adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

I’m writing this from the line, the long line of voters in the basement of the Alameda County Registrar of Voters in downtown Oakland. Its pouring rain outside, and this line is full of happy faces, mostly black, many queer couples, young people…

I have voted before, and I have felt like it was the right thing to do, but I have never before been happy and excited to do it. I feel giddy, personally, in spite of the stories I’m hearing about the hard times folks are having with voting across the country, which will be my work for the rest of tonight, and tomorrow, and however long it’s needed.

But personally? I am listening to folks speak to how excited they are to vote for Obama, and a few folks also excited to vote for McKinney and Rosa - which is totally doable here in California, and I feel that excitement.

I’m 30, and my choices this year were between a fierce black woman with insightful policies and a hip-hop organizing sister as VP, or for a black man who has shown amazing capacity for building movement and solidarity among divided communities, and comes from a  community organizing background, and will win the popular vote tomorrow.

These are the darkest of times and yet this is a major shift in the kinds of choices available to me. This set of options is such a beacon of hope, a sign that things can change, even if it’s slowly and imperfect and there are football fields of space for criticism.

Our lovely pollworker just passed by. Her spiel is ‘thank you for coming, we appreciate you, your patience is amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ It’s her first time working an election, she’s been working this basement hall since 9am, and she is smiling.

We’ve been standing line 40 minutes, and yet we are all smiling.

The woman behind me is talking about how everyone is out here. ‘I can’t believe how young this crowd is - usually its just old folks. Old folks voting about public transportation. Now all these people have something to vote for.’ She just saw a friend in line and ran over to hug her, laughing. ‘I’m glad to see you here girl!’

I can’t overemphasize the difference of having stuff to vote for, not just against. This is what it should feel like in every polling place in the country, in every election. Folks smiling in lines that are long because of high turn-out, people excited to be counted, able to come early, educating each other in line. Really talking to each other, alert.

Several people have Videothevote cameras like Jessamyn and I do, and are talking about the site, or Twitter, or Saturday Night Live.

The line is moving quickly. A super cute butch in a Seattle Fire Dept sweatshirt just started filling out her ballot while stage whispering, ‘I’m so excited!!’

I’m at the front of the line now. I’m the ultimate schizo - I hold an analysis that its all about local organizing and progressive society builds from the ground up. I know the system is mostly broken. I think times will get worse before they get better, and I experience deep disappointment with this country I was born to and it’s destructive influence on everything I love.

And yet I also hold space for possibility, for stepping into that space between the big picture and the crucial small very day work to that middle space, where you can see Turtle Island inch forward on that path of evolving. When my parents fell in love, a black president was unthinkable. When I was born a black president was unimaginable.

Now?

Now its my turn to vote for love without discrimination, for decriminalization and increased humanity in prisons, for better treatment of animals, for young women to have a safe space for life decisions, for diplomacy and intelligence in leadership, for an end to the war in iraq, for healthcare, for the environment, for my nephew, for my black father and his younger brother who both had heart attacks too early, for all my loved ones, for oakland. It’s my turn to be heard in this slow and faulty process, to bid on a better future in this nasty card game.

It’s my turn to vote for a black president.

It’s my turn.

adrienne votes early

Hey loved ones!!

Please read this in case Election Action is needed, and pass this email on to people you think would benefit from it!

Contents:

- Why Last Minute Election Action?
- Information: Where to figure out the rules, document problems and find out about action needs
- Action: What you can DO with your body, mind, time and resources!

–

Why?

So this is the 4th federal election in which I’ve done some level of organizing and strategizing. I don’t have false hopes that change trickles down from the top. I do think there is an untapped potential power where community organizing meets electoral organizing, as election seasons can catalyze communities around issues that grassroots organizers are trying to change every day.  But as folks who do radical work every day, or at least think radical thoughts, supporting communities to get heard on election day is not optional.

