Voting rights under attack, spring, and seeding hope for change and renewal
(This post was originally published on substack on May 3`1st, 2026)
Assaults on the Voting Rights Act
The liberal-to-progressive dream of American democracy, equality, and civil liberties is under assault. Attacks on the democratic and civil protections realized by the Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, and LGBTQ+ Rights movements over the past century in the USA are ongoing and onerous.
The latest offensive was inflicted by the U.S. Supreme Court last month, in the ruling of Callais vs. Louisiana, on April 24th. It meliminated the federal statute’s protections against redrawing congressional maps with the purpose of diluting the political power of Black and other POC voters. This was the latest in a crusade against key components of The Voting Rights Act that started around 2013.
The Voting Rights Act, signed by President Johnson in 1965 in response to the protests, civil disobedience, and advocacy of the Civil Rights movement, effectively disarmed many of the Jim Crow era structural mechanisms that had segregated, subjugated, and disenfranchised Black Americans and other people of color in the US.
Over the past month since the ruling, governors and elected officials of several Southern states have initiated efforts to redraw their state’s district lines to weaken Black political power. The Republican governor of Tennessee immediately eliminated the state’s only Black congressional district. And Florida governor De Santis signed a newly re-drawn congressional map intended to give Republicans an advantage in the upcoming midterm elections. Most recently, Louisiana’s governor signed a new congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two existing majority-Black districts. Republican leaders in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia have also initiated similarly intended redistricting efforts.
On May 16th, an All Roads Lead to South rally took place in Montgomery, Alabama outside of the state capitol building, at the terminus site of the 1965 march for Black Voting Rights from Selma to Montgomery led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights organizers.
Another rally in response to attacks on Voting rights took place on May 20th in Mississippi, at the site where “The Mississippi Plan” of 1890 was enacted by white supremacist Mississippi legislators. This abhorrent plan implemented tactics to suppress Black voting, e.g. charging poll taxes, requiring arbitrary voter eligibility “tests,” and enacting felony disenfranchisement. Outside of legal channels, violent voter intimidation practices were rampant in many Southern states. The effect of these practices was disenfranchisement for large percentages of eligible Black voters. For example, in 1964 Mississippi, approximately only 6.7% of eligible Black voters were registered to vote.
The United States Supreme Court and both houses of Congress are tipped in favor of Republicans, most of whom are seizing the opportunity to advance the interests of the billionaires driving and profiting from Big Oil, Big Tech & Finance and of course, their own personal agendas.
Spring, renewal and hope
It’s not all bad, though. It’s warming up in the Northeast, and it’s heating up here in NYC: The Knicks made it to the NBA finals for the first time since 1999! It’s bringing up nostalgia for the days before social media, incessant emailing, texting and scrolling, and when AI was only a villain in sci-fi books and movies.
The prospect of a Knicks championship permeates this great city.
Major update (June 15th)!: The Knicks won the 2026 NBA championship! The immediate response among fans was euphoria and elation. For current New York residents and the New Yorker diaspora currently experiencing Knicks fever, anything feels possible for the summer ahead! Except when we buy groceries and pay our bills, and remember that we’re still mostly screwed. Good vibes can go along way in these times, though. I’ll take them.
Beach and pool season are enticingly ahead. And the midterm elections are upcoming in November: an opportunity for a leftward shift in political power, and for the Democrats to reconfigure their priorities to better serve the needs of their electorate.
Whether or not we truly believe there’s a path out of this disorder, I find it necessary to believe in the possibility of hope, change, and renewal to counterbalance pervasive hopelessness and despair.
We can acknowledge and feel the pain, fear, and despair of these times while also making space to engage and activate our energy and resources to generate small but meaningful positive effects on the world.
Towards this aim, I design and structure my life with intention towards balancing the key aspects of my life and purpose: family/motherhood, friendship/community, physical and emotional care/regulation and work/action.
How to cope, stay present, and counterbalance horror and despair?
