Nic Bennett (they/them)

(3/3) We are going to show up and we are going to show up together.

We are human in front of each other.

We trust the group.

We reject perfectionism and isolation.

That’s where we find our power.

(2/3) We could have chosen to comply. We could have shifted our funding sources and shifted our fields, trying to wait this out.

But I know, from talking with hundreds of scientists last year, that we won’t.

(1/3) That temptation to disappear ourselves?

It’s calling really loudly right now. It would be so tantalizing, so understandable, to give into collapse.

Isolation is a tactic. Come find your people at Action Hour: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

this is the sickest shit ive ever seen

I recently posted in my neighborhood Facebook group asking if folks wanted a Signal version of it.

Anyhow now there are like 400 people in a Signal group.

Highly recommend doing this

We’re building the muscle. Practice with us at Action Hour: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

The quiet work of tending relationships is not a distraction from change.
It is the infrastructure that makes change hold.

Block It! — Interrupting Criminalization

We are in solidarity with everyone striking today. Our Block It! mini toolkit is a great source of other actions you can take to disrupt ICE:

Scientists in Solidarity We’re a growing community of researchers, educators, and science-adjacent workers who believe that science should serve the public good—not corporate profits or authoritarian power. We know that the…

We’re building something real. Join the Scientists in Solidarity newsletter: buttondown.com/scientistsin...

Scientists in Solidarity We’re a growing community of researchers, educators, and science-adjacent workers who believe that science should serve the public good—not corporate profits or authoritarian power. We know that the…

We’re not alone in this. Get Scientists in Solidarity in your inbox: buttondown.com/scientistsin...

JWST unveils most intricate map yet of cosmic dark matter Astronomers puzzled out minuscule distortions in images of faraway galaxies taken by JWST in order to chart the invisible

The universe is too fucking fabulous for capitalism and Nazis y’all
www.scientificamerican.com/article/jwst...

Scientists in Solidarity We’re a growing community of researchers, educators, and science-adjacent workers who believe that science should serve the public good—not corporate profits or authoritarian power. We know that the…

We’re not just tracking the damage—we ARE the response.

Subscribe: buttondown.com/scientistsin...

#ScientistsInSolidarity

now - especially now - a reminder that we are going to win. and this is why

Red Sea Red Sea: April 2002 This Passover, who reclines? Only the dead, their cupped hands filling slowly with the red wine of war.   We are not free. The blood on the doorposts does not protect anyone....

"this time no one will be left to drown
and all of us must be chosen.
This time it's all of us or none."

~ Aurora Levins Morales, Red Sea

www.auroralevinsmorales.com/red-sea.html

Wise words from WEB DuBois to gird us today: "It would be shame and cowardice to surrender this glorious land and its opportunities for civilization and humanity to the thugs and lynchers, the mobs and profiteers, the monopolists & gamblers who today choke its soul and steal its resources."

Here's a time-lapse from yesterday as thousands of people marched through downtown Minneapolis to protest ICE.

📷️: Sydney Lewis/The Minnesota Star Tribune

take action with @surj.org to link arms with us: linktr.ee/ShowingUpFor...

shorturl.at/jjijt

"As scientists, it is our duty to be brave, to stand with our values, and to make sure that science is something that is life-making.

It means standing with those and linking arms with those who are most vulnerable. To get to them, you’ll have to get through us.”

Minnesota is the best of us.

The People vs. ICE Renee Good’s death galvanized a city eager to push back against Trump’s invasion.

I wrote about Minneapolis.

nymag.com/intelligence...

Since the summer, Trump’s strategy of shifting ICE and the National Guard from city to city magnified this localism. Each targeted jurisdiction has responded with its own character: Protesters gathered to confront ICE en masse in the middle of a Los Angeles freeway, or have danced in frog costumes in Portland, Oregon. With the notable exception of a protest held a month into the federal occupation of D.C., the District’s residents have opted against the large gatherings that the city saw during the Women’s March and the George Floyd protests. Instead, many of them focused on helping one another as neighbors—chasing away ICE agents and walking the children of immigrant parents to school in the morning. “The people getting food to families of migrant neighbors abducted by ICE is resistance,” the D.C. mutual-aid collective Remora House explained. In Chicago, David Black, a Presbyterian pastor whom ICE agents shot with pepper balls, described protests outside Illinois ICE facilities as not “resistance” but “world building”: “We are making ourselves into the world we want to give to the next seven generations.”

One of the big trends in opposition activism during Trump 2.0 has been the localism of protest. This level of organizing is pretty astonishing to watch, and anyone who insists that there haven't been any protests against Trump is simply ignoring it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I have been actively involved in protest movements for 24 years. I have never seen anything approaching this scale. Minneapolis is not accepting what's happening here. ICE fucking murdered a woman for participating in this, and all that did is bring out more people, from more walks of life.

Here's a very small thing you can do to send a little love to Minneapolis bookstores in the meantime. Search by state on Bookshop.org to support a particular independent bookstore, and rather than choosing your favorite local shop this week to receive a profit share, pick one that's in Minneapolis. Some favorites include Magers & Quinn, Moon Palace Books, Comma, Strive, and Wild Rumpus. Fuck ICE forever.

I would absolutely love to give you a personalized book recommendation if you promise that tomorrow, not today, you purchase from Bookshop.org to benefit a Twin Cities bookstore.

MAP: Minneapolis General Strike Movement Spreads to 215 Cities on Friday At least 215 cities plan to hold actions in solidarity with the Minneapolis General Strike.

UPDATE: Now, 215 Minneapolis General Strike solidarity actions are being held around the country.

This could create serious momentum for strikes in other cities where ICE attacks.

paydayreport.com/minneap/

see you at the general strike tomorrow!

I am so proud that I am in the company of so many brilliant, brave humans. We stand in our values. We stand together.

Solidarity Mobilizations Training: ICE Out of Minnesota and Out of Everywhere · Showing Up for Racial Justice ### Ready to build the power we need to stop ICE everywhere? Join **SURJ** and our immigrant partner organization, **Solidarity Organizing Initiative**, for a training on organizing locally and being...

Minneapolis is showing how neighbors take care of each other and keep each other safe--let's learn from their examples and lay the groundwork where we live www.mobilize.us/surj/event/8...

Here’s How We Pressured an Airline to End Its Contract With ICE ICE is not invulnerable. The Avelo Airlines win proves what happens when we refuse inevitability and fight together.

Here’s How We Pressured an Airline to End Its Contract With ICE truthout.org/articles/her...

If you’ve been trying to keep doing your work while the floor keeps moving under all of us: same.
Scientists in Solidarity is back with Action Hours

get grounded
find your people
move together

Register: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

(Also building a small leadership team—DM me if you want in.)