Each election, I have watched the swell of hope, dreams, plans and focus whip up for (or against) a candidate (or party). Each time I have watched people watch from the sidelines, pontificate on the pros and cons and then all of the sudden it’s go time, and folks want to be useful. I love those people! That last minute energy is crucial!

This year, we want to make it as easy as possible on the last minute types! We’ve been thinking through action scenarios at The Ruckus Society, and have an Election Action Kit and other resources for y’all. But I also thought it might be useful to write up everything I know about last minute non-partisan election actions.

(Note: Some folks are comfortable jumping into the plans of one of the campaigns. Others have been doing electoral organizing for months. If you’re already tapped in, this isn’t for you. Do your thing! Pass this to folks who may not have a thing to do yet!)

These are the best last-minute tips I can gather for organizations who want to make sure their voter organizing work is reflected in the number of votes counted. This is for organizations that don’t do usually do electoral work, but want to contribute their efforts at this moment.

This is for folks who have suddenly realized that voters names are being purged off the rolls and folks are being turned away from the polls, and that we have no idea how big of an impact any planned election fraud and unplanned systemic break downs will be.

This is for folks who have put all of their eggs in the voter turn-out basket and have gotten wise to the reality that turn-out doesn’t matter if the votes don’t get counted.

This is for folks who are down to be a part of the action solution and just need to be plugged in.

This is for groups or individuals who are down to take autonomous actions in the event that the fraud and incompetence do overwhelm the system.

INFORMATION:

- 866 OURVOTE (www.866ourvote.org) is a central source of information needed to protect the vote, including the registration and identification guidelines for each state. This site is also covering the legal side of election protection!

- Twitter Vote Report (www.twittervotereport.com) is a space to do a quick and easy report of how your voting experience is going. The most important part of this is the change to Twitter in calls for Election Protection support.

- In terms of educating voters, Generation Vote (www.genvote.org) has developed an amazing youth agenda and voter guide which is vetted and on-point. Also check-out a community developed ballot for your community at www.theballot.org . Organizations - direct all your members to ballots in their area!!

ACTION:

- Poll watchers are still needed in many locations around the country. In some places poll workers are also still needed. Poll workers handle checking names and deciding who can and can’t vote, and in most states it’s too late to score this all-powerful job. Poll watchers are assigned by various parties to be witnesses, make sure things are functional for a fair election. It makes a big difference to have our folks out there. Google “local county election office” and your zip code or the name of your city to get the number, call it, and go be the eyes on the street. This is a great last minute volunteer opportunity. Employers, give your folks the day off to volunteer!

- Video the Vote: Having citizen documentation of voter issues is crucial in terms of being able to prove that our folks are being disenfranchised. It helps on the day of to support media outlets to keep a story live until it’s resolved, and it helps afterwards in terms of showing the specific issues. You can be a videographer, you can drive a videographer to poll sites, or be a dispatcher. If you got the skills, go sign up!

- Direct Action: Ruckus has brainstormed a variety of potential scenarios, and the most logical targets and messages we could think of for each of those scenarios. We will have action experts on call around the country (email Sharon@ruckus.org if you want in that loop!), and we’ve partnered and developed relationships with several organizations working on election protection. We also want to honor the power of autonomous actions. Get together with your friends, your collectives, your organizations, alliances and coalitions, and take action. Employers, encourage your employees to take action, this is work too!

We’ve posted our action planning manual, action checklist, action ideas, creative visuals manual and other resources on a wiki and as a downloadable PDF for y’all, so the actions can be effective. All of this is at www.ruckus.org/electionaction. Our goal is to have actions prepared to protect our voters, and encourage our politicians and election officials to stand up for election integrity.

- DONATE! If you’ve been holding out on throwing your financial support behind a fair election, this is the time to contribute. Pay for travel, materials and media for actions!!

Of course our hope is we won’t need any of this But history repeats itself, and we want to be prepared for the most strategic action possible if/when it does.

Love, luck and plans!
AMB

I had another night of extremely intricate dreams last night. Then 11 hours of conversation with new friend.