What I offer below are some thoughts, strategies, and practices that are helping me stay present, engaged, and civically active while facing the current horrors. A disclaimer on what’s ahead: I’m aware that social location, racial privilege and financial resources greatly impact the circumstances of our lives. My perspective is that of a White cis woman with socioeconomic privilege. I hope but don’t presume broad applicability for these suggested ideas and practices.
You could think of it as creating a menu of life practices that assist with being present, emotionally and physically regulated, resilient, active and socially connected. Each person’s menu items would look different according to their interests, skills, and capacities.
Intentionally carve out time and opportunities to dwell in beauty, joy, hope, and meaningful and fulfilling connection with nature and other living beings.
Create structure and boundaries around engaging with news, social media, and other online activities. Design a system that helps you stay aware and connected but not tethered to your phone and other devices.
Move your body regularly, prioritize rest, AND engage in some type of mindful awareness/meditation/somatic practice.
Take regularly scheduled action to fulfill our inherent need to meaningfully engage in resistance and change efforts.
Allow for experiences of pleasure and joy in the present
It’s full-blown spring here in Brooklyn, NYC. Over the past two months, I’ve been tuning into the various micro-seasons of spring’s awakening in Prospect Park and South Brooklyn. I’ve delighted in the trees and various flora as they sprouted new growth. That first pop of color from the blooming trees is intoxicating. Now late May, those trees have transformed into new leaf growth and are currently shedding seed pods and pollen everywhere. Like warm, green snow.
Since my previous entry that documented record-breaking cold, we’ve had more unseasonable weather: a week of 80-degree temperatures at the very start of spring. This had us all a bit disoriented, including the various bugs and bees who were awakened early from their 6 months’ slumber.
To be honest, I don’t know what happens with bugs in the winter. I know someone who is learning about such things. My 5-and-a-half-year-old daughter said to me the other day, “Mama, did you know that some bugs only live for one day?” She really goes for the existential and emotional knock-out. I wonder where she gets that from?!
Her words are a sobering reminder that our lives are a brief stint in the vast expanse of time that this earth has existed. Perhaps kids’ obsession with dinosaurs is a way of digesting the notion that we and the time in which we live are just specks in the sandstorm of life on this planet and in the universe.
This spring I’ve found it necessary to be outdoors a lot, taking in the blossoms and flowers of Brooklyn’s front and community gardens. This week it’s the season for roses, peonies, and their kin. The earth feels renewed and full of possibility again. In these troubled times, nature somehow endures, and we are part of nature.
There is a lot of hatred, pain, violence, and strife right now in our national institutions, foreign policies, and global organization. Arguably there always has been and always will be. But that’s not all we have inherited, nor all that life is.
Practice digital awareness, intention and boundaries
This one is simple but hard to put into effect: practice digital awareness, intentionality, and boundaries. With the pervasiveness of screens, social media, virtual meetings, and now AI, we are bombarded with more information (and disinformation!), reels, and targeted marketing than ever before in human history. If we are not conscious of the time, energy, and physical toll of all this plugged-in exposure to current events, social media, gaming, gambling, etc., we can miss out on spending quality time with others, connecting to nature, and tending to our physical, mental, relational, and social needs.
I scan the news headlines once or twice daily and sometimes read a few articles of interest. I find it necessary to get up and move around, leave the house often, chat with neighbors, and attend community and political events. I learn at least as much about what’s happening in the world by interacting with real people living in it.
I’m working on intentionally putting my phone in another room for 30-90 minute intervals a few times per day. I hope to build on that over time, and gradually increase to more time without my phone than with it. I find it works better for me to implement smaller changes and build on them over time, than to make grand moves towards improvement that often result in discouragement and quitting.
While some doomscrolling may be inevitable, I’ve found it useful to counterbalance the taking in of the horrors with news of judicial, legislative, and people’s power developments across the country. For example, there are currently several large lawsuits in process filed by young people against the Trump administration for compromising theirs and our ability to live within a safe and non-toxic environment. See this article as an example.
