Traveling outside the US has given me space to step away from being overwhelmed by the news and fear of the future so that I can hopefully plan and be more present when I return. One thing that has made my heart heavy this past spring was a feeling of hopelessness and personal failure - that I was too overwhelmed by rage and hopelessness to do anything or that I felt so helpless in the face of a constant onslaught of bullshit as institutions were threatened and crumbled. I also felt immense guilt for not doing more - for not protesting - for not calling my senators every day - for not dedicating my free time to doing something/anything.

I felt this guilt again yesterday when talking with one of my Swedish friends who used to live in Hawaii and is very activist in her mindset. She shared that there had been protests in Sweden this weekend (I encountered one in Malmo while I was running) in support of Palestine that were not covered in the news. She also said the Swedish news was not saying anything about protests in the US and that from the outside it seems like no one in the US is doing anything in response to Trump. She has tried to convince young people that a lack of media coverage does not mean that nothing is happening, but many of them just assume that the lack of protests means that all Americans are in support of Trump now. 

This feels so unjust, but it's also an attitude I see online in other spaces. People (lots of Canadians) are angry that Americans aren't dong anything. I know I'm not doing enough but I have been doing things that I don't normally do (attending workshops by the ACLU on how to support undocumented students, attending virtual Town Halls with senators, researching ways to support my International PhD student). I've also been traveling a lot because I have a feeling that it will be much, much harder and too expensive to do in a few years.

But I don't know what to say in the face of this attitude. It feels like people want blood. Will they only believe US citizens are doing anything when there is death and mass violence? People are constantly protesting or thwarting ICE. There is resistance in University systems and states collectively building legal funds to sue the US government's meddling in higher education and in arresting and deporting international students and faculty.