I deleted the Instagram app a few days ago.
The theme of Oprah’s Your Life in Focus virtual tour this past Saturday was Adapt.
Humans are highly adaptable.
I remember thinking this to myself sometime in late January of 2018, in the middle of the Utah desert at the end of my first ever backpacking trip. It was our first expedition at HMI. It was ten or so days in the desert, and most of the twelve of us students had never backpacked before (myself included).
Those ten days the desert stripped me from an iphone-wielding teenager to the most raw version of myself I had ever experienced.
I remember early on in the trip hitting a figurative wall and breaking down (or rather, breaking open).
I’m really alone out here.
I didn’t necessarily feel lonely, and I wasn’t physically alone, my group members at this time were all within eyeshot.
But it was the first time I was without my family, my home friends, and my home environment. Oh, and without a toilet, or much toilet paper, or water that didn’t come out of dingy potholes, or food that didn’t crunch with desert seasoning...aka sand.
Who am I without these things??
It was liberating. I could be anyone. I could do anything.
But back to humans are highly adaptable.
New norms can be established much quicker than we think.
It’s like the “Day 1 on…” TikToks.
Soon you go from swiping to the hole on the homescreen at a rate of 13x/minute to hardly realizing you lived any other way.
I needed a break from Instagram because it was starting to infect my thoughts and how I went about my day.
This past week the #BlackLivesMatter movement has taken the nation (and other parts of the world) by storm. People are finally paying attention. Institutions are finally taking action. It’s cool to see how powerful social movements are first hand. It’s also extremely heavy—the reasons why it’s happening in the first place.
One thing that helped me grasp my feelings was research. Looking into organizations and nonprofits that are doing the work first hand.
Here are three organizations that I looked into yesterday:
1) NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund (LDF)
“The NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. is America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice. Through litigation, advocacy, and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities, and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans. LDF also defends the gains and protections won over the past 75 years of civil rights struggle and works to improve the quality and diversity of judicial and executive appointments. LDF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.”
Additionally, “LDF’s widely recognized and historic efforts to end segregation have been complemented by its scholarship program” that for the past “five decades” that’s supported close to two thousand students with over $5.5 million of financial support. (LDF)
Campaign Zero’s mission is to “end police violence in America” by “[analyzing] policing practices across the country, [researching] to identify effective solutions to end police violence, [providing] technical assistance to organizers leading police accountability campaigns and…[developing a]model [of] legislation and advocacy to end police violence nationwide”.
What I found incredibly informative is their comprehensive breakdown of how to end police violence tangibly.
For each of the10 key points they list, they feature half a dozen to over a dozen studies, articles, etc. per point (making for a really informative landing page!).
The key points they list include: “End broken windows policing, community oversight, limit use of force, independently investigate & prosecute, community representation, body cams/film the police, training, end for-profit policing, demilitarization, and fair union police contracts”.
They have a lot of really compelling articles and videos linked on their site.
“With the barriers affecting access to treatment by members of diverse ethnic and racial groups. Loveland Therapy Fund provides financial assistance to Black women and girls nationally seeking therapy...Established in 2018 by Rachel Cargle in response to her widely successful birthday wish fundraiser, Therapy for Black Women and Girls. Her enthusiastic social media community raised over $250,000, which made it possible for Black women and girls nationally to receive therapy support. Black women and girls deserve access to healing, and that healing will impact generations.
The Loveland Foundation is the official continuation of this effort to bring opportunity and healing to communities of color, and especially to Black women and girls. Through fellowships, residency programs, listening tours, and more, ultimately we hope to contribute to both the empowerment and the liberation of the communities we serve.”
The great thing about all of these sites (and most organizations/nonprofits in general) is that you can commit to recurring donations on a monthly, quarterly, bi-annually, or yearly basis from $5 to $500 and more. This makes giving a no brainer, and doing it this way, if you have the capacity to, displays your sustained support of whatever cause it may be.