I’m thinking a lot about what it means to be here — to take my stand in the times we’re living through. We are witnessing moments that test the core of our humanity. We have a president and other elected officials advancing policies that strip people of rights, resources, and basic liberties. As a queer, global majority immigrant, I am shaken when I hear stories of people being stopped simply because of how they look. I think about the Supreme Court ruling that allows ICE personnel to stop asylum seekers, victims of violence, people just trying to survive because of their appearance, language, or accent. I grieve people denied due process and access to safety, care, or refuge simply because they don’t meet someone’s idea of what “American” looks like.
We are seeing voter suppression and intimidation across the country, threatening representation, especially for Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, and working-class communities. We see women criminalized and charged with murder for miscarriages and reproductive choices. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern of control and dehumanization.
As the mother of two young people, I cannot witness this without responding. I want them — and every future generation — to know that I was here. That I stood up. That I didn’t turn away when people’s rights were being stripped, when fear was used to divide and dominate.
What It Means to Say “I Was Here”
For some, “I was here” means marching, protesting, risking arrest, and standing on the front lines. For others, it means calling senators, volunteering, donating, or having hard conversations at home. Each act, however small or grand, is part of the same truth: being here means refusing to be silent.
The musical Suffsi captures this beautifully in the song “I Was Here.” It’s a declaration of intent and presence, a promise to those who come after us that we did not look away.
Suffs also reminds us of another hard truth in the line from the song, “The Convention” that says, “I am not the enemy.” When I saw the conflict between the two Black women characters, and heard their plea to each other, “I am not the enemy,” my whole body resonated. True back then, and true now, when I look around I see how easily we turn our frustration on each other.
“I Am Not the Enemy”
In this moment of crisis, it’s tempting to judge those who aren’t doing what we think is so desperately needed. I hear people saying, “If you cared, you’d be marching with us. You’d be on the phones. You’d be fighting.” A recent question in a New York Times The Ethicist columnii asked, “My liberal friend won’t protest. Do I drop her?”
I also see people who are exhausted, caring for families, navigating multiple jobs, dealing with trauma, or facing higher risks because of race, class, or immigration status. I see Black and Brown friends saying, I’ve been marching all my life. And when the police come, I’m the one they target. Others tell me, I just can’t right now. I don’t have the energy or resources. Too often, instead of meeting these truths with empathy, we meet them with blame.
When I think of “I am not the enemy,” I realize there are three groups of people I can easily mistake for adversaries. There are those who aren’t engaging in active resistance, whose silence or self-preservation I can misread as ignorance or indifference. There are those actively advancing the policies and systems that harm, whose actions I urgently want to stop. And there are those who are resisting, but doing so in ways that clash with my values, sometimes with violence or exclusion, insisting that only one group’s liberation matters. Each of these challenges my heart differently. And yet, in every case, I return to the same truth: I can hold boundaries, act fiercely, and still remember that none of them are my enemy.
The challenge is not just to resist injustice, it’s to resist dehumanization, even among those who share our hopes. As we come together to organize and build coalitions working for a just and humane world, we must keep our eyes on what we’re fighting for – justice, safety, dignity, representation, not on who’s joining us or how they choose to stand.
What We Are Fighting Against
I’m not fighting my neighbor who stays home to care for her kids. I’m fighting for a world where caregiving is honored and valued as resistance. I’m not fighting my fellow citizens who vote for harsher immigration laws. I’m fighting for humane immigration systems and social service policies that provide care for those in need. I’m not fighting the person who advocates doxxing those who are not willing to fight or are seen as fighting in the wrong way or for the “wrong” cause. I’m fighting for services that structures that enable transgender people to receive the medical care they need for mental and physical well-being. I’m fighting systems that prioritize control over compassion — and the tactics of people who wield power through fear, convinced that their security must come at someone else’s expense.