I’ve been reading this book, The Years of Rice and Salt, an alternative history of the world in which 99% of the population was wiped out by the black plague in the 1400s, and the cultures that remained were Muslim and Buddhist for the most part. Part of the story is trying to reconcile or fuse the two faiths. The book posits that we are reincarnated through time, and that we dream or remember our past lives in sleep.

I’ve heard these ideas many times, and they appeal to me, I think because my dreams are so active.

I document my dreams. The locations of my dreams interest me, and sometimes I can pick up elements from waking life, or my companions in the dreams will be people I know. Often there are new gadgets, new outfits, new physical capacity. I’ve flown, I’m been wind.

Most of the dreams, for years now, have been places I don’t know, and people I don’t know. And many of those dreams are clearly in a future where individual rights have been greatly reduced, people live in large common spaces, there’s not a lot of outdoors to go to. There is resistance and acceptance.

I like the idea of dreams being a space to remember other lives, and I like the idea of souls moving from one life to the next. I think, with population growth, of the finite number of original souls…splitting and growing like lizard tails. Maybe this is why we feel so incomplete; why some of us feel driven towards ends we can’t achieve in one lifetime. We are connected, woven throughout time.

But lately I think I am dreaming future lives, not past ones. Or glimpsing potential futures. In most, I am part of a resistance to unjust authority. I am often slipping through the window and escaping just before the round-up. In some I am taking care of my family, especially my sisters. In some I am obedient, and those are nightmares. In some I have given up, I am only observing.

I can track how I am participating in my current life by these future dreams.

In many of the future dreams where I have no privacy, which I so desperately need in my life now, I am so happy. We live in community with each other. Feels so different and familiar.

I think others might visit my dreams and think they were sad, too gray. But as I document these dreams, I am exploring some emotional evolution, or decoding some message sent back to me in my sleep. And it’s exciting, how people are interacting with each other, even in the most chaotic times, especially in the most violent times. In my dreams I can see that we’ve learned something, and though we have almost nothing left, the secret we’ve learned, the secret of how to BE with each other, is like a new pinky toe, such a tangible and necessary evolution.

In this new iteration of blog, I think I may post some of these dreams, the more coherent ones. And some songs, make a songblog. We’ll see. But this is perhaps a warning about those dreams, or a decoder tip: I dream the future.

As an update - I woke up this morning convinced I needed to pull my last post down and keep it to myself. My thought of the day was “pummeled by waves” - you know when you’re a child in the ocean and want to swim but the waves keep knocking you down, pushing you off balance? This year has been like that, personal and professional, good and bad, wave after wave.

Then, I got so many lovely personal notes, and posts, and phone calls and texts and emails and just love in the past 24 hours. It will take me a while to respond appropriately.

I fasted all day today.

And then I went to see the amazing multimedia show of my loved ones Alixa and Naima called Hurricane Season (http://www.hurricaneseasontour.com/), which I’ve been watching them imagine into being for two years. They laid out all these hard interconnected truths, this modern world, as brutal and raw and devastating as it actually is.

Then they celebrated the other side, the light, the ways in which we are both the darkness and divisions and everything in between. All water, and water finds a way through stone. What I needed, when I needed it.

The other thing I did, and am about to do more of now, is work.

So - no answers, but I feel so much better. The ups with the downs.

Love you all!

Ah this past week has really thrown me for a loop.

I want to write an essay on how I am voting No on Prop 8 in California, even though as I get older I am more and more convinced that all marriage is a convolution of church and state and that the only kind of union that should be available from the government to anyone of any gender-sexuality combo is domestic partnership.

But Prop 8 is not really about marriage, it’s about hate, hate that limits the kind of love and commitment available to people in our current system.  So I oppose Prop 8, and I want to write a whole piece about it.

But this past week, while I was on the road, a lot of things happened. Someone I love very dearly had an emotionally abusive encounter with her partner. At the same moment, in the same hours, my neighbors got held up at gunpoint at my apartment building. Jennifer Hudson’s mother and brother were murdered, and her nephew disappeared. The US raided Syria. And then, another neighbor was murdered by her jealous ex-husband.

