I know that the election has depressed many of us. It has terrified even more of us and with good reason. Day by day the news gets grimmer and the Trump  Drumpf presidency has not even begun.

But there is something each of us can do. Also day by day. It is something we control - ourselves. We can can choose how we respond to those around us.  With love. With resolve. With fierceness. This week:

-I read about anti-Semitic graffiti appearing on the sidewalks  in my neighborhood. When neighbors on the community forum  alerted the community and reached out to our anti-graffiti city services, their posts were flagged. As I am a moderator in our neighborhood, I was able to remove the flags.   And I reported the person who flagged every single post in the thread (over flagging is a violation of the terms of service). I also wrote to each of the people who were flagged to thank them for speaking out.
-my mother and I bought a small menorah to replace the one stolen from her senior center holiday display. My mother also bought one for the neighbor - it was her personal menorah that had been stolen.
-I listened to an African America friend talk about the hostile reaction she got from a  white police officer while waiting in line for an oil change. He was ticketing someone and blocked her from moving (for 15 minutes)  and then glared at her and ostentatiously ran her plates. All she was doing was sitting in her car, in line, with her windows rolled up, waiting for an oil change.
-We reached out to a local LGBT teen group to start discussions on funding self-defense classes.

We live in California, in a very liberal area. The graffiti was removed in 24 hrs, someone else put another menorah in the community area so now there will be two, I invited my friend to have dinner with us over the winter break, and we will see what happens with the LGBT youth center.

 Another way to do something small every day is this site:

http://www.resistance365.com/home

We’ve Got Your Back

 Recent events have left many thousands of our San José residents — about forty percent of whom were born in a foreign country — in fear. Some of our neighbors, friends, and family fear changes in immigration rules or enforcement that could separate their families. Others voice concerns about proposed federal “registries” of community members of the Muslim faith. Still others point to the nationwide spike in “hate crimes” in recent days.
 
 I have sought — through Spanish-language television, social media, and in public demonstrations — to convey a simple message to our wonderfully diverse community: “We’ve got your back.” 
 
 What do I mean by that, “We’ve got your back?” We cannot control the events in Washington, D.C., but we can do much to care for each other here at home: 
 
 We will Not Tolerate “Hate Crimes” in San José
 Police Chief Eddie Garcia and the rest of our Police Department are committed to enforce the law against anyone engaged in committing hate crimes against our residents, such as last week’s attack on a hijab-wearing student at San Jose State University. The immigration status of the victim or of the reporting party do not matter, and will not be reported. Please report all such incidents to the Police Department, at 408–277–8911 or online; for additional assistance, please reach out to our local partners.
 
 We Will Not Allow Our Police To Be Used for Federal Immigration Enforcement
 Changes to immigration laws and enforcement remain within the province of federal policy makers. However, the police chiefs of most major U.S. cities — including our own — agree that local police should not involve themselves in federal immigration enforcement; doing so undermines public safety, by discouraging critically-needed cooperation in diverse communities. Consider, for example, how fear of apprehension or deportation could undermine our efforts to ensure reliable reporting of fires or medical emergencies, provision of witness statements, reporting of victimization, tipping about pending gang violence, or testimony in court. Moreover, our sparsely-staffed police must focus their scarce time on violent, predatory, and other high-priority crimes. We will continue to follow the best practices of local law enforcement professionals nationally by staying out of immigration enforcement. 
 
 We Will Protect the Constitutional Rights of San José Residents
 Campaign rhetoric does not always receive the benefit of prior thoughtful analysis, so we cannot know if assertions made on the stump — such as those relating to Muslim “registries” — will materialize into action. Nonetheless, we will closely monitor any proposed legislation or executive actions from the new administration, and work closely with our congressional representatives, other major cities, and if necessary, the courts, to protect the Constitutional rights of our residents. We’ve had success joining together in the past and will be prepared to do so again.
 
 We Will Support Our Community Through Our Office of Immigrant Affairs
 In my first weeks in office, we created an Office of Immigrant Affairs to take advantage of then-existing federal programs to legalize status of our residents and improve access to City services-such as for the immigrant entrepreneurs who launch half of our City’s small businesses each year. Director Zulma Maciel and the City have made considerable progress-launching “citizenship corners” in a dozen libraries, hastening the translation of key applications and documents, and boosting multilingual small business permitting assistance, for example. Check our website or local non-profits able to assist for assistance. Student “dreamers” born in a foreign country may also find helpful information at United We Dream.
 
 As French resistance leader Andre Malraux urged, “Instead of lamenting the absurdity of the world, let us try to transform the corner of it into which we were born.” We’ve got much work to do to take care of each other, and to transform San José’s corner of the world. We’ve got your back.


https://medium.com/@SamLiccardo/weve-got-your-back-4c2fdcb0b915#.3xtllhfga

 

Fandom usually jumps into technologies, uses them, and then acts surprised when we realize that we have no clue what we're doing or how the use of the new tech has changed an aspect of our fandom culture. Right now a few authors are posting notices that you need permission to link to their fanworks in "public spaces". Or that they'd prefer their readers comment on their fic where it was  originally posted.  Each author gets to unilaterally define what is public with the expectation that every reader will follow because that is part of the "social contract". So for today Goodreads = public and is not a place to list or review fanfic. Tumblr is OK (for now) because it is not seen as a "public" space.*  

It used to be easier to know what to expect of other fans but the moment we went online, the fannish social contract was voided due to sheer size and complexity of online interactions. Add the fact that new platforms and new ways of interacting keep coming out every 20 minutes and you have a hot conceptual mess filled with poorly understood expectations.

I know that when we went online in the 1990s few of us had any idea  that fans would be publicly posting their porn fanfic** to open access websites (no. stop. think of the children!), displaying their explicit art where anyone could see (blush), and tweeting their love of RPS and knotting fic (OMGWTFBB!).  By those standards, we have all breached the original fannish social contract of keeping fandom a "safe space" simply by interacting with one another in public and online. And I suspect that 20 years down the road, we will again struggle to recognize "fandom" as it continues to be reshaped by technology.

So I would rather see us practice mindfulness and awareness that the tools and platforms we use change us and our culture instead of snapping at one another because we've changed and that we no longer know what to expect from one another.

Because to be honest, I have no clue any more. And I'd be wary of anyone who claims otherwise.

*Keep in mind that most fans don't bother to turn off Google indexing on their tumblr blogs (or their LJ...or their DW..or their twitter or their.....). And even if they do, every time someone else reblogs your content, if *their blog* is searchable by Google it will still be "public".

**A few of us did have in inkling but we all kept it quiet because we did not want to scare our fellow fans with our crazy visions of the future filled with flying fans sporting jetpack keyboards and tinhats.

edited to add: here is another example of Fandom Meets Technology

 

 The info you submit will be public

1. Go to http://www.fcc.gov/comments 
2. Click on 14-28
3. Comment "I want internet service providers classified as common carriers."
4. Hit Confirm on the next page
5. Done