listen. poland hasn't "been reframed" as helping, it is actually helping. a lot of the people helping now were criticizing how our goverment treated refugees before, traveling to podlasie to help.
yes, plenty of people who are helping now didn't bat an eye at how syrian refugees were treated. yes there are cases of racist border guards and volounteers refusing to help refugees who aren't white. poland, overwhelmingly, sucks and is racist.
but the uk is restricting visas and refusing entry even to families of ukrainians who live there. germany is braging about taking in 18k refugees and how difficult that is for them.
meanwhile poland has taken in 800k refugees from ukraine in barely over a week. everyone i know immediately stepped up to help however they could, donating clothes, money, taking refugees into their homes.
this criticism of poland is valid, and needed, as is pointing out that countries responsible for comparable violations of human rights are now condemning russia, because when it happens in europe suddenly they are compelled to care, because they're afraid they'll be next and the world is watching.
but this is not the time, and especially not the way to do it. this post doesn't do shit to help refugees, either ukrainian or syrian. this is not the time for performative online activism.
anyway you can donate to an organization that has been and is helping syrian refugees in poland here:
https://zrzutka.pl/petrsw
here is a list of fundraisers for ukraine published by the same organisation:
https://ukraina.grupagranica.pl/wsparcie-finansowe
and here is their page with other ways to help ukrainian refugees, including information on how to get out, legal information about seeking asylum in poland in ukrainian, english, polish, and russian, which polish organizations lgbti refugees can turn to for help and more:
https://ukraina.grupagranica.pl/
germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
titsay
tangentwithtanner
kianamaiart
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
