U.S : Five anti-racist actions for the week of August 3.

Dear friend,

"Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge."--Black queer feminist poet Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider : Essays and Speeches

Lorde's words ring as true today as they did at the turn of the 1980s when she first said them. As we continue on our own anti-racism journey, transforming our knowledge into action, please consider taking one or all of the following five anti-racist actions :

Donate to The Black National Convention. The Movement for Black Lives will host a three-day gathering of 500 movement leaders from across the country. This event will take place on August 28, in tandem with the Democratic National Convention.

Sign and share the Breonna Taylor petition. It has been almost 150 days since three plainclothes police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician (EMT), in her own home. Breonna was shot at least eight times, then abandoned without medical attention that could have saved her life. To date, only one officer has been fired from his job, and none of the officers have been charged with her murder. Please sign and share the petition to elected leaders with a list of demands to hold her murderers accountable. 

Join us at this anti-racist feminism webinar. UltraViolet is proud to partner with Women's March, Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, MomsRising, Supermajority, and the United State of Women (USOW) to offer the "Feminist Future" webinar series every Thursday at 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT. This Thursday, August 6, speakers will cover actionable steps activists and volunteers can take to mobilize their communities for racial justice. 

Read and share Black feminist writings. At last week's Feminist Future webinar, which can be viewed here, Black feminist foremother Barbara Smith reminded us that she edited an anthology entitled Home Girls : A Black Feminist Anthology. While the anthology includes essays by many feminist greats such as Alice Walker and Audre Lorde, she highlighted the book’s final--and very timely--essay by Bernice Johnson Reagon on coalition-building. 

Plug into local organizing. Even in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of people in the United States have taken to the streets and social media in defense of Black lives. But, we know that the struggle to end white supremacy is a long one that requires us to commit to organizing together with others. If you identify as white, one way that you can continue doing this important work is by joining your local Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) chapter, or starting one in your area.

Thank you for taking action with us ! 

Shaunna, KaeLyn, Kathy, Melody, Pam, Lindsay, Sonja, Kimberly, Maria, Elisa, and Katie, the UltraViolet team.