I need to tell you something before we start.
I don’t usually talk about connection as resistance on this podcast. Normally, I come at it from a personal lens. How community will benefit YOU. How friendship fills you up. How connection makes life better.
But behind the scenes, when I’m picking my topics and constructing my outlines, that’s very much how I think of connection. It’s just not how I normally frame it to you.
Today, we’re talking about connection as resistance. We have to. Because people are being disappeared from their homes. And one thing in these desperate times—maybe the ONLY thing—that could stand between a person and that kind of harm is whether someone standing around them would notice. And then, beyond that, whether anyone would care.
If you’re not aware of what’s happening right now, here’s the briefest primer: ICE is kidnapping people across the US. In Minneapolis, in Maine, in Seattle where I live, in many cities. All under the guise of “cracking down on immigration.” But there are hundreds, if not thousands, of videos and accounts of CITIZENS being arrested. People who are following the legal process. Videos of people screaming “I have papers” as they’re brutally dragged into cars.
This administration doesn’t care. It’s about fear and control. And the hope that the average everyday person will become too scared to take action. I also think they hope the average American is too separate from their neighbors, too atomized, and that will make them indifferent.
So when we’re seeing abandoned cars still running on the side of the road, people’s front doors being busted down, raids on daycares, we have to ask ourselves: What are we doing?
I do this work for many reasons. But one of them is that at the very core, I believe humans deserve to feel SAFE. And that is not the world so many people are living in right now.
This episode is about what you can do. Right now. From where you are.
Who This Episode Is For (And Who It’s Not For)
Let me be clear about who this episode is for.
This episode is for people like me. People who have spent too much time doom-scrolling, feeling sick to their stomach, feeling helpless, and wondering what they can possibly do from where they are.
When I reflected on that, I wanted to give you just ONE idea. It’s a small idea. It might feel too small, too insignificant. But I think we can either sit in our helplessness, or we can try to normalize in our own routines, taking small actions that hopefully add up.
This episode is NOT for people in Minneapolis or other cities currently under occupation. If that’s you, my thoughts are with you. But you are so far beyond what I’m going to talk about today. You are in a desperate place. And desperate people don’t care about social norms. You’re already knocking on neighbors’ doors you’ve never met. You’re already giving your phone number to strangers. You’re already standing on street corners with whistles. All social norms have gone out the window, and you’re doing whatever you can to band together to survive.
This episode is for anyone who is NOT in panic mode but feels really lost about what they can do.
We can wait until we’re desperate. But I don’t recommend it.
Because then it’s just one more barrier you have to cross in order to survive. If you can start building these connections NOW, there’s no harm. Being better connected to your neighbors and your community cannot hurt you.
One final, really important caveat: If you are listening to this and you are in a vulnerable position right now, if you are part of a targeted community, this episode is NOT me telling you to go out and make yourself more visible to people you don’t trust. Your safety comes first. Always.
This episode is for people who have RELATIVE SAFETY and want to leverage that privilege.
The Thesis: Familiarity Is Protection
If you, like me, have relative safety, there are TWO things you can do right now. And they both require the same basic action: developing some familiarity with the people who live around you.
First: Become more known as a SAFE person. Make yourself available as someone who would help. Put yourself out there so that people who need support know where to find it.
The goal isn’t to become besties with your neighbors. It’s not to extract information about people who feel vulnerable. It’s to make it clear that you are someone they could come to, even though they may not know you that well, and you definitely don’t know them that well. That’s okay. They can still reach out.
Second: Build some basic familiarity with people who feel like potential THREATS. Yes, I am telling you to go out there and make some very basic connections with the people who believe that everything happening is fine. Who seem indifferent to what’s going on.
Because the more I thought about it, the more I realized: when you strip away the anonymity of someone who might just be callous or indifferent, it’s HARDER for them to act.
We all know the feeling of doing something wrong and being hyper-aware of whether someone is around. Whether someone could see us. We know that feeling.
Hateful action thrives on anonymity. On the assumption that no one is paying attention. On the belief that your neighbors will just look away.
So when someone knows they are being WITNESSED—when they’re looking over their shoulder, knowing that if the blind is open and somebody saw something—that shifts things.
I also believe that most people (not all, but most) aren’t hateful. They’re APATHETIC. Unconcerned. Indifferent. They aren’t thinking twice about it. They’re hyper-focused on themselves. So part of it is that they don’t know other people. They can stay in their bubble. They can act with no community accountability.
Both of these require you to get to know your neighbors. To turn faces that are just kind of there into people with names. To make yourself known. To pay attention.
This is resistance.
What we’re talking about isn’t just nice community building. This is an intentional act of resistance that you can weave into your everyday life.
Because this administration thrives on fear and isolation. They WANT communities that are fragmented. They WANT neighbors who don’t know each other. Because that makes it easier to disappear someone without anyone noticing. It makes it more likely that someone will stay in their house out of fear than come outside to resist.
When you build connection, when you make yourself known, when you make it clear that you are paying attention, you are disrupting that isolation.
And that’s resistance.
What I’m Actually Asking You to Do
Let’s talk about what I’m actually asking you to do.
The risks are not equal. If you have citizenship, whiteness, economic stability, you becoming known to your neighbors is LOW RISK. But for someone in a targeted community, becoming known to the wrong neighbor could put them in danger.
