Photos of JustPeace collaborations with NorthWest Bronx Indivisible meeting “Brainstorming the Resistance,” taken Feb 1. ZENDRAH BONNICK / THE QUADRANGLE
Zendrah Bonnick Asst. News Editor
On Feb. 1, Manhattan University’s (MU) JustPeace Club hosted a brainstorming session at MU’s Kelly Commons. The event, “Brainstorming the Resistance,” was a collaboration between MU’s JustPeace and Northwest Bronx Indivisible (NWBI), the northwest chapter of the Indivisible movement, a grassroots organization dedicated to promoting democracy.
This meeting was dedicated to groups planning and organizing events aimed at mitigating the effects of various issues in the U.S. As topics were divided into committees to allow for more direct one-on-one discussions, these committees included: democracy, justice, immigration, health and environment. Some topics covered during the meeting were organizing a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the Department of Homeland Security for their raids and deportations.
In addition to this, conversations were had over the legal actions taken by the Trump administration that threaten democracy, threats to the environment, inequity in the justice systems and the NWBI’s ongoing push for Medicaid for all.
Elle Feneide, a senior political science major and president of the JustPeace club, told The Quadrangle about her hopes for the collaboration between MU and NWBI.
“I think that it’s also healthy for people to have this relationship with their community and with their country and with their politics,” Feneide said. “…I think that if people pretend politics don’t exist, then you either control your relationships with politics or politics controls its relationship with you. The space is to engage with politics in ways that are more than just voting, because voting is important, but democracy is more than just voting, and people don’t acknowledge that as much.”
Kathy Solomon, a NWBI member who has worked on various committees, also expressed her feelings on this collaboration and efforts to increase community involvement.
“We just need it. It’s always good to get new blood, to get new people, to hear new ideas,” Solomon said.
Solomon also expressed a desire for younger people to be able to help with their programs’ use of the internet and social media. Solomon told The Quadrangle about how they have utilized advancing technology in their organization to stay informed.
“The resist and unsubscribe website… Scott Gallway, who interviewed Timothy Snyder, explains what people can do to send a message to those propping up Trump,” Solomon said. “New ideas were presented to me. I think we have something to teach younger people, because let’s remember, we started protesting and fighting the government in the ‘60s… And we certainly are not skilled at social media. We need to work together.”
Solomon elaborated on how she views the impact of politics on young people while not being representative of that demographic.
“Over the last 40 years, there’s been a tremendous transfer of wealth from young people to old people,” Solomon said. “And some of that is because of our laws and structures, and because a lot of wealth is tied to mortgages…There’s just younger people who aren’t represented in our government, I feel. And there’s just so many ways in which our economy works to the benefit of older people. And not to the benefit of younger people.”
While being interviewed by The Quadrangle, Betty Golomb, steering committee member and co-chair of the democracy committee, discussed a reason she observed community members may be hesitant in participating in NWBI, or social action in general.
“It’s not only people who feel vulnerable, because they’re brown-skinned or Latino,” Golomb said. “It’s also people who are my age, white people, who are afraid to put their names to something, that somehow, it’s going to come back, that the government’s going to target them. There’s a lot of fear out there. So that’s been hard for us. People want to participate but not include names. Sometimes wearing masks, as if they’re worried about getting sick, but they’re really worried about being identified. There’s a lot of fear out there.”
Golomb further added that although she acknowledges the potential dangers present, he accepts them as part of continuing the work that she believes is important.
“I just say, do what you can, I’m not going to tell somebody they’re safe,” Golomb said. “I have no idea. Truth be told, I mean, I recognize it’s a possibility that I’m exposing myself by being out there. So be it.”
Similarly, for the JustPeace Club, one of their goals is to increase community involvement of MU students.
“Where JustPeace is supposed to come in is you say what’s wrong, and we all acknowledge it, and we all hold space for that, and then we all kind of go, ‘what can we do about this?,’” Feneide said. “And then once we’ve decided that it’s kind of up to you to take that next step and figure it out, hopefully.”
Later during the interview, Feneide went on to express her thoughts on fear impacting students’ willingness to participate in politics.
“Timothy Snyder’s book, ‘On Tyranny Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,’ is about how to prepare for a tyrannical government,” Feneide said. “Lesson number one is ‘do not obey in advance’ and I think that’s a problem that we’re having. I think a lot of students are obeying in advance. Students who are afraid that there will be repercussions for them speaking out… JustPeace is a way of combating that. Creating a community, especially with despair and the struggle to cope with politics. JustPeace is largely about not feeling alone in that anymore.”