Prioritize intentional rest and movement
It’s a mainstream cultural expectation that we pursue our “goals” and “dreams” to the point of burnout and exhaustion. Most of us would benefit from unplugging, slowing down, experiencing true rest, and engaging our minds and bodies with more intentionality and enjoyment. I find it necessary to resist over-scheduling my own and my family’s time with activities and social commitments. I do this to preserve space for movement, quality time together, and rest. Rest is not always sleeping or lying down. It can be anything that gives your body and mind a break from planning and executing the incessant to-do list. It is the place of just existing in the moment.
When I watch my daughter at-play in the world, I am reminded that we humans are highly physical beings. The need to exert and expend energy physically does not dwindle when life responsibilities expand and overwhelm us. The financial, logistical, and technological demands on our time and energy have increasingly tethered us to our seats and devices. We are expected to exist as if we are brains that need to be optimized. At least until AI does everything for us.
My counsel to myself and others: Close the laptop. Put the phone away. Step away from AI more. Find ways to move your body often. The more you find pleasure and enjoyment in an activity, the more likely you are to return to it. Sprinkle pleasurable experiences throughout daily life. Take short or long walks, alone or with others. Sing in the shower. Dance in your kitchen or anywhere.
Mindfulness practice to promote regulation
I know this will annoy folks, but I really do recommend a daily practice of some type of meditation. It doesn’t have to be a specific type. It can be anything that prompts and reminds us to experience our body and mind in the present moment. If you already practice yoga, that’s great. I’ve done so for most of my life, and I’ve found it necessary to add a separate meditation practice, because it’s easy to mentally zone out and ruminate while being physically active.
When I recommend meditation, a lot of people say, “I’ve tried and I’m not good at it.” That is irrelevant. It’s not something to be good at. If you want to be competitive about it, which I don’t recommend, it’s a capacity that develops with practice and time. I prefer listening to guided mindfulness meditation recordings through an app called Insight Timer.
My personal favorite meditation categories are mindfulness, body scans, progressive muscle relaxations, somatics and Yoga Nidra. I tend to practice meditation before bedtime. I’ve read that 15-20 minutes is somewhat of a minimum for effective daily practice, so I aim for that. It’s a reminder to check in with my breath, body and emotional state.
Somatic awareness and practice
I’m currently training in incorporating a focus on physical sensations, body awareness, and nervous system responses into my practice of psychotherapy. The umbrella of practices that attend to body awareness and physical sensations are known in the psychotherapy field as somatic therapy.
In the Westernized cultural context I grew up in, including my training in psychology, conceptions of mind and body were separated out and disconnected in ways that make no sense. In reality, our minds and bodies are highly interconnected and constantly send signals back and forth to one another.
Our thoughts are colored by feelings, textured by our various senses, and accompanied by physical markers in our bodies and brains. We may have a physical response to a situation that our brain fills in a story about. Recall of a past negative experience or negative forecasting can precipitate nervous system activation in the present. A scent can trigger a sensory memory of a time and place that is so powerful we feel that the past is present.
The Westernized mental health field has largely neglected our bodies, while privileging our thoughts and behaviors. I’m working on reintegrating body and sensory awareness in my daily life and in my practice of psychotherapy.
Take action and join/build community
One thing that helps me keep existential fear and horror within a tolerable range is to join in meaningful actions related to the issues I care most about that intersect with my particular skills and capacity. There are many ways to be politically and civically engaged.
I find protests, direct action, and marches especially validating, invigorating, powerful, celebratory, and even hopeful. They are parties, parades, and political theater with the cause of justice. We are disrupting business as usual by causing a blockage of traffic across an avenue or two. These actions evoke the spirit of the sit-ins, freedom rides, bus boycotts, and other Civil Rights Movement collective actions. I find it cathartic to shout expletives about our current presidential administration and associated oligarchs, in unison with similarly minded folks.