So when I talk about familiarity, I’m talking about those of us with safety making ourselves VISIBLE. I’m not asking vulnerable people to expose themselves.
If you are this person with relative safety, here’s where to start:
Say hi to your neighbors. All of them. Start chatting a little bit. Get a sense of where people lie. Know their names. Potentially get their phone numbers. Try to decide if you would recognize them if you saw them in the grocery store.
Use your discernment. But maybe start telling people, “Hey, I really think it’s important we all get to know our neighbors.” Encourage people to meet each other.
Now, I started writing this episode envisioning a neighborhood full of single-family homes. You walk down the street, maybe your neighbor is getting out of their car in the driveway, their garage is open. But that’s very different from my reality.
I live in a very urban, densely populated area. I know everyone in my building. I have all of their phone numbers. But I can also work on meeting people on my street. And because everybody is behind an apartment building door, I’ll have to get a little crafty. (I’ll talk about what I’m doing at the end.)
But back to being a good neighbor.
Being a good neighbor doesn’t require knowing everything about someone. This is the discernment piece. If you get a sense that someone is part of a vulnerable population, you don’t need to ask them where they’re from. You don’t need to know their status. You don’t need to know their life story.
Sometimes the most protective thing you can do is be consistently present, consistently kind, and let people share what they want to share when they’re ready.
How to Make Yourself Visible as a Safe Person
Put something in your window that signals you’re a safe house. Signs. Rainbow flags. Signs in other languages.
Wear something. A pin. Something hanging off your bag.
Be vocal about your values in casual conversation. Not preachy, but clear.
Offer specific, concrete help. “I’m usually home on weekday afternoons. If you ever need someone…” or “I have a car. I’m always happy to give you a ride.”
Give people your phone number. “This is my name. This is my phone number. I don’t need yours, but always feel free to call me.” Let people come to you when they’re ready. Make it clear the door is open.
If you want to go deeper: Start having more one-on-one conversations. Invite people over to your front porch. Knock on their door and drop something off. Figure out where people sit on your street and who your allies are.
What If You’re the One at Risk?
If you are part of a targeted community, I am NOT asking you to trust everyone on your block. Your job right now is to protect yourself and your family. Period.
If there are neighbors you already trust, lean into those relationships. But you get to be selective. You get to wait and see who shows up as safe.
There are things you can do, though. Tell them you’re worried. Ask for their phone number. Ask when they’re around.
This episode is a call for people who could be protective to step up so you have more people to rely on.
What If My Neighbors Are the Problem?
I get that. But if you have privilege and relative safety, you have POWER here.
We are trying to create a space where it is harder to act in hateful ways because people know they are being witnessed. They know people are watching.
So pay attention. Make it known (without being confrontational) that you see what is happening on your block. When you wave, when you are consistently present, when you make it clear that you know who lives in that house and you are watching out for them, that will shift things.
When someone starts to realize that there is a WEB OF CONNECTION happening in your neighborhood, and they are outnumbered by people who would step in and protect someone, that’s a deterrent.
My goal here isn’t that you change the truly hateful people. It’s that you make it harder for them to act. And you make the vulnerable people know that they are not alone.
What If This Feels Too Small?
We’ve convinced ourselves that we have to do these really big actions. And a lot of the really big actions are what we see modeled on the internet. That’s what goes viral.
If you really want to take bigger actions, if you want to be more involved, that’s great. But we all have to start somewhere. And that could be you and your community just getting to know each other and developing some basic familiarity.
Here’s what Minneapolis is showing us: There are story after story coming out about people coming together. About a strong community. People standing guard at schools. Mutual aid networks bringing food. Driving kids to and from activities. People waiting outside detention centers, meeting detainees who have no phone, no money, no way to get back home safely.
That’s incredible. But Minneapolis had to rally in a crisis.
What I’m talking about in this episode is being connected because you care. And also partially setting yourself up if your area is impacted. Because knowing your neighbors means you will have one less barrier to cross. In the most intense of times, you will already have people’s phone numbers. You will already know their names.
What I’m Doing
I live in a very densely populated urban area. Close to downtown Seattle. Probably thousands of people live on my street. I’m surrounded by apartment buildings. So it’s not as easy for me to go knock on an apartment door and meet somebody.
Here’s what I’m doing:
I’m connecting into a neighborhood-specific response team. If you’re in Seattle, these are all over. I’m keeping my ear to the ground for ways I can show up.
I’ve identified my strengths. Giving rides. Delivering groceries. Meeting detainees. I know there are organizers already doing this work, so I’m paying attention to find those groups.
I’m talking to people in my life. That includes you, but also offline. Because having conversations like this gets people thinking about their own ways they can show up.
I’m calling my reps. We all have to do that all the time.
And at the core of it all, at minimum, I am trying to spend at least 10 to 15 minutes a day doing something that makes an impact here.
The Closing Thought
I’ve had friends who don’t live in the US anymore (but are American citizens) ask me, “Have you considered moving abroad?”
And I always come back to the same thing: If all of us who cared left, nobody would be here to stay and fight.
And it doesn’t need to be some big life-altering fight right now. We’re not maybe desperate enough for that. But what we can do is this: if we have some safety, we can use it.
We can make ourselves known. We can be the neighbor that someone would call in an emergency. We can pay attention. And we can let the people who might do harm (of whatever kind) know that they are being witnessed and seen and watched.
I think that’s the work.
Tune in wherever you listen to your podcasts.