And I can’t help but think, as I tend to, that all of these things - Prop 8 and violent fighting and desperate violence and murder - are all connected somehow.

I deeply believe that love is a driving force behind everything, even those things that appear violent and horrific. When I think of the motivation of those who I most deeply oppose, I try to figure out what they love. This approach has worked for me on very general levels, and on very precise and specific levels.

But I go through these experiences of the past week and I am trying to find the love behind these acts, and coming up short. I am mostly writing this tonight because I have come home, and am in my house and I can feel the way the safe space has been shattered, the quiet that pours into a place after violence occurs.

I can’t write a big endorsement essay right now, I have to write something that helps me process through this.

Perhaps there is a point of love where it becomes insanity. For the young boys who held up my neighbors, perhaps it is a love of self and need to survive that brought them to arm themselves and wait in the dark.

For this administration sitting in office watching the entire world galvanize behind the idea of change in US leadership, perhaps there is a love of…oh someone help me out. What kind of love could possibly lead to bombing? It’s such a sloppy stupid way of doing business.

For the domestic stuff - the below-the-belt fighting, and the obsession that led to murder…its evidence of such damage.

The man who murdered my neighbor would come around here at night. He would bang on the door and yell at her to open it. His voice sounded like the Nothing from Neverending Story, a big bad wolf in the night. It kept us all up, invading our dreams. He knocked at my door once and asked for a dollar. I said no, and closed the door, and stood there trembling, waiting for his footsteps to walk away. He seemed like the kind of person who could knock the door in if he wanted. And yet, as scary as he was, as many times as we all caved and called the cops who rarely came, with a restraining order on him…no one thought he would go this far. Now there is talk of the death penalty for him, violence for violence, a broken answer for a broken human. Where is the love in his story? I can only see the insanity - both he and my neighbor were people who needed help that never came.

We need social systems that heal, leaders who can both protect us and liberate us to be whole people and whole communities that don’t turn on each other, damage each other with insults, knives, bombs.

We all need help that isn’t coming, change that isn’t on the horizon.

I sat down for a late night conversation with a group of organizers in Portland, speaking of hope and transformation with them, but they were feeling hopeless. The cycle of social change and the structure of social justice work in this country…it holds up any true change as effectively as a leash on a dog.  I was making a case for the hope that can be seen in this election cycle, but even I could tell my arguments were half-hearted.

I believe change is a divine force, and I understand that most of the work I do will not show grand results in my lifetime. Usually I accept those terms.

But this weekend reminded me that life is a battlefield, arrows flying through air in my direction, many of them piercing my armor. Can I recover? Absolutely. I know that in the coming weeks I will see the amazing results of the work that I and my co-workers and allies do, get to be face to face with some of the organizers who most inspire me.

But policy isn’t the healing salve.  There is a deeper and more significant sea change needed, a more personal transformation and healing that takes time and focus and resolve and commitment, and I wonder if humans can truly step up to the task. Or, to be more specific, I know we can step up to the task, I have seen it…but will we step up in time? Can we be better and more compassionate to each other as individuals, and can we normalize mental health before we destroy ourselves?

I feel, given how hopeful I generally am, that it is nearly blasphemous to end this article with no ray of hope. And I can’t lie or withhold the fact that I have seen good things in this same time period, primarily in the wild wonder of children I got to play with this weekend, and in the joy, pleasure and presence I experienced with new and old loved ones over the past few days. I know that kind of love coexists in the world with all of that darkness. Perhaps on the grandest level the light and the dark are truly in balance. But which one are we all leaning towards? Which one are we investing in with our daily actions?

Can we evolve?

I ask this question in all seriousness, I want to hear stories of communities that respond to such darkness in ways that create tangible changes. How do we respond to bombings in ways that are more than symbolic? How do we respond to domestic violence, and the politicized hatred of our communities, in ways that leap up off of paper and make us feel truly safe? Hope is wonderful, but what are the practices that will help us realize the changes we hope for…where are the results we can see and feel?

