I just finish the posting of highlighting CeCe McDonald as part of Trans Awareness Week for this week. This was the one of many people that I want to highlight, especially giving a priority for people of color.

I think for the several postings, I’m probably going to do a short little article about various resources that you can utilize within the transgender community and some current events that would be helpful as we go along in the holidays.

The other post that I can focus on is being together with everyone for the holidays. Within the LGBT community, this becomes really difficult to be with family that may not be accepting of your sexual orientation and/or gender identity. This also becomes even more difficult with the current events that have happened this year and COVID-19. Although it’s never easy to be with family, I think that if you have to be with family members, remember to give yourself space and to provide as much breaks as needed. If you can’t go home with your family, you can hang out with friends, virtually, through Zoom or plan socially distanced activities outside.

As far as social media, I would need to start by having people looking at these new posts and start a discussion with these resources that they’re seeing. Also, I would like to post my first video within the next week to highlight some of the blog posts that we’ve done so far and the current issues that are important at this time.

The next couple of posts that I will work on with the group project will be to focus on BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) individuals within the state of Minnesota. I want to start off by focusing on the state I’m currently residing because there are many stories of marginalized trans folks’ stories needed to be shared. The stories that I will be sharing will not be an end result. I will try and post additional resources for people to keep up with and to follow for future blog postings and videos.

The first story that I will focus on is CeCe McDonald. She is a trans black woman who’s originally from Chicago. During her time in Minneapolis, she was encountered by a group of people one night that shouted racial slurs and transphobic statements to her. It was to the point that a fight broke out and she defended herself by stabbing one of them to death. Although she tried to state this to the police, they decided that she committed a crime and sentenced her to a couple years in state prison. After her release, she started to become an advocate within the trans community and hold roundtable discussions at various conferences and events across the country. There’s also a documentary about her story online and through various streaming networks.

With future posts, I would like to share some of the historical figures that identified as transgender to people to know about the struggles that they’ve had to endure. Hopefully with these blog posts, this will be a movement for the community and allies.

I’ve had a lot of time to think about this next topic for my blog post. For several weeks now, I’ve been focusing on what solutions look like for social justice or even some resources for individuals to follow and learn. For this blog post for this week, I will do my best in explaining imaginative dimension in real world spaces and places. What does this look like? I think that would involve all of our leaders discussing important issues in a civilized manner and re-creating a world where individuals can be accepted and not fall into prejudice and racism.

Over the last ten years, the discussion that’s been happening within our country regarding healthcare and even politics have become more heated than ever. It’s also come to the point where some elected officials have started to share false information regarding facts or from the candidate. My wish for everyone running for any type of office would be to have civilized discussions and not to cut off anyone when debating their important points. It feels like more people in higher authority are willing to cut people off and not letting them finish their statement.

Another point for the real world would be for individuals to be accepted and not be around prejudice and racism. In our society, more tolerance is coming into play with issues like social justice LGBTQ+ rights and abortion. I think our thinking of the real world in spaces can play into the simple fact of accepting everyone, having little to no arguments and not having a division among ourselves.

These two points that I’ve made should not be hard for people to implement regularly. Hopefully, I’ve imagined some type of drive to look at what the real world spaces and places would look like in the near future. Even if it doesn’t happen, maybe it Can happen in huge cities and grow from there.

For social justice, many voices are needed to be heard. This can be from individuals that have been treated unfairly by law enforcement or even from victims of family members sharing their experiences. In the last couple of years, social connections have been very strong and meaningful to realize some of the issues that are happening on a national stage. Our realization with social connection is important for mental health reasons and utilizing social media to share our message across.

Being able to flush out our frustrations and our emotions are one strong thing for us evoke strong reactions in a heavily emotional topic. Our social connection in a larger community is tied with mental health because a lot of people can vent and pour out their emotions with the thoughts they’re currently thinking about or want to do with their communities. Many people need various spaces to share their stories and for people to listen, respond positively or don’t even need to say anything at all.

Social media is still a strong player when you want to get your voice out in a quick amount of time. Not only this, but your message can be strong and resonate with dozens of people. Social media presence attention can be shared through friends, business networks and even local groups that can be shared through different regions of the country and across the world. For the larger community, the social connection can be anyone in different walks of life and ethnicities.

Connecting with various people are important and should be the main point when you talk about social justice. The start of social connection can be tied with bringing the community together to talk with police and local leaders to change the way things are structured.

Thursday August 15^th 2020. That was the first day I started my grad experience and my permanent residence in the state of Minnesota. For the next two years, I knew that I would interact with a lot of people that are not from the same area where I grew up. My first couple of weeks in Minnesota was a huge culture shock to me. Not only its in an area where it gets cold a lot but a lot of segregation within the cities in the state. What’s the purpose in me telling you this? Many people have experiences that others may not know about. The ways you can forge solidarity is by listening to others and to take part in activities, in which you can explore those differences online or in person.

Everybody listens to someone in some sort of capacity on a daily basis. Whether its in person, virtually on a computer or even through handwritten letters, there are effective ways that you can share anything that’s on your mind that’s happening with you and/or various people. When it deals with racial justice, there is no better time to listen to other black and people of color that have been subjected to harassment or not taking incidents seriously in their own neighborhood. Listening to just an experience that may not effect you should effect in a serious way to take immediate action and hold those parties responsible of what they’ve done. In addition, listening can also influence major changes with laws and the way that individuals should be approached by law enforcement. This can have more positive relationships with the police.

When anyone participates in activity surrounding anti-racism or solutions for racial justice, they are making the effort to make a change within their communities in which they live in. Bringing people together to talk about the issues and highlighting the people that have been severely impacted by that can have a change that will have a positive perception. Plus, this will impact a positive way to use this knowledge for new people that may move in and educate local officials.

Forging solidarity is not a hard thing to do. You can always share your experience and to trust anyone that’s around you the situations that are happening around you.