It’s also deeply important to me that even as I disagree with some people’s choices, I refuse to erase the humanity of the people making them. I know that if I begin to see these people as my enemy, I lose my ability to reach them. I lose the possibility of dialogue, a key mechanism through which transformation can happen. Seeing each person’s humanity does not mean excusing the harm of their choices. It means staying rooted in the belief that change is more likely when someone is deeply understood. This is the paradox at the heart of justice work: the fiercer my truth, the more essential my compassion.
Standing Up and Staying in Relationship
We need people who are willing to change laws, to transform systems, to take up the hard, slow work of policy and governance. Structural change is what makes compassion endure beyond individual acts. But empathy must fuel these decisions. Without it, our policies risk becoming mechanisms of control instead of liberation — frameworks that protect the privileged rather than free the oppressed. So yes, I will stand up. I will say, I am here. I will protest, call, vote, teach, and write. But I will also keep saying, I am not the enemy. I will not demand freedom for some and forget others. I will not replace domination with dismissal.
The task before us is not only to resist — it’s to rebuild a world where everyone’s needs matter. This means showing up with courage and accountability, but also with deep empathy. It means seeing even those whose choices terrify us as human beings, people who are struggling, as we are, to meet needs for safety, belonging, and agency. When we can hold both — fierce resistance and open-heartedness — we embody the spirit of those suffragists who sang, I was here. And when we refuse to turn on each other, we fulfill the promise of that other, quieter line: I am not the enemy. Whatever you choose — marching, caregiving, organizing, or listening — you are part of what it means to be here. To stand for justice without losing sight of one another’s humanity. To say, I was here. And to remember, always: I – you – we are not the enemy.
If You Resonate with This — Ways to Be Here
If this speaks to you, here are ways to be here — to act, connect, and keep your heart open.
Local, National & International Resistance / Human Rights
- Bend the Arc — Creating a multiracial, multiethnic, intergenerational movement of Jews and allies to counter systems of oppression that uphold white supremacy.
- Black Alliance for Just Immigration — Uniting Black voices in support of laws and policies that support equitable, just communities.
- Center for Reproductive Rights — Uses the power of law to advance reproductive freedom globally.
- Human Rights Watch — Monitors and reports on human rights violations worldwide.
- Indivisible — A nationwide network of local groups resisting authoritarianism and protecting democracy.
- International Center on Nonviolent Conflict — Provides education and support for movements using nonviolent resistance.
- International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs — Partners with and in support of Indigenous peoples internationally to protect and defend individual and collective Indigenous rights
- The King Center — Training people in Kingian Nonviolence to create a more just, humane world.
- Muslims for Just Futures — Building grassroots power in Muslim communities through movement building and advocacy to counter gendered and structural Islamophobia
- National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights — Builds alliances to promote and defend the human rights of all immigrants and refugees.
- United We Dream — The largest immigrant youth-led network in the U.S., fighting for dignity and protection for all immigrants.
Bridge-Building & Dialogue
- Braver Angels — Brings people across political divides into structured dialogue and shared action.
- Deep Canvass Institute — Trains volunteers to hold empathetic, evidence-based conversations that change hearts and minds across divisive issues.
- Essential Partners — Builds capacity in communities for dialogue across deep divides.
- Living Room Conversations — Offers accessible guides for conversations across differences.
- M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence — Shares Gandhian and Kingian Nonviolence and other modalities to create a sustainable and just world for all through dialogue, practical skills and community action.
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i Note: There have been important critiques of Suffs for centering a primarily white narrative within the suffrage movement and minimizing the leadership of Black and Indigenous women. Acknowledging these critiques helps us hold the full complexity of the struggle for justice, and reminds us that even movements for liberation can replicate the exclusions they seek to dismantle.
ii Kwame Anthony Appiah, “My Liberal Friend Won’t Protest. Do I Drop Her?” The New York Times Magazine, October 11, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/11/magazine/magazine-email/friend-protest-liberal-ethics.html
iii Top image: “Protesters at 2nd Ave and Marion St bus stop in Seattle on 11 June 2025” by PinchyCC is marked with CC0 1.0.