So much has been happening in my life, i feel the force of life as an active thing happening to me, i am being lifed, life is lifing me.

I remember some time ago being told about Saturn Returns and both hearing it but also laughing it off a bit…if you have a good perspective on life, you see the positive and the good. But then the list of ways life is challenging my perspective have me thrown for a loop. Some of them are full losses, much of it is just the full frontal approach of fear, of very scary things happening and going through the traumatic experience of it before a resolution comes along, and the resolution is always life, that I am alive, and what happens to me as I am alive is all learning, and can I just hold onto that.

I could begin the list anywhere, I’ve stopped expecting it to reach an end, its just amazing to experience such objective pain, see the pile-up of pain happen in the lives of people I love, and understand that to be part of the aging process.

I’m rereading Parable of the Talents and all of the stories lead back to Change is God, not a person, not a spirit, but actually the force of change itself. The idea is to respect it, shape it, but not resist it, and not try to necessarily understand it. I don’t resist any religion, all these paths towards some fundamental truths, but that explanation is really the only thought process I can apply to this period of life and find respite.

Without the capacity to be more specific, not wanting to divulge the details of my pain as I have in the past because the deeper the pain the less comforting the storytelling becomes, I do feel the need to write somewhere, publicly, that life is so much harder than I knew.

It has just come to my attention that folks still come here seeking updated information on me, so I’m going to update the info!

I’m in Detroit for the moment, living in Oakland, on a super road moment that has seen Boston, NY, DC, Detroit so far and continues to WI, specifically in and around Milwaukee, and then to Memphis for the Dream Reborn. I’m blogging at Racewire.org, Wiretapmag.org, Alternet, readblackandgreen.com, and recently had my first item posted on Huffington Post! I’ll add all of those links.

More to the point, I think I might start up some blogging again cause there’s just so much going on that’s wonderful and inspiring and crazy and needs talking to!

WITH LOVE
AMB

yes
my car radiator exploded
my ipod got run over by 18 wheelers
i got rescued by the great daniel alarcon whose new novel is all over the place and amazing
i just randomly came thru friendster and thought i should mention these happenings along with the important fact -
so happy
still

its too good a week not to post something about it.
it’s friday night of election week 2006 and i want to create a verbal time capsule.

this week, rumsfeld finally got to play sacrificial lamb to the bush administration like so many young American soldiers have done under his reign. i have a military papa and for me this week is a bit sweeter than most cause i watched rummy come to power, taking out many of the good people trying to serve their country - yes they exist, deepen your analysis - pushed out of the pentagon…

this week i remembered the part of me that loves 5-second solutions in crisis situations while working the election protection side of this election. it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge i am passionate about election protection. there are a lot of crazy people in the election protection movement, which i understand…if you really contemplate the impact of an american vote on the current world landscape, and thus the disenfranchisement of a progressive american vote, then it makes sense to get a bit rabid, a bit cultish about defending democracy. i don’t go there, but i have a red phone in my heart where i can dial in to those who are paying deep attention to the flaws that keep us from liberation, i believe the unrealized theoretical concept of democracy is an answer to many ills of our modern state of affairs.

this week america sent the international community a sign that we are not in favor of the crappy bad boy behavior our leadership has been acting out.

this week i got to see some of my old harm reduction folks and remember how i’ve been applaying harm reduction in every kind of organizing i do: meet the user (person) where they’re at. the user (community) sets the program. non-judgement. not providing all the answers but co-creating a new path…

this week, i got to see up close and personal as an organization i co-founded started to take deep root in the realm of success - the league of young voters was all over this election in the locations that mattered. the strength of the league has always been the brilliance of the organizers in the field, and the possibility they have to be relevant in the future of the world.

this week i did some coalition work that excited me…saw the potential for collaboration on a level of honesty and integrity that i often find missing from the ‘movement’…i don’t know if non-activists know what i mean but, often in the movement we are the most resistant to participating in the vulnerability it takes to be good partners.

