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Tag: Donald Trump

Stop Marching on Empty Buildings: Strategic Action in the Trump EraA protest sign reading "They confiscated this sign at the airport :( :( LOL :( :("
A protest sign Jason Pier/Flickr CC NC license
February 5, 2025
Kit
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Stop Marching on Empty Buildings: Strategic Action in the Trump Era

Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, and Journalism

The reelection of Donald Trump is a crisis decades in the making that presents activists with challenges the likes of which we’ve likely never seen in our lifetimes. If we are to rise to the occasion, we must engage our skills with caution and creativity in order to help each other survive until whatever comes next.

Trump’s destruction of vital services has occurred at a dizzying pace and our government is now controlled by an unelected tech billionaire. Frightened and angry people are starting to take to the streets. Unfortunately, I see many of them relying on outdated, unsustainable strategies that already lost their effectiveness before Donald Trump reclaimed the presidency.

One question I’m not alone in asking: Why do we keep marching on empty buildings?

Read moreStop Marching on Empty Buildings: Strategic Action in the Trump Era
Texas Observer: Counting Hate in 2024A Pride flag held aloft above a march, waving in the breeze.
A pride flag at a march Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash
February 5, 2025
Kit
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Texas Observer: Counting Hate in 2024

Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer

A national project tracking anti-LGBTQ+ hate found dozens of homophobic and transphobic incidents in Texas during 2024, ranging from physical assaults to stolen Pride flags, though the most common type of incident were protests by right-wing extremists, often outside of drag events. The database, compiled by the Anti-LGBTQ+ Extremism Reporting Tracker (ALERT) Desk, a project of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD, also recorded a wave of dozens of bomb threats, including several in Texas. 

In all, the ALERT Desk logged 918 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents nationwide last year, of which 61 took place in our state. Only New York, with 61, and California, with 125, had as many or more hate incidents. 

Nationally, that averages out to about 2.5 incidents per day in 2024. Almost half of the incidents (48 percent) targeted transgender, nonbinary, or other gender-nonconforming people. The ALERT Desk compiles incidents from mainstream and independent media, as well as through direct reports, social media, and monitoring of extremists’ online communications. The Texas Observer was granted access to a full list of incidents reported in Texas.

Read moreTexas Observer: Counting Hate in 2024
Deceleration: Disability Rights Organizers in Texas Get Ready to FightA group of activists in wheelchairs holding signs about disability rights in the Texas Capitol rotunda. Bob Kafka is in a red ADAPT of Texas t-shirt, an older white-haired man, seen in profile as he speaks to another male activist next to him.
Bob Kafa (second from left) with other ADAPT of Texas members at the Texas Capitol. (Kit O'Connell)
January 23, 2025
Kit
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Deceleration: Disability Rights Organizers in Texas Get Ready to Fight

Posted in Austin, Deceleration, and Journalism

For the past 40 years, ADAPT of Texas has advocated for the world to be more accessible, so that more disabled people can live in their communities, rather than in institutions. The progress this community has made in that timespan, which includes the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, is remarkable. At 78 years old, community organizer Bob Kafka has been there to witness those changes. Like many in the rabble-rousing organization, he’s not afraid to throw his body, and his wheelchair, in the way of the machinery of injustice; he was present at key moments of nonviolent direct action like the Capitol Crawl and the subsequent occupation of the Capitol rotunda which forced Congress to pass the ADA.

Today, the disability rights community is looking at the incoming administration with trepidation, preparing to fight attempts to dismantle their hardfought gains. In a state where the governor is himself disabled yet often seems actively hostile to their cause, ADAPT organizers are prepared to ramp up pressure on Texas lawmakers to improve the state’s treatment of disabled people and their caregivers.

Read moreDeceleration: Disability Rights Organizers in Texas Get Ready to Fight
Christians Must Fight Christian NationalismRev. Carter Heyward, an older white woman with white hair, speaks into a bullhorn, wearing a safety vest, with a rally for abortion access behind her.
Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward wants white Christians to stand up to Christian nationalism. (Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward)
November 3, 2022
Kit
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Christians Must Fight Christian Nationalism

Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer

Over at the Texas Observer, I interviewed groundbreaking lesbian feminist theologian Rev. Dr. Carter Heyward. Her new book unpacks the deep historic and modern ties between Christianity and white supremacy, and explains why Christians—and everyone who benefits unconsciously from white supremacy—needs to act more. 

Read moreChristians Must Fight Christian Nationalism
We Didn’t Fix Austin (Or America)’s Nazi ProblemA massive supercell storm cloud forms in a funnel shape over the fields of Oklahoma.
Just looking at this photo causes me a twinge of fibromyalgia pain. (Unsplash / Raychel Sanner, public domain)
September 1, 2021
Kit
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We Didn’t Fix Austin (Or America)’s Nazi Problem

Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, and Journalism

A friend that lives in Portland posted on his Facebook about the latest spasm of white supremacist violence that took place there.

Someone that I’ve a bunch of mutuals in common with responded. A sort-of-smug comment to the effect of “thank goodness we ran those people out of Austin, Texas!” And I’ll be honest, that comment shocked me: we did what?

The comment reminded me that this attitude is probably widespread in my city and across the country.

I asked myself, are there people in this country that go days without thinking about the rise of fascism and the collapse of the climate? What must that be like?

Read moreWe Didn’t Fix Austin (Or America)’s Nazi Problem
After The Coup Attempt, We’re All ANTIFA NowWe're all antifa after the coup attempt. Photo: Graffiti along a railway line reads ANTiFA with the familiar black and red flags of the antifascist movement.
We're all ANTIFA after the coup attempt. (Flickr / strassenstriche.net, Creative Commons NonCommercial license)
January 20, 2021
Kit
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After The Coup Attempt, We’re All ANTIFA Now

Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism

I keep thinking about the guy at the coup attempt who tried to murder a cop in uniform, because he thought the cop was ANTIFA.

When I think about the fury that the crowd unleashed on that cop, and the ready justification this guy had at hand, it makes me realize that we are all ANTIFA now. When Peter Stager beat Metro cop Michael Fanone with an American flag pole (symbolism, y’all), he wasn’t imagining the cop was “antifa.”

That is, he didn’t consider the police officer to be part of a political tendency loosely organized around opposition to white supremacy, genocide, and dictatorial power. No, he thought the cop was all caps ANTIFA, a much more nebulous, and dangerous category. And every one of us that’s even a little left-of-center can end up in that category, at any time, in 2021.

Read moreAfter The Coup Attempt, We’re All ANTIFA Now