Shout out to direct-action groups
I particularly appreciate and admire direct-action focused activist groups. A direct action is when a group of activists disrupt an event or place in a highly publicized way, drawing public and media attention and upsetting nefarious companies and agents who profit from destroying the planet, undermining democracy and promoting white supremacy and genocide.
Last summer, the youth climate activist group Planet over Profit (POP) organized a direct action in New York City during which protesters linked arms and blocked access to the entrance of the Palantir Technologies office building. Palantir is a data-mining firm founded by billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel, which contracts with the Department of Homeland Security that operates ICE. Several demonstrators entered the building’s lobby and refused to leave, displaying a large banner that read “Palantir powers ICE.”
Direct action campaigns like this have helped to shape progressive messaging and policies, such as those aimed at increasing taxes on billionaires and large corporations. POP was also involved in a recent multi-region direct action campaign organized by youth climate activist group The Sunrise Movement and coalition partners. The campaign protested the Hilton Hotel corporation for housing and assisting with ICE operations. On January 27th of this year, 60 activists were arrested at a Hilton Garden Inn in Manhattan. Direct actions like these have fostered public awareness about various companies’ financial and tactical ties with ICE’s illegal and inhumane apprehension and detention practices.
Some other civil disobedience and direct-action groups here in NYC and surrounding with strong direct-action components I’ve been following are Climate Defiance, Jewish Voices for Peace and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ) and Climate Defenders.
A recent coalition campaign to “Demilitarize the Brooklyn Navy Yard” targeted the company Easy Aerial, an AI drone manufacturer with financial and tactical ties to DHS and the Israeli military, which continues it’s apartheid and genocide of Palestinians. Easy Aerial was housed and operated within the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation voted on February 11th to not renew their lease with Easy Arial when it expired in May; a victory for the coalition of groups that organized this protest and direct action campaign. I’ve heard many people query out loud, “Do protests achieve anything?” The answer, of course, is yes! Protests and direct action have immediate and long-term political, financial, and structural effects on our society and government, as happened with the various civil rights movements of the past century.
But how do protest and direct actions impact government and society? They publicize resistance efforts, recruit more dissenters, help shape the platforms of candidates running for office, and pressure policymakers to enact new practices. I also find them personally beneficial and energizing in that they provide a much-needed sense of community, belonging, and alignment with other individuals and groups who share in my rage and despair about where this country is headed.
So what if you’re not into protesting? No problem.
I understand that not everyone enjoys or feels comfortable at protests, marches or participating in civil disobedience. That’s okay. There are plenty of other ways to resist fascism, oligarchy and white supremacy. Registering people to vote, volunteering to monitor elections, donating money to active change-makers, and contributing to community care in any ways are great options for those inclined towards such activities.
I don’t believe that we should force ourselves to take actions that we find unpleasant or aversive. I personally find local governance incredibly boring. Other people enjoy and are good at it, thankfully. Tuning into local politics and supporting or volunteering to help elect humanitarian, egalitarian, anti-racist, and progressive candidates at any level of government are necessary endeavors.
On the PBS children’s show Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Fred Rogers famously shared that as a child, when he was distraught and afraid from hearing the news, his mother told him to “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” I believe in and experience antidepressant effects of being a helper in small but significant ways. We can do that by taking action in opposing racism, violence, ecocide and other forms of injustice, and promoting community well-being and care.
Talk to friends, family, neighbors, and associates about what they value, want, and need most. Consider if you can offer support or connect them to resources. Organize or give to mutual aid. Make phone calls or send emails to lawmakers. And if all you can contribute right now is some money, that’s great! Please donate to groups who are taking action to promote nonviolence, equal rights, inclusivity, and liberty and justice for all.
Edited by Vicky Choy
Note: This essay was written without any assistance or use of AI. All of it’s substance and flaws are entirely human :-)