this week i can’t even tell you about matters of the heart and body because they are off the chains in the land of no-words-to-express it.

this week i realized that i am forgetting what it feels like not to be self-actualized, not to be in a work environment that enthralls and inspires me, not to be loving myself and living a life in accord with my values. i know all of that happened once, but the memories are fading and that’s hot like saturn returning.

this week i listened to really good music and the production of my ep is being finished, so soon i’ll have four original songs on a cd, up on myspace, wherever songs from an ep go, and that’s got me geeked out.

this week i got asked to consider being a subject of a feature documentary. i can’t really imagine saying yes to that, cause who am i. but i love the work i am doing right now, so i can’t imagine saying no either.

this week my sister april ran the new york marathon.

this week…oh the real reason i came on here was to repost some stuff, cause i’ve been writing some stuff. here it comes:

from www.racewire.org:

How to Not Play Yourself Out Over Election 2006

Ok cheer and rah rah ok!!!!!

It is exciting when a tide starts to turn. Two days ago, in the most
tangible way we currently have evidence for, the tide started to turn
in this country. The voting sub-community of the country is tired of
its current leadership, and ready for something different.

The youth vote was unprecedented, the highest we’ve seen in years,
which makes sense. More young people are getting the big picture around
the war, the economy, and the general sense that something is wrong
with the direction the country has been going.

But it’s easier to handle the big feelings if you remember it’s not
a victory. It’s a damn good moment. Most of the wave of Democrats that
came in are the most mainstream centrists you can be and still run as a
Democrat - i.e. ex-Republicans who got fed up with their own
revolutionary leadersip. That’s fine, the country has been veering
right for such a long time that a turning of the tide would have to
feel big and still be gentle.

Now is the time to go all Michaelangelo on the Democrats, Greens,
Independents and others who are in office at this crucial moment. My
boy Michaelangelo would say the sculpture is there and he’s just
removing the excess stone, something like that. Well - the desire is
there for real change in this country at every level of government and
now there are elected officials with a mandate to change the direction
we’re going in. We just need to chip away the bull*&^% pandering to
the center and demand some actual changes happen, and soon.

I want to see a new energy policy. I want to see an exit strategy
from Iraq. I want to see a healthcare plan that puts the power in the
hands of the people. I think these are realistic expectations with a
Democratic House and Senate - those are the desires of the people who
elected this new Congress.

Victory is now back in play, it’s now possible again, it’s now
within reach. You can point your finger at it and start walking in that
direction. We ain’t there yet. And I say that with love and in deep
celebration of mean ass Rumsfeld’s fall from Bush’s hip.

Now on another note, I was working the election protection side of
it and we still saw massive offenses. Electronic machines breaking
down, having the wrong tally of votes at the end of the day, etc. Long
lines in precincts where all machines were broken and the only paper
ballots were in Vietnamese. But it turns out one short-term solution
for protecting the vote is to turn out so many people that the numbers
trump the failures. Hopefully folks respond to the call from Common
Cause and others to "Get it Straight By 2008", that’s another piece I’d
like to see this Democratic Congress commit to.

–

from www.wiretapmag.org

Why Action? To make sure our votes count…

On
November 7, so much hard work will pay off. People have done an amazing
job continuing the always hot trend of successful new voter organizing.
I am so excited to look around and see all the youth organizations that
are all over this election, especially at the local level. In my new
hometown of Oakland its ALL about Aimee Allison, it’s SOOOO exciting.
{If you or anyone you know has friend in District 2 please text them to
go vote for bi-racial, post military, pro-environment, pro-youth,
pro-Oakland Aimee tomorrow!!!}

Unfortunately the reports are
already starting to pour in, from the Secretary of State in Missouri to
early voters in Ohio: absentee deadlines and early voting dates are
wrong, early voting poll times are wrong, poll workers are asking for
the wrong ID or demanding ID when the law says it’s unnecessary. And so
it begins, this crazy dance of coincidences that pile up until,
strangely, those most likely to vote for a progressive agenda in this
country are silenced.

