CPDCS is happy to announce that the organizer/scholar Nick Rabb has joined our board. As we approach the coming crises, he has organized a series of webinars to help us work to defend those and that which must be defended and to work for life affirming changes.
The recent election result marks a pivotal moment for U.S. politics and our collective ability to bring about justice, secure rights, and improve our lives. It is a time of strong emotion, grief, fear, anxiety, perhaps numbness. Many of us may naturally feel driven to plan and take steps towards action, but in the face of the shifting political landscape and overwhelming feelings, feel stuck. Others of us who have been already taking action may be wondering how to move forward and make our political work more effective or more appropriate for our new political landscape.
This nonlinear series of workshops is designed to help us move forward: process these feelings in community, analyze the current moment and plan for what may come, ask critical questions about how we’ve been operating thus far, and share frameworks and tools for acting politically in the new landscape. You can attend any of the workshops without having been to the others. The topics and activities we will cover are crucial for those unfamiliar with how we all can take political action, but also useful for those experienced in social change work. Based on what you are interested in, you can pick and choose which to attend.
Workshops will be held on Zoom and also recorded to be posted on YouTube (you can attend anonymously to avoid identification through recording). They are also best attended as a group of at least three people – whether those be friends, family, colleagues, organizing partners – as some of the work we will do is designed to spark continued discussion and reflection outside of the workshop.
First Workshop: “Processing this Moment”
This first workshop will open space for us to process our thoughts and feelings about the recent U.S. election results. Using a mix of activities and group discussion, we will dig deep into our reactions as well as hear those of others.
Additionally, this workshop will lay out some of the central questions motivating the entire series: How do we defend ourselves against what’s coming? How do we think about making change given our current political landscape? What can we learn from past years of political efforts, and how can we use that knowledge to change our current work?
