A small list of practical things we can do in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack
This is never a list I though I thought I would be writing. For twenty years, I have been privileged enough to move through New Zealand with impunity. Even as an immigrant and a woman, I have been blind to the reality that this could happen. Over the coming days there will be countless calls to action, conversations to be had and circumstances to unpack, but as we search to redefine meaning, there are small, practical steps we can take today to help.
1) Stand together with people and listen. These are all across NZ/The World, find one nearby
2) Donate to general help funds for victims, Launch good is a Muslim run platform for charitable giving.
3) Donate directly to Muslim Institutes who will be helping a community that has lost a large chunk of their congregation/religious leaders/organisers
4) When their website reboots, find a verified 'Give A Little' project to donate to like Victim Support, who work alongside police to support victims of crime in NZ
5) Donate to organisations that empower and support migrants and refugees. There are plenty if you look, this one is one I like. You can find one the aligns with your values
6) Do some research and become informed about the experiences of non-white people in New Zealand/across the world. Be open to being wrong and changing your mind. It’s not nice to accept that things are ‘imbalanced’, but pretending there isn’t a problem makes us complicit.
7) Talk to your children/friends/spouses/the nice old lady on the bus about dangerous ideologies. It took me 3 seconds to google this. Find something that suits your people best.
8) Teachers/Parents become fluent in how to address/discuss what’s happened. We no longer have the naive luxury of talking about terrorism, white supremacy or the effects of racism/islamaphobia as though they don’t exist here/aren’t a threat here/don’t have impact here. What we don’t denounce, we give legitimacy to.
Lisa Meto Fox said on Twitter ‘Tonight we grieve, tomorrow we organize’. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tonight we grieve. Tomorrow we organise.</p>— Lisa Meto Fox (@lisametofox) <a href="https://twitter.com/lisametofox/status/1106482040159928320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Let’s start as we mean to go on, together x
Comentarios