead of night to make you feel alone and scared. it’s like they want you to feel traumatized for taking action.
the second time i knew we needed jail support, i had to work the next morning, and i went home after coordinating as much fundraising and legal support as my community could. i regret not being able to stay for my friends. because i knew what it felt like to be greeted with hugs and cookies after staying awake all night in a cold cell not knowing what would happen to me. and i knew what happened to a friend of mine who was let out at 3am with a dead phone, no buses running, just walking home in the dead of night, alone, pissed off. so if you can, i strongly suggest, fucking camp out at the jail your comrades were taken to.
it’s like they want you to feel traumatized for taking action.
Yeah. They do. This shit is strategic. The amount of times I’ve seen people get out just after public transport shut down… it’s intentional. They also let people out with random 15+ minute gaps between each release in the hope that people won’t wait for each other to walk home together.
people put a lot of emphasis on having a lawyer’s info on your body
To be honest, it is very important to say the name of the activist lawyer in custody because they can try to hook you up with a bogus cop lawyer even if you only spend an hour in custody. But it’s also very important for jail support:
After you report who your lawyer is, that lawyer will - if the cops are doing their job - hear that they have a client at location X waiting for them. (or 2 clients, or 5, etc). They can then pass that information on to jail support, who know where to meet people and how many to expect. If the police spread arrested people out over multiple locations, only a lawyer can find out where they are and only if people have said the name of that lawyer. So without that name, you might still walk home alone.
On June 14 from open until close, we will call our U.S. Senators and tell them to reject TrumpCare and their closed-room deal to take health care away...
Coordinated effort for people to call their Senators on June 14 - Dem or GOP - to protect ACA. In general, I recommend trying local in-state offices before the DC office.
This this this.
Congress has reported that their call level has dropped to pre-election levels: a few dozen scattered calls a day.
Flood those offices. If you’re in a swing state, call to say that blocking the AHCA is important to you, and tell them why. (A sentence or two is fine: “I have a condition that wouldn’t be covered under it,” or “my sister was never able to get insurance before the ACA,” or whatever.)
If you’re in a red state, tell them you’re appalled at your senator’s voting record, and you want them to AT THE LEAST insist on a full committee review and open discussion of the AHCA - especially the costs!
If you’re in a blue state, or your senator is solidly against the AHCA, call to thank them for fighting the good fight.
If you are like me and don’t like talking on the phone, here’s a really easy way to get a message to your members of Congress! It’s called ResistBot. Text ‘Resist’ to 50409 and follow the instructions. It’s really simple, and quick! I did it in about 10 minutes, but it could take 5 for some people. I sent a fax to each of my Senators, and tomorrow ResistBot is going to text me a reminder to send a fax to my Representatives!
the republicans are only in the majority in the senate by two seats. at least three senators have to vote against the bill to avoid a tiebreaker by the vice president. these three senators probably represent the best chance to flip.
I hate talking on the phone, and I hate talking to strangers, so political activism has been a mixed bag for me so far. Every time I call my senators or representative, I spend the next few hours a horrible shaking mess. Resisting is important, but so is my health.
There’s always email, or snail mail, but those tend to be overlooked. It isn’t like a phone call, which is immediate. A person has to take note of it, and will ask for your name. Sometimes, you’ll get a letter from the congressperson themself in reply. Trust me when I say that, if you live in a red state like I do, you have no interest in receiving that sneering, patronizing letter.
This is a free service that allows you to contact your congresspersons via text! Send the word “RESIST” to 50409. The bot will send you a text back, asking for your name, and then your zipcode. It then looks up your senators and asks you what message you would like to send. Your text message is turned into a fax.
Just like a phone call, it’s kind of hard to ignore. When there’s a machine spitting out paper in your office, you take notice.
But what should you say? Don’t worry. That’s been taken care of, too.
5Calls.org has sample scripts for phone calls for urgent issues, but they can be used for fax just as well. These are a great starting point if you’d like to personalize your message! Including a short detail about how this issue affects you or someone you know helps make the message more “real”. Suddenly, you aren’t a faceless constituent, but an actual human being.
For example, here is the script I modified from 5Calls that I used to fax my senators this afternoon regarding the passing of the American Health Care Act (AHCA):
I am outraged by the passage of the AHCA without fixing the issues in the plan that would leave millions of American uninsured and drive up insurance premiums for many more.
This is a good point at which to include your personal detail. Keep it short and simple; mine was, “Americans like my son and I, who are both disabled and depend on Medicaid.”
The ACA should be repaired, not repealed; the AHCA puts the lives and economic stability of millions of Americans in jeopardy. I urge you to vote against the AHCA. Please ensure that the ACA’s expansion of Medicaid and protections for those of us with preexisting conditions remain in place. Thank you.
That’s it. That’s what I texted Resistbot, which then turned my text into a fax, and sent it to my senators. Resistbot will give you a copy of the fax to download and confirmation that it has been received. The next time you use Resistbot, you’ll be given the opportunity to fax your representative, as well.
Congratulations! Look at you, being all politically active from the comfort of your own phone. Participating in democracy and protecting our rights as citizens shouldn’t be a privilege. Resistbot makes it accessible.
Now, it’s your turn. Pick an issue and a script from 5Calls, then text the word “RESIST” to 50409, send your message, and join the resistance.
This is totally how the Force works.
My sixty-year-old tech-impaired mother used this guide to contact her senators for the first time yesterday. I had to talk her out of sending a middle finger emoji.
