Becky Jaffe: Resources to #Resist
This is a guest post by Becky Jaffe.
Per your request, I drafted a quick list of progressive organizations that we will want to support now more than ever. This list of national organizations is by no means comprehensive, just a good place to start if you want to get plugged in to community organizations that build power for the most marginalized sectors of our society. Each of these is a clickable link that will take you directly to the organization’s website so you can learn more about their mission. Please add to this list and circulate widely. I will be creating a Bay Area-specific list soon for people who want to support local community organizations and I encourage you to make a similar list for your region.
Let’s get busy supporting each other, people! We have our work cut out for us and much joyful organizing ahead.
Immigrant/Refugee rights:
- National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
- National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers’ Guild
- National Immigration Law Center
- Catholic Charities
- the New American Leaders Project
- Presente
- Define American
Civil Rights, social justice and legal defense organizations:
- CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations
- SURJ, Showing Up for Racial Justice
- NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
- Black Lives Matter
- the Anti-Defamation League
- Race Forward
- Fred T. Korematsu Institute for Civil Rights and Education
- Bend the Arc: a Jewish partnership for Justice
- Center for Constitutional Rights
- Human Rights Watch:United States
- ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union
- NLG, the National Lawyer’s Guild
- Legal Aid Society
- SPLC the Southern Poverty Law Center
- The Innocence Project
- Schools Not Prisons
- Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
- SEIU, Service Employees International Union
- Planned Parenthood
- National Organization for Women
LGBTQ rights:
- GLAAD: Gay And Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
- National Center for Lesbian Rights
- Human Rights Campaign
- Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund
- Transgender Law Center
Disability rights:
Building democracy:
- Women’s March on Washington: 10 Actions for the first 100 Days
- the Equal Justice Society
- The Highlander Research and Education Center
Fight for the Future - Indivisible: Former congressional staffers reveal best practices for making Congress listen
- Common Cause
- FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting
- Center for Digital Democracy
- Brennan Center for Justice
- Public Citizen
- Inequality Media
Environmental organizations:
mathbabe 
I think it’s worth pointing out (for all us addicts), this coffeehouse fundraising effort, THIS WEEKEND, for the ACLU:
http://sprudge.com/a-nationwide-coffee-fundraiser-for-the-aclu-115163.html
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One of the top links is immigration rights. I think it’s adorable how non-US citizens suddenly have rights as if they are US citizens. Admittedly, I have a bias in this because I’m a former blue collar worker turned computer science major now a software developer. In other words, I’m not happy because after being told to get a STEM degree so I would always have a job and after working my ass off with a full time job and going to college for 6 years full time to get said degree, I still face the real possibility of getting laid off (note my previous posts about SunTrust, Disney, etc.). So getting me to agree on immigration topics may be a bit of a challenge. Regarding H1B visas, here is an interesting conversation on Quora.
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-H-1B-visa-program-at-risk
JamesNT
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If the United States were not the #1 weapons exporter in the world, I might grant you your point. But as it happens, the United States plays a significant role in generating the refugees that we refuse to take in. It’s no mere charity to resettle refugees; it’s acknowledging and taking responsibility for the very real consequences of our commitment to perpetual warfare.
http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/world-s-largest-exporters-of-arms.html
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All that sounds awesome until you realize you are depressing wages, costing people their jobs, etc. Better to not create refugees in the first place or, rather, help them where they are. As long as bringing in more immigrants/refugees poses higher risk to my ability to feed my family, I will continue to cast my vote for a candidate against yours. Better we should find common ground such as voting to stop creating refugees in the first place. Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of a “happy” refugee.
JamesNT
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JamesNT, I think the mechanisms for and numbers of legal immigration is a topic worthy of discussion for many reasons, including the one you’ve cited related to jobs. But I don’t have all the data at hand to have a meaningful discussion on this topic right now.
