I really want folks to understand how labor-intensive the aftermath of the gassings, illegal detentions, and baton round shootings have been for folks trying to heal and get justice after the May/June uprisings.

It still takes significant chunks out of our days and weeks.

We were gassed twice, shot at (they got my husband with baton rounds twice), and detained for hours without outside contact in tight zip cuffs that seem to have caused me lasting nerve damage.

Maybe a week after the gassings, I had the first ocular migraine of my life. We ended up at the emergency room for something like 7 hours; I thought maybe I was losing a retina, they were concerned enough that they put me through an MRI and a battery of tests.

I've had more doctor appointments in the past two months than I had probably in the past year, trying to figure out that stress-induced migraine, tear gas-induced sun and heat rash, apparent nerve damage, and the sudden emergence of gushing nosebleeds with no apparent cause.

Then there are the hours of worry wondering if the bleeding I experienced immediately after the gassings was a tear gas-induced miscarriage or a normal period.

There are more hours worrying whether the gas, a known reproductive system disrupter, will interfere with efforts to conceive.

There's all the time lost of a month of summer fireworks that made me jump out of my skin and lose track of what I was doing, with every bang bringing me back to the crack of a tear gas cannon firing.

There are the hours of therapy-- personal and couple's-- because after the ocular migraine it became clear to us that this wasn't trauma it would be healthy to try and white knuckle through.

There are the hours spent recruiting for the lawsuit, writing statements for the lawsuit, participating in press conferences for the lawsuit, working with lawyers on the lawsuit, working with other plantiffs to make sure the lawsuit is a liberatory vehicle for change.

That last part is stressful but worth it-- lawsuits that change policy require organizing, and I'm glad we're doing that work-- but like the rest of it, it's work that's mostly invisible from the outside right now.

It's costly, too.

That ocular migraine ER visit cost us the better part of a thousand dollars.

The co-pays add up.

It's hard to get work done and find income when fireworks are triggering your PTSD every 40 minutes or so all day.

And while we're certainly not wealthy, we have a deep support network and health insurance.

We can get/afford the care we need.

We aren't caring for children who got gassed out of their home or dodged rubber bullets in their own neighborhood.

One of the main costs of poverty is time-- it takes an unendingly long time for low income people to get needed healthcare, to cut through tape and bullshit and find trustworthy legal representation, to successfully demand respect and get heard.

. @phillymayor and @PPDCommish gassed entire Black communities, communities that contained many low income folks.

If we, with our white and relative economic privilege, are losing this much time and money in the aftermath, imagine what it is costing folks closer to the pain.

This shit doesn't fade from the lives of the brutalized the way it does from the headlines and the evening news.

The purpose of this sort of mass police violence is to traumatize people into staying quiet and out of the street.

It's to make protest so costly that we skip it.

Black protest and protest that gets written off as "Antifa" was the testing ground for this mass suppression of First Amendment rights.

Be very clear that the intent was to chill popular anti-Trump protest come November, and practice for it.

You don't have to look any further than Trump's USPS scandal to know that he hopes to win this election by unprecedented voter suppression.

It would be beyond naive to think that he won't try to find a pretext to pull this shit in our streets in the election leadup as a suppression tactic to scare people away from the polls.

It would be even more naive to think that he wouldn't try for a coup if that doesn't work by denying the results and suing to discount mail-ins.

If you think SCOTUS won't facilitate that coup for stability's sake, you need to crack open a history book & read about Election 2000.

The *only* thing that stands a chance to make SCOTUS think twice on that one is them believing that legitimizing a coup would mean risking spark civil war.

For them to fear that, there would have to be more or less continuous mass protest happening.

Again, they put us through this as a warning shot, hoping to cool the heels of would-be mass protesters come November.

Understand that this was racist bullshit that targeted Black people and the cause of Black liberation both as a direct suppression tactic *and* to chill more "mainstream" protest efforts when those efforts will be a matter of life or death for what little democracy we have left.

Understand how high the personal cost is.

"Less lethals" do murder some, and they cause lasting damage and trauma to many, many more.

Their use is about keeping *everyone* away from protests, not just Antifa or BLM activists.

There aren't enough Blackwater soldiers to flood every Dem-majority metropolis.

If Trump tries to terrorize his way to a second term (and make no mistake, that is very likely what will happen), that terror campaign will hinge on the efforts of local cops & brownshirts.

We have two months to demand that local officials take steps to prevent the re-emergence violent mass brutality and police-brownshirt alliance formation we saw during the uprisings this summer.

Two months before that shit gets (re)weaponized by Trump.

Those "less lethal" chemical weapons and torture tactics are meant for everyone who resists, not "just" Black communities and supposed anarchist Antifa members.

(And btw, the uprisings were NEVER "just" Black folks and Antifa. Just look at the pictures some time.)

Everyone needs to be working to use those two months to get less lethals, torture tactics like prolonged zipcuff use, and police collaboration with DHS agents banned locally.

Everyone who cares about preventing a coup needs to understand that police brutality is absolutely going to be specifically targeted at Black communities in an effort to suppress the vote, and everyone needs to get behind meaningful opposition to that brutality.

Everyone should be rallying behind that shit regardless, because it's the right thing to do.

But, if you're white and want Trump out and these issues seem abstract to you, you need to mentally reframe and understand that they will materially contribute to locking in another 4 years of Trump regardless of election results.

If you don't reprioritize, that's what's coming.

All of this goes doubly, triply for folks who evaded the trauma of police violence and gas and bullets and torture in May/June.

A whole lot of communities and organizers put their/our bodies on the line resisting this fascist bullshit, and we are still exhausted and healing.

We have healing to do.

We do not have a whole lot of spoons right now.

We NEED people with (relative) capacity to be calling mayors and councilpeople and demanding hearings, less-lethal bans, police chief resignations.

We can't do it all. We are hurting.

And again, I say this as someone who was traumatized but also has tools and privilege that helps me locate and use the resources I need manage that trauma.

Imagine how many degrees worse it is right now for those who don't have easy access to those resources.

A lot of experienced organizers who went through this shit are still around, still ready to help and advise and be resources.

We just don't necessarily have the spoons needed to lead right now.

If you have capacity, now's your moment.

Do a socially-distanced sit in at City Hall, get your church to call the mayor and demand hearings, FOIA info about your city's collaboration with DHS this summer.

There's so much that needs to be done.

Do some of it.

If we don't *all* fight this now, we can expect it to be weaponized against anyone resisting Trump later.

That's a "later" that's just around the bend.

If you have capacity, act.

Now.

Please.

If we wait until November, it will be too late.