We Said We Would Be The Ones Who Helped.

When we were in school and learned about Anne Frank, I think most of us believed we would be the people who helped. That we would be the ones who would hide her family, take the risk, do the right thing. It felt like the obvious moral choice.

Watching what’s happening today makes me wonder: do we still see ourselves that way - or are we only comfortable with that belief when it lives safely in the past?

The news is overwhelming. I know this, so I try to avoid what’s constantly playing on television. I try to get my news from sources like AP, Reuters, and the BBC. I get Wake Up To Politics in my inbox. I limit my social media, because all of the noise makes me want to recoil. To disappear. To pretend that what is going on in the world isn’t.

But we can’t.

It’s hard to understand what’s happening in a country we believed worked through checks and balances … because it no longer does. There is no one in power coming to save us. They are the ones coming after us.

And there is so much. Where do we even put our attention?

One day, it's about families being torn apart by ICE enforcement. The next it’s another release of the horrors of the Epstein files. Then it’s women being denied autonomy over their own bodies. Then, LGBTQ people are being erased from the language we use. It’s repeated. Constantly. Relentlessly.

And it leaves many of us unable to process it and unsure how to fight back.

To be clear, this isn’t accidental. Powerlessness benefits those who don’t want resistance. It’s most effective when ordinary people are left confused, overwhelmed, and unsure how to respond. The chaos causes distraction and exhaustion, which by design leads us to disengage. Once we disengage, they’ve won with our silence.

This isn’t a personal failure. It’s a system working exactly as intended.

With each new atrocity, I feel the same pull - the desire to do something, to fix everything. But I’m one person. I can’t fix everything, or even help with everything. And that realization can feel like failure. Like hitting a wall that’s been placed directly in our path.

I’ve fallen into that trap many times.

What I try to remind myself is this: I don’t need to fix it all. But I do need to do something. Even small steps matter.

I recognize these feelings because I’ve lived them before. The first time I truly felt this kind of powerlessness was in 2016, when the loser of the popular vote was named president. I cried. I wanted to move away. To escape. To get as far from it all as possible.

But I didn’t.

What changed wasn’t safety or clarity. What changed was connection.  Us finding each other and deciding not to sit with it alone.

That experience taught me something I keep coming back to:

Action rarely begins when fear ends.

It begins when isolation ends.

If you’re still reading this, I’m assuming something inside you has stirred…and you want to know what to do with it. I did too.

So I started small.

I started by checking in on the people in my life… letting them know I see them, I’m here, and they’re not alone. Because at the very least, I want the people I care about to feel supported. Showing up for each other matters.

For me, moving out of paralysis has looked like choosing one place to put my energy - not all of them.

Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) offers online trainings and organizing resources for people who want to work toward racial justice in thoughtful, informed ways.

RAICES provides legal and social services to immigrants and refugees in Texas. You can donate, volunteer, or share their work at raicestexas.org.

Power to the Polls connects volunteers with opportunities to serve as poll workers - especially in communities being targeted.

Mobilize.us lists opportunities to block walk, phone bank, or support local campaigns and community efforts near you.. 

Choose what speaks to you. Then start the momentum. 

We don’t know what we would have done back then. It’s easy to imagine ourselves brave when the danger lies safely in history books.

But we do know what we’re doing now.

History isn’t asking us to be fearless. It’s asking us not to disappear.

And choosing not to disappear, even in small ways, still counts.