Slingshot asked folks to write a short response to one of these 3 questions to reinforce that none of us are alone:
• “What are you doing to organize with those in your community to promote liberation?”
• “What visions of a new world can you articulate that can move the conversation beyond reacting to our oppressors?”
• “What keeps you present, engaged and able to keep struggling for a better world?”
Here are some of the responses we received:
I deleted Instagram. Everything moves slower, my attention spans greater distances. I read faster. I see fewer images of dead bodies. I am no longer caught in the doomscroll. I don’t feel hopeless or ignorant; the necessary information finds me. I have so much time to make music, paintings, food for the homies, and build capacity for the war we must wage. The technocratic state has less insight into my thoughts, changes in my appearance. I used to admonish my friend for being “80 years old”, but I should’ve listened when she told me to delete everything and smash my phone.
—Nellie Ludd, Eugene, OR
I don’t call it organizing. I just do what makes sense. Share what I have, whether it’s food, knowledge, or a ride when someone’s stuck. Keep an ear to the ground. Know who’s hurting, who’s hungry, who’s got a landlord breathing down their neck. Sometimes it’s just watching each other’s backs, making sure no one gets swallowed up by the machine without a fight. The work isn’t in speeches or grand gestures — it’s in showing up, day after day, for the people who’d do the same for you.
—Cricket, Baton Rouge, LA
I see a world where no one owns the land, yet everyone belongs to it. Where the sky isn’t carved up by power lines, and food doesn’t come wrapped in plastic stamped with a price tag. Where work is done because it matters, not because rent is due. A world built by hands, not dictated by contracts. People think the world can’t work without bosses, borders, and banks. But I’ve seen the way we take care of each other when the lights go out, when the systems fail. That’s the world waiting beneath this one — if we let it breathe.
— Rook, Detroit, MI
The world is burning, but the stars are still out. I keep my hands moving — fixing bikes, rolling cigarettes, passing a jug around a fire where somebody’s playing a half-broken guitar. I keep walking, hopping, finding the next place where somebody needs something I can give. There’s power in that. In the small ways we refuse to be swallowed whole. In the way we laugh when the cops drive by and we know they don’t own us. In the way we keep each other warm.
—Ash, Portland, OR
What I am doing to promote liberation is connecting with my circles to promote thinking politically in terms of both survival and creating a better world for all beyond the immediate threat of fascism. In school, I studied political theory and philosophy, and as an educator, my goal is to promote more thoughtful discussions. Last year, I began giving out free zines, pamphlets, and books at local punk shows as _____ Distro; since then, I’ve put on two hardcore punk benefit shows. Ultimately, I’d like to help organize the punk scene so that we can put our ideals into practice.
—Jam, Oakland, CA
As queers, enbies, trans folk, we spend our lives fighting hard to take up space. We’ve spent our whole lives screaming and demanding answers. Screaming for our safety, screaming to be heard. We were children that grew into adults that never stopped asking why. We want to be the adults that provide answers to those questions with a full heart, respect, love, and realistic reasoning. We never want to lose the ability to ask why, to demand answers, to stay curious, be authentically yourself, and cause good trouble. We want a better future, if not for us, for them. —KJ, Austin, TX
As a high school teacher at a public school, one aware of the inherent oppression of our educational system, my students and their passions for change and social justice are what keeps me focused and present and constantly challenging myself to make my curriculum and my teaching more open and free. By seeing and hearing them speak about what they care about, what they are worried about, and grappling with the darkness of the world while still maintaining their joy, they push me to not only show up at school ready to fight, but to continue to look for ways to walk the walk in the out of school world as well. Despite Republican fascism and Democratic ennui and hopelessness, my work and my students keeps struggling for a better world.
—Cassio, Albuquerque, NM
Every community organization, labor union, school club, or any collective capable of pointed discussion should be a node of governance, the conversations they produce recorded faithfully and delivered to elected officials who consider these proposals before any other. I believe this approach, linking the masses of people within their respective sectors to the political decision-making process, has the potential to produce electoral outcomes which go beyond static reforms. Because standing up such an infrastructure would require extensive organization, it builds power even in the attempt. If carried out, it could turn a single election into an administration run on absolute democracy. Better, a democracy upheld by the most intelligent kind of people: Organized people.
