What You Need: Post-Election Resources

Today, I plan on attending a wonderful event here at the University of Delaware, co-sponsored by a variety of departments and featuring two flights of professors talking us through the election, and how to make sense of a post-election United States.

Education, I firmly believe, is my primary path forward from this election. I want to never stop learning, but I also want to teach, to engage in discussion, to contextualize, historicize, and yes, fact-check, even in this possibly post-truth world. 

So I was wondering what I could do to contribute to this great event. Together with a band of like-minded graduate students (namely, the inspiring Kiersten Mounce and the wonderful Elizabeth Jones-Minsinger), I got to work on a document we could distribute, full of information, further reading, links to charities and organizations, and ideas for exercising your active citizenship over the next four years. ​

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Post-Election Resources:

The premise of this document is that there are basic tenets America’s constitution guarantees and/or that are in the best interest of all Americans:

• Civil rights, liberty, and freedom for all. Civil rights includes environmental justice and fighting climate change.
• Economic equality and prosperity for all
• Protection of democracy and fighting corruption in politics
• An informed citizenry as key to all of the above.

With the exception of climate change and the environment, all of these have been invoked by all sides of the U.S. political arena in the months leading up the election, even if different people meant different things while invoking them. These are issues that transcend party politics and provide common ground for all Americans to agree on -- regardless of whether you think political answers lie in big or small government, balanced budgets or increased spending, increased global humanitarian efforts, increased American isolationism, or increased American interventionism (or any combination of the above). This document represents a wide variety of causes that may be of varying personal importance to you;  if you feel motivated, we hope that at least one of the organizations, forms of action, or causes leaps out at you as worthy of your time and effort.

Click here to access the full document

Some starting points:

• Invest in your community! Join nearby religious or faith groups that work toward causes you believe in; Support local businesses, woman-owned businesses, black- and minority-owned businesses; Join or start local chapters of national organizations; Volunteer at local charities (some listed later here), and get to know your neighbors -- ask them for sugar and give them those extra cookies you baked with it that you don’t even want and know you’ll just eat at 1AM if they sit in your kitchen overnight. Find out what your bank is doing with your money and move it to a different one (maybe a Credit Union!) if you don’t agree with their investments.
  
• Investigate your carbon footprint and work to shrink it--reduce, recycle and reuse can be awesome. My favorite way to do this is: instead of buying corporate conglomerates’ beer, invest in a glass growler and fill it up with beer from local breweries. Ditto with investing in a gorgeous water bottle to replace plastic ones -- and a favorite coffee mug with lid that you get filled at coffee shops instead of paper cups. (There are often financial savings here: Saxby’s offers %10 off if you bring your own cup, and %15 off if you bring a Saxby’s reusable cup- many other coffee shops offer discounts too.)
• Get together with friends, classmates, or organizations to offer to paint over any hateful graffiti that you might see or might be found in your neighborhood; beautify your home and connect with people at the same time. Or just make some public art on your own for yourself or as a local monument. Mark ground that is sacred to you and consecrate it with flowers, rocks, or other handy and meaningful markers. 
• Check out Volunteer Match, a great way to find with nonprofits that need your help, time, and/or expertise. 
• Take a moment to read the Southern Poverty Law Center's “Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide” 
  
• Or, read Yale Professor Timothy Snyder’s 20-point list of lessons from the 20th century to take into the 21st.