Organizations are coming together like never before to figure out ways of defending the vote. Many options are below.

At
Ruckus we’ve partnered with mad folks to put out a call to action if
voters get silenced, and we’ve created an easy action called Voters
Silenced Here.

0. Realize you’re the kind of person who is
down to take action on Election Day, no matter much voter organizing
you’ve ever done. Go no to www.ruckus.org/electionprotection and sign
up to be part of the team and text PROTECT to 30644 to get on the list
of folks who can be called to action tomorrow. It’s like a Civil Rights
Reserves.

1. Find out that something is going down which
will adversely effect election results! We’ll alert you through our
texts based on your geography, but you have your ear to the ground and
will no doubt be hearing things as well!

2. Cover your mouth with
cloth, scarf, bandana, anything to show the image of silenced voters.
Have enough for multiple people to cover their mouths so you can
recruit folks to join you in action!

3. Then, download the sign from Ruckus on Election Day that says ‘Voters Silenced Here.’

4. If you have time and resources, we’ll have an Election Day Guide to Making a Bedsheet Banner up on our site as well!

5.
Identify one spokesperson who can explain to media and anyone else on
site how voters have been silenced at your polling station or County
Board of Elections. {Can also help to make small flyers that explain
it!}

6. Email adrienne@ruckus.org and let us know you’re doing
the action, and we’ll post it on our site so folks looking for actions
can join you. Send pictures if you can!!

A. You’re willing to engage at the bare minimum level: Check out TheBallor.org
and get the best possible information you can have in hand heading to
the polls. (i.e. District 2 Oakland Cali voters vote for Aimme
Allison!!)

B. You’re willing to go further, spend an hour or two to make sure folks get to the polls, and that votes get counted: Protect Our Votes
has info on Election Transparency efforts, ways to report incidents
with Common Cause and PFAW, easy easy ways to protect this most basic
common right.

C. You have a camera and are willing to document offenses at the polls: VideoTheVote.org … and if you’re more low-tech you can upload cell phone video at www.netrootsnetwork.com

D.
You’re still standing at the end of the day: When the polls close
pollworkers are mandated to post the number of votes collected at that
site in a public spot. Go and photograph that posting, preferably with
a camera that can date and time the shot. This will be useful tangible
proof when election results are tallied, making sure that each vote
cast was counted!

E. You are willing to do an action that helps
the media see specifically where voters have been silenced: sign up at
www.ruckus.org/electionprotection, or just text PROTECT to 30644 ! And
we’ll loop you in.

If you have questions about any of this, email
adrienne@ruckus.org, all of the above organizations are trying to be in
touch and we’re just going to try to know as much as we can tomorrow
and merge efforts for the biggest outcomes possible!

Here’s hoping none of this is necessary!

–

those are two recent pieces…theres more but…eh. ok?

i love you all. i miss you, holla at your girl, sign up to be a part of www.ruckus.org so i can tell you what groundbreaking mindblowing stuff i’m up to.

big kisses, big hugs,
amb

Oops!

I promised to repost when I blogged in other places onto here and it has just been pointed out to me that I have neglected to do so. Thank you to those who have implored me to keep writing - trust, I am up to no good as often as possible and it’s keeping me busy! But, I am blogging on RaceWire for Colorlines. Here is my latest entry:

Proud of my Alma Mater

First check out this video:

I am a Columbia University kid, from 1996-2000 I was doing my bit of
student activism at the school and by the time I left I was worried
about the activist energy there. But my boy Bryan Mercer and others
have kept me abreast of rising tides of progressive willingness to act.

Despite the fact that the ‘conservatives’ would never do something
like this, I think the victory of the moment is sealed by the young man
at the end who feels the young activists behaved like animals. I can go
with that if the qualifier is "untamed" or "unbroken" - I think you
would have to be a broken creature to sit by and let someone spout such
racist and unconstitutional rhetoric and do nothing.

Got a smile on my heart for this one!