—Hazel, Oakland, CA
Hurt people HURT people. Oppression often comes from deep, unresolved pain and a lack of skillful ways to manage it. I think those of us who’ve done the hard work of healing and have the capacity to hold pain in non-reactivity have a responsibility to seek authentic connection with people whose beliefs clash with our own. Instead of fighting or pointing fingers at them, we need to consciously — and safely — seek ways to hold space for their pain in an effort to facilitate understanding and find common ground. This endless cycle of othering, violent conflict, and war will only truly end when we can meet each other in our shared humanity. Otherwise, we’re continuing to fuel a now-blazing fire that will end up consuming us all.
—J (they/them), Cincinnati, OH
Last week someone came into the community food justice space I work in. Mixing bread dough was the first thing to do. “I’ve only made it once, but I’ll give it a shot…”
Another friend walked in, asking “how can I help?” The new baker said “Well, the best way to learn is to teach someone…”
Later, the second baker was teaching another how to knead dough. The first baker looked back into the kitchen and said, dryly but with a smile, “looks like we’re on the third generation, now.”
We ripple outward. Our knowledge matters. We feed us.
—Juice, Saint Paul, MN
When so much is awry in our world, I cope by keeping my focus on the issue that tugs my heartstrings the most: our climate and biodiversity crises. Spending time in nature is my favorite practice that generates awe, regulates my nervous system and keeps me firmly connected to why I am doing this work.
—Fuchsia Fringe, Berkeley, CA
After the end of the world, “I” will no longer be a fixed territory. Any border shall be crossed and blurred over uncertain terrain, the hubris of delineating such things will be rewarded with perpetual surprise: “I” was much more than I ever imagined. Those inner strangers will face the rest of me, and we will communicate. I will cede control (an archaic nightmare) and those strangers will traverse me, planting seeds of alterity in my fertile soil. A thousand flowers shall bloom and bristle; every “I” tangled. The old maps become unrecognizable, and the rivers coagulate into that ultimordial soup.
Io Trismegistus, Eugene, OR
My queerness has taught me that true binaries are rare, so I understand that success or failure at saving the world is a false binary. We have lost, will lose, so much, but we can shape how we live in that reality. The miracles of this world — repeating fractals of icicles; the unimaginable freedom of trans sex; bread from flour and water and creatures we cannot see — and the knowledge that we are ourselves nature, keep me grounded in my purpose: build the future we want, and do it by living as much of it as we possibly can today.
– Three, New York City, NY
The state fears trans people — not just for who they are, but for what they represent: a radical rejection of imposed norms. Trans existence proves the world can be different, and that terrifies those in power.
That’s why they push fear, hoping to paralyze us. But fear isn’t the end — it’s the beginning. When we process fear instead of letting it consume us, we make room for what comes next: the strength of anger. In our sessions, we transform that anger into power using liberation-centered therapy that builds strength, direct action that disrupts oppression, and queer joy that refuses to be erased.
We are not passive recipients of oppression; we are architects of a world beyond it.
Trans is the future
—Chad (Trans-Affirming Therapist) Cedar Falls / Waterloo, IA
The tide rises. Pressure. We despise doctors: priests, intermediaries between a body and its destiny. The motherfuckers can’t even map out the tip of the iceberg. We strut into appointments, studies in hand, give me my estrogen motherfucker. Referral. Certainly we can do better. Our prerogative clarifies: follow the instructions on hrtcafe.net. Our rage boils into action. A girlie calls for a meeting. A package has arrived: small, impossibly light, barely weighing in my palm. I ask what it is and she tells me: 250 years worth of estradiol enanthate API. Gaping. The math says that’s 500 tits. Grope game grandiloquent.
—Jesse Twinkman, Eugene, OR
