Category Archives: Social Justice

Ringing Spring’s Bell for Continued Quaker Resistance

The talk was lively and nonstop, even with breaks. The gathering moved almost seamlessly into broader issue discussion, with resource people as participants, to consider ways to keep moving and build cooperation and momentum.
The Consultation was not aimed at producing resolutions or a new organization, but to assist in encouraging and facilitating cooperation for continued resistance. Encouragement also seemed in plentiful supply, and we closed with some music, from Scott Holmes, who doubles as an aggressive lawyer fighting mass incarceration when he’s not writing songs. He’d written a new resistance song just for us.
Perhaps this model of locally-driven multi-issue and multi-group consultations would be of use to other Meetings. It is neither expensive nor complicated, and the organizing was done by a small cadre of volunteers, using social media as the main means of promotion. And one of its most welcome outcomes was a lift in spirits. We’ll all need more of those; there’s still much to ring the resistance bell about.

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A story for today: “I Hate Dill Pickles”

“Watch this, Amber,” Sara said, building up to a big finish. She whirled around and threw her arms out in a wide flourish. And when she did, the scoop of soft cookies and cream flew right off the top of the cone and landed splat! right on the side window of a parked white van.
Sara heard the splat and stopped to look, and we both saw a long white drip sliding down the dark glass. She turned to me, eyes wide, mouth open, ready to start giggling.
But then the van’s window rolled down several inches, and a man in dark sunglasses looked out at us. “Hey, young lady,” he said, “better be careful with that stuff.”
Now instead of giggling, Sara squealed and we both turned and ran down the block, all the way to where our houses faced each other across the street. When we got to her place I stopped and glanced back, and the van’s window was closed again. We both stood by her porch for a minute, giggling and laughing and trying to catch our breath. Finally Sara said, “That was wild!”
“Yeah,” I said, “if Sanjaya had tried that, he would have won for sure!”

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The Rainbow Toilet vs. HB2: Wiped from The Headlines in NC

Law & Order’s Special Victims Unit had nothing on Genevieve “Gigi” Burkhalter of Durham NC; but that wasn’t going to stop the North Carolina state troopers who do security around the governor’s mansion in Raleigh. The mansion is currently occupied by governor Pat McCrory, known worldwide as the face of HB2, Carolina’s trans-hostile Bathroom Law.

The troopers were sure they saw a crime being committed there under cover of darkness on April 15, 2016, and when they followed up what they saw on a security videocam, there it was, on the green lawn near the mansion.

A bomb? A corpse? A cache of erased State Department emails? No, wait — it was a toilet.

But not just any toilet. A rainbow toilet. Bearing a sign:

“Gov. McCrory, your hands are not clean. Cut the Crap! #We Came 2 Slay HB2.”

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