What I will say, however, is that if your concerns are about your own working conditions, you should absolutely want immigrants/non-US persons to have access to the same legal protections that you do. Otherwise they become a second-class labor force that will make you a less attractive employee and ultimately dilute your own labor protections.
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RTG,
Of course I want immigrants to come here legally and legally obtain citizenship so they do have all the protections I have. That’s not even up for debate.
The problem is that’s not what’s happening. H1B visas are being abused and people are losing their jobs over just the thing you are pointing out. The other problem is that we do allow too many immigrants to come over here.
Look at the immigration laws of other countries.
JamesNT
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Under civil rights, let me add the Center for Constitutional Rights.
http://ccrjustice.org/
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Added to the list. Thank you!
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I would do some due diligence on CAIR.
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under building democracy, Public Citizen http://citizen.org/
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Added to the list. Thank you!
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Do you know a group that is working on addressing the gerrymandering in congressional districts? I live in PA where the vote is about 50-50 statewide but the congressional representation is 13 republicans and 5 democrats.
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I think that was initially going to be Obama’s focus post-Presidency, but he may expand that now.
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For general national reform, there is FairVote. For Pennsylvania specific, there is Fair Districts PA. Don’t know how effective these groups are or will be, but we need all the help we can get to have elections where individual voters can actually have an adequate voice (instead of being shoe-horned into safe Republican or Democratic districts).
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Not anything in this list about election reform. I suggest starting with the book “Grand Illusion” by Theresa Amato. Here are some organizations that work on gerrymandering among other election issues, in no particular order:
http://www.rangevoting.org/GerryExamples.html
http://bdistricting.com/
http://fakeisthenewreal.org/reform/
https://electology.org/blog/worrying-about-right-things
http://autoredistrict.org/index.php
http://www.fairvote.org
https://freeandequal.org
http://www.citizenadvocacycenter.org
http://www.competitivedemocracy.org/
http://ballot-access.org/
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Agreed. One thing we can do— for the next election— is to physically transport people to the polls who wouldn’t typically have transportation there (and have people to document the response at the polls); and ALSO to work to fix the gerrymandering — whoever that ‘appears’ to benefit — republicans or democrats. It’s a long process, and our country’s best investment in democracy!
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I have serious concerns about the SPLC and its list of “Anti-Muslim Extremists”. They include two reformers of Islam who should not be in that list: Maajid Naawaz and Ayan Hirsi Ali. Check this article by Ethan Lipman to find out more about this http://bit.ly/2kpIPIa.
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Another one to consider adding is the Brennan Center for Justice, http://www.brennancenter.org/
“The Center’s work ranges from voting rights to campaign finance reform, from ending mass incarceration to preserving Constitutional protection in the fight against terrorism.”
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Added to the list. Thank you!
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Also under “Building democracy” I’d mention that Norman Lear’s old group “People For the American Way” is still active: http://www.pfaw.org
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The National Organization for Women: http://now.org/about/
As far as I know, it’s the only national feminist organization that has both a grassroots structure and an agenda that spans a broad range of feminist issues.
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I added it to the list. Thank you!
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Whoever becomes Secretary of Education, they will likely oversee an attempt to weaken public education nationwide via a continued push for privatization marketed as “school choice”.
There’s a bunch of national organizations that have been fighting for public schools (and against corporate ed reform):
Network for Public Education (http://networkforpubliceducation.org/)
Journey 4 Justice (http://www.j4jalliance.com/)
United Opt Out (http://www.unitedoptoutnational.org/)
Parent Coalition for Student Privacy (http://www.studentprivacymatters.org/)
Parents Across America (http://parentsacrossamerica.org/)
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I would like to add to the list of democracy, the National Issues Forum; it is a place where citizens gather to deliberate on topics of national importance, at a local level. Every voice deserves a chance to be heard. Here is one way to do that, respectfully!
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I have something that may be of interest to you and the organizations on your list:
https://currentstatebills.wordpress.com
-links to instructions on how to find each state’s bills
-links to instructions on how to find all federal bills
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