From now until at least the midterm elections in November, we’ll be featuring essays from powerful cultural voices alongside one simple thing, chosen by the author, that you can do to take action against the paralyzing apoplexy of the daily news. Maybe it’ll be an organization that deserves your donation; maybe it’ll be an issue that deserves greater awareness. Whatever it is, our aim is to remind you, and ourselves, of the big and small things we can do to work toward justice and change.
It’s Simple
by Kaveh Akbar
Trump is an abuser. Over a dozen women have come forward with credible accounts of him sexually assaulting them. He bragged about sexually assaulting women on a hot mic. We’ve all heard it. That we need to discuss anything else boggles my mind. He brags about sexually assaulting women, we have credible accounts of him having sexually assaulted women, and still we let him sit in the highest political office in our nation instead of a prison cell. This is not a response to his political ideologies (which, to the extent that they exist at all, are revolting) or to his (in)ability to perform the job in front of him. It’s a demand for the powers that be to reclaim their dignity and assert to the world that Americans will not tolerate abusers of women in power—no abuser movie producers, no abuser comedians, no abuser CEOs, and for fuck’s sake, no abuser presidents.
Take action today:
If you have the means, consider making a donation to the Trans Women of Color Collective. It’s a beautiful organization doing beautiful work, representing a community with the highest risk of experiencing sexual violence.
Kaveh Akbar is a professor at Purdue University and the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf.