Cardi B. Wells

Fat Queer Empress finds herself adorned in flowers 💐

OMONDI

Photographer: Hannah Sider

Stylist: Corey Stokes

When you struggle with your mental health on a daily basis, it can be hard to take action on the things that matter most to you. The mental barriers anxiety creates often appear insurmountable. But sometimes, when you really need to, you can break those barriers down. This week, with encouragement from some great people on the internet, I pushed against my anxiety and made some calls to members of our government. Here’s a comic about how you can do that, too. (Resources and transcript below.)

Motivational resources: There are a lot! Here are a few I really like:

Emily Ellsworth explains why calling is the most effective way to reach your congressperson.

Sharon Wong posted a great series of tweets that helped me manage my phone anxiety and make some calls.

Kelsey is tweeting pretty much daily with advice and reminders about calling representatives. I found this tweet an especially great reminder that calls aren’t nearly as big a deal as anxiety makes them out to be.

Informational resources: There are a lot of these, as well! These three are good places to start:

Find your representative at house.gov

Find your senators at senate.gov

Use the “We’re His Problem Now” scripts when calling (or write your own!)

14 year old: Skinny je …

Me:

A full glass of LEMONADE. 🍋✊🏽 @beyonce

This is a plea to those in the US on tumblr about election night:

If you can, please, for your own safety, stay home.

Regardless of who wins, there will be violence.

If Hillary wins, then all the violence Trump has been encouraging will come to a head. His supporters have already said they believe the system is rigged, and there is a growing movement to “take up arms” and “fight back” if Trump loses. This is especially important for those of you in smaller, more rural, white-dominated communities. Trump supporters are plenty there, and as someone who lives in one, I can tell you the chances of people having guns on hand are very high.

If Trump wins, then all of his ideas about “law and order” being enforced by self-policing neighborhoods and his terrifying ideas of vigilantism being an acceptable form of law enforcement could come to fruition. People will most likely be protesting if he wins, and there is a heavy chance that Trump supporters may decide to shut these protests down with violence. They may decide to get a jump start on kicking people out of America. They may decide to commit hate crimes because Trump being elected reinforces their belief that violent rhetoric and actions against minorities is acceptable.

This is not an exaggeration. There will be violence on Tuesday night. There will be hate crimes. There will be people hurt. Do absolutely everything you can to keep yourself and your loved ones safe.

Sound extreme? Well, listen up.

I want to stress something to everyone on tumblr who is voting for the first time, or is too young to remember previous elections: the violent rhetoric around this election is NOT NORMAL.

Previous elections have never had this strong of a group of people declaring they’ll secede if their candidate loses. Previous elections have never had violence encouraged and stoked by a presidential candidate. Previous elections have never been this tense, this scary, this pivotal.

This election has been violent, and the results on Tuesday night will either push Trump supporters into thinking their violence is acceptable, or push them into fighting back against what they see as a “rigged system”.

Either way, please look after yourself Tuesday night, especially if you are a minority and/or live in a conservative, white-dominated community.