Subscribe | Share | Listen to Audio | | December 22, 2024 | Weekend Edition: Self-care this holiday season, Amazon workers on strike, Luigi Mangione's indictment and preparing for a second Trump term. | Forwarded this newsletter? Subscribe here. | Good morning and happy Sunday! Today – a quick reflection on the importance of self-care and a ton of reading that should carry you through the holiday week. On Tuesday, I’m publishing a guide on how to have tough conversations this holiday season .Do you have a tactic or resource that’s helped you? Reply to this email with your thoughts. | We’re kicking off the new year with a new book to read at Banned Books Book Club! I’ll announce the book in the Banned Books newsletter on Wednesday. Be sure to subscribe to read along with us. | Last email, I told you that we raised $10,000 for classrooms through GivingTuesday. Well as of last week, that number has jumped to over $18,000! That means we’ve helped about 45 teachers fulfill their wishes to provide food, clothing and other essential needs for their students. We’ll keep promoting causes through the end of the year. You can choose to support at anytime using this link. I hope we can collectively help 10 more classrooms (raise about $4,000) from now to the end of the year! | This newsletter is made possible because of the support from our readers. Here's how you can help us stay sustainable: | | In solidarity,
Nicole | ps – looking for the audio version of this newsletter? Click to read the web version, and you’ll find the audio recording at the top of the page. This is a service provided by Beehiiv, our email publishing platform, and AI-generated. |
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| | Care and self-care this holiday season. |  | An abstract illustration of a person reclining on a couch caring for themselves during the holiday season. Source: Reimagined. |
| At a book event, Saidiya Hartman stated that "care is the antidote to violence" as a “potentially powerful feminist frame for abolition.” This lens transforms how we see social justice work: when we donate money, time, and resources, we're not just fighting systems of violence, but actively providing care to those most impacted by them. Ultimately, abolitionist care reminds us that our fates and liberation are linked, making care-centered actions vital tools for achieving collective freedom. | Yet in pursuing this care-centered justice, many of us forget to care for ourselves. This year, in carrying others' burdens, I've inflicted violence upon myself. In my drive to care for others, I've become displaced, denied my own pleasure, let myself feel deeply unsafe. I've welcomed people into my space who had no right to be there. | Despite my gratitude for this work, exhaustion blurs everything. Here's the truth: if care truly is the antidote to violence, then refusing self-care becomes an act of violence—pure self-sabotage and neglect. For those of us who give dangerously, who give generously hoping to earn respect we already deserve, I must name this impact, even when no one else will. Our culture celebrates this—especially how marginalized women somehow do it all, carry it all, beneath crushing weight. | Perhaps you feel this too, and you need to hear what I needed to hear. This holiday season, I see you honoring everyone else. I see your deep commitment to your family, causes, work and all the communities you hold dear. My wish for you? That you prioritize self-care so lavishly it makes you feel guilty. That you feel a twinge of shame when you realize how little you've given yourself before. | Everything begins with you. This goes beyond the empty cup metaphor. Get full. Keep it for yourself. Store extra, like emergency rations. The care and sharing and generosity will flow naturally when you're replenished - I've witnessed your boundless capacity for giving these past four years. Yes, there will be vital causes needing support in these final weeks, and I'll share ways to help. But remember: your ability to care for others starts with caring for yourself. | Here are some reflection questions to root yourself in self-care: | When was the last time you set a boundary that prioritized your wellbeing over others' expectations, and how did it feel? Think about the people you've "welcomed into your space who had no right to be there." In what ways have you been celebrating or rewarding others' capacity to "do it all," while denying yourself the same grace and rest? Consider specific moments where you pushed yourself beyond healthy limits. If you treated caring for yourself with the same dedication you bring to your causes, work, and communities, what would change in your daily life? What would you start doing, and what would you stop doing? What would it look like to care for yourself "lavishly" this week? Name three specific actions that feel almost uncomfortably generous to yourself.
| | | | This holiday season, we're encouraging our community to support teachers providing their students with warmth, food, and other direct needs. 100% of your donation goes to classrooms, and many classroom projects are matched for the holiday season, so your impact may go twice as far! Here are some examples of classrooms you can support: | Ms. Rios in CA needs $94 to provide their students snacks when they’re hungry. Mrs. Mana in Maryland needs $66 more for their emergency kit in the case of a school shooting. Ms. Bellin in CA needs just $188 to gift their students with warm blankets. Dr. Brew in LA needs $189 more to bring hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes to their classroom.
| | Before, I’d link directly to classrooms, but because of your wonderful generosity, they would be fulfilled so quickly that other readers would be faced with a ton of dead links! If you can’t find the story I mentioned on this link, it means the classroom has already been fully funded. There are over 2,000 projects that could use the support of our community, so don’t let that stop you. You can also use the search filters to find classrooms closest to you. | | | | | Tuesday, January 21 | 3pm EST |
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| Go beyond conflict resolution and apply a culturally-responsive, inclusive framework to navigating challenging conversations, mediating tense scenarios, and fostering understanding with opposing viewpoints. |
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| | | | Thursday, January 30 | 3pm EST |
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