Entries from November 2016 ↓

Week three, and I\’m heartened to see that we\’re still fighting.  My greatest fear is that we will collectively normalize Trump\’s behavior – that we\’ll start acting like this is just the way things are now, rather than continuing to push back against what is already proving to be the most corrupt administration in the history of this country.

Last Week: SPLC

Thanks to donors Maria E., Tina H., Lorna Q., Jami K., and Eric A., we donated a total of $410 to the Southern Poverty Law Center in Steve Bannon\’s honor.  The SPLC has its own matching program going on as well at the moment, including a double match for Giving Tuesday that started sometime last week, so our total impact is somewhere around a thousand dollars.  Let\’s keep it up!

This Week: Trans Lifeline

Transgender people were already at significantly higher risk of suicide than the general population before November 8th, and Trump\’s election has compounded the problem.  In addition to the transphobia and hate crimes that Trump\’s campaign has stoked and emboldened, transgender people now also face threats to their medical treatment, thanks to the Republican promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act; both of these dangers have resulted in a sudden increase in transgender suicides.

Trans Lifeline is a crisis hotline for transgender people.  While their primary focus is on preventing suicide and self-harm, they are open for any transgender person in need.  The line is staffed by transgender people, so callers know they can talk to someone else who understands their experiences.

This week, rather than making donations in honor of one of the transphobes in the upcoming administration, I\’d like to keep the focus on the memories of the loved ones we have lost, and on the experiences of those who remain.  When you forward your donation receipts to matching@pyrlogos.com, if you\’d like to add a sentence or two about the person or people you honored with your donation, I\’ll include your note in next week\’s wrap-up post.  (I\’ll match the first $100 in donations.)

Calls to Action

The spreadsheet I linked last week now has a script for calling to support the protesters in North Dakota who are fighting against the Dakota Access Pipeline.  The Army has announced plans to \”close\” the lands the protesters are occupying on December 6th and restrict protests to a \”free speech zone\”, in violation of treaties and the First Amendment, so the tribes gathered at Standing Rock need our support now more than ever.

Beyond that, if you are able, I\’ll ask you to stand up for someone.  If you see someone being abused because of who they are - whether verbally or physically, whether online or off – do what you can to protect them.  Make sure that both the abuser and their target know that electing a hateful bigot and misogynist to the Presidency doesn\’t make harassment and abuse okay.  (This is something I\’m still working on myself, since social anxiety makes confrontation difficult for me – but even just drawing the victim into a more positive conversation can help stop harassment.)

The last week has given us plenty to fight against.  It\’s also given us plenty of opportunities to complain that other people aren\’t focusing on fighting the right things.  As a wise lady said recently, \”pick your front, and link arms with those fighting on others… there\’s plenty of fascism to go around.\”  So bear in mind that this week, as every week, I\’m not claiming that this is the most important front to be fighting on – just an important one, and one that I choose to focus on at the moment.  With that in mind, let\’s see how we did last week before we move on to this week\’s charity…

Last Week: RAINN

Thanks to donors Tina H., Eric A., and Maria E., we donated a total of $330 to RAINN in Donald Trump\’s honor.  This includes direct reported donations, employer matching donations, and my own matching donation, which we had already maxed out by the end of the first day.  Thank you, everyone!

This Week: SPLC

Over the past week, Trump has announced his intended nominees for several senior-staff and Cabinet-level positions, and so far it\’s a predicable rogue\’s gallery of bigots and misogynists.  We\’ll be discussing several of them in the weeks to come, but let\’s start with Trump\’s chief strategist and campaign CEO, Steve Bannon.  Bannon is an avowed white supremacist and anti-Semite; after he took over Breitbart News, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that it had \”undergone a noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right\”, using \”racist,\” \”anti-Muslim\” and \”anti-immigrant ideas.\”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been on the front lines of the fight against white supremacy for nearly fifty years.  They keep track of hate groups in the United States, litigate against them on behalf of their victims (including not only African-Americans but also women, immigrants, and the LGBT+ community), and provide resources for teaching tolerance.

Donate to the SPLC here – some other SPLC donors have set up their own matching program as well, so donations go far at the moment! If you want to donate in honor of Steve Bannon, the best mailing address we\’ve found for him is via Breitbart:

Steve Bannon
C/O Breitbart News Network, LLC
149 South Barrington Avenue
Suite 735
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Then forward your email receipt to matching@pyrlogos.com by Friday evening; once again, I\’ll match the first $100 in donations.  If you would prefer I not list your name (as first name plus last initial, as I did above) in next week\’s post, let me know, and please tell me if your employer is matching the donation as well.

Call to Action

Finally, here\’s another thing you can do, whether or not donations are an option.  This Google spreadsheet details various things you can do to pressure your elected officials; it looks like it will be updated weekly with new things we can do.  Their current focus is on pushing the House Oversight Committee to investigate Trump\’s conflicts of interest, and on overwhelming Speaker Ryan\’s phone poll to express support for the Affordable Care Act, but the spreadsheet also provides a call script for continuing to express opposition to Trump\’s selection of Bannon as an advisor.

There are so many people in increased danger as a result of Donald Trump\’s election to the Presidency.  There are also so many people pulling together to help each other.  It is easy for those of us not directly in danger to adjust to the situation – for the culture of hate and fear underpinning Trump\’s political career to become the new normal, and for that complacency to lead us to stop fighting so hard.  I don\’t want that to happen.

So, I\’m starting a new regular((I promise it\’ll be more regular than my Dragaera posts!)) feature on Pyrlogos.  Every Monday, I\’ll name one of Trump\’s allies – his campaign surrogates, endorsers, members of his eventual Cabinet, and other public figures who support him.  And I\’ll highlight a charity that is helping fight against some form of the hate and oppression that that person propagates.  I\’ll match donations to that charity for the week (up to a limit), and I\’ll provide a mailing address for said person so we can make our donations to the charity in their honor((This part was inspired by the \”Donate to Planned Parenthood in honor of Mike Pence\” idea that was circulating online last week.)).

For our first Matching Monday, we\’ll start with Trump\’s greatest ally, his strongest promoter, the person who will above all else make sure that Trump is taken care of.  That\’s right, we\’re starting with Donald J. Trump himself.

Choosing one particular charity to oppose his influence was difficult, but while there are many forms of bigotry he was happy to incite for political gain during the campaign, his own worst impulses seem to center on sexual predation.  So our first highlighted charity is the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.  RAINN is the nation\’s largest anti-sexual-violence organization; they operate the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-HOPE), and they run a wide variety of programs to advocate for survivors of sexual violence both individually and at a policy level.  Read more about RAINN here.

Donate to RAINN

Donate to RAINN here.  If you would like to make your donation in Donald Trump\’s honor, you can provide the following address:

Donald Trump
C/O The Trump Organization
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022

I\’ll match the first $100 in donations.  To have your donation matched, forward your emailed donation receipt to matching@pyrlogos.com by Friday evening; over the weekend I\’ll make my matching donation, and then I\’ll announce our total donated amount in next Monday\’s post along with our next charity.

Charity Suggestions

I\’m planning on doing this throughout the entirety of Trump\’s presidency, over 200 Mondays.  While I\’ll probably repeat charities (and Trump allies) at some point, I\’m hoping to avoid doing that for a while – so I need your help!  If you have suggestions for future Matching Mondays, comment below or email your suggestions to matching@pyrlogos.com.