 I stand before you, a proud Abenaki woman, mother, activist, and Episcopal priest. I want to acknowledge that we are gathered together today on the traditional territory of the Abenaki people. Together with my sisters Esma and Joan, I invite us to step into this circle. That we become truly present in this moment, at this time. That we see one another in our likeness and in our difference. And we acknowledge the power of one another and the power of this gathering. In my faith tradition, we promise to respect the dignity of every human being. And in my ancestral tradition, we acknowledge the power and spirit inherent in all creation. We are here today to support the dignity and power and the spirit that lives in each of us as women, as female identified people, and as allies and companions in solidarity with one another. Today we look to the four directions, to the inner spirit in each of us, the earth beneath our feet and the sky above. And we call on all that is sacred to encircle us this day and provide us the power to fully see one another and stand together in the knowledge that when any one of us is victimized or colonized or sterilized, when any one of us is vilified or traumatized or marginalized, we all suffer. And so together in this sacred gathering, in the circle of power that is created by our presence and the presence of spirit, we all will rise. Together we rise. A apologetic brown Muslim woman from Libya to this country because of the Muslim ban. It is against Muslims whether their bans, surveillance, affect women tremendously, as many are forced to be single mothers taking care of families and many find themselves in jails or detention centers. Like Marzia Hishami who is detained, jailed without any charges against her in St. Louis. Today it is important that we talk about the meaning of solidarity. Many of our speakers will teach us what it means to be in solidarity. Solidarity is valuing each other's agency and our choices to choose the lives we want for ourselves. Solidarity is supporting my right to wear hijab. Solidarity is me supporting every woman's right to wear what they choose. Solidarity is understanding why Muslim women find it incredibly difficult to come forward when they are victims of sexual or domestic violence. When tropes like oppressed Muslim women are used against us by Islamophobes and this government to humiliate us, steal our resources and bomb our countries and stigmatize our communities. Solidarity is understanding that violence perpetrated by our men can be used against all of our community. And solidarity is speaking up when people like Marzia Hishami are detained without charges against the constitution. In Islam there is a hadith that says none of you truly believes unless they want for their fellow human what they want for themselves. Every faith and moral system has a version of the golden rule. Communities that ask what makes my right to safety any different than the mother who crosses the border and flees from violence. Solidarity, societies that ask why women of color are disproportionately affected by poverty, policing and lack of resources. Friends, I have an important question. Are we, are you siding with empire? Or are you a prophet of the resistance? If we are spending more time sitting with those in power instead of those in pain, we are siding with empire. If we can't recognize that those in power will try to manipulate us by giving us gifts, access to things, in order to silence us or have us thinking that they are gracious, we are siding with empire. It is not, it is not us or religious folk or those who sit with power that get to decide who's gracious, kind and well-intentioned. It is those most affected by unjust policies who are hurting that decide that. It is those who are hurting that know the best solutions to the problems. All as religious people or people of consciousness to be where the pain is and be ready to face power and demand justice for those who are hurting. They are those we must center in our quest for social justice. Last, we are brown, we are black, we are white, we are trans, we are queer, we are people of faith, people who don't ascribe to any particular faith and we stand in solidarity today, knowing we have a lot to learn but we're committed to do so. We commit today in supporting the rights of safety, the right to livable wages, the right to access including for differently abled bodies, the right to health care, the right to do what we want to do with our bodies, the right to love who we want to love and the right to worship who we want, free from Islamophobia, free from anti-Semitism and we support the right for all women to thrive. So today, I ask us, I ask you, are we supporters of empire or are we prophets of the resistance? Thank you. Good morning, I'm Joan and I join with my sisters Esma and Auburn. This morning standing before you as a proud Filipina woman, daughter of immigrants, mother and Unitarian Universalist minister. In the midst of the resistance, we draw upon the power within ourselves. We draw upon the power within this collective gathering. We draw upon the power of our source, the divine, Gaia, the ever living spirit of love and justice. Our is moving here. Can you feel it? As we gather this morning, let us unite together honoring one another's power and right to claim our own agency to fight for the freedom we each seek to realize. Let us unite together at the intersection of our many identities, our many struggles, our many visions of freedom. In this gathering today, we are Christian, pagan, atheist, humanist, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim. We are native to this land. We are immigrants and children and grandchildren of immigrants. We are healers, storytellers, artists and organizers. We are first wave, second wave, third wave feminists. We are people of all abilities, cisgendered and transgendered, gay and straight. We gather at the messy and beautiful intersection of our many identities and our many visions of liberation. Committed to staying in the struggle together no matter how hard it gets. As we join together, let us be prophets of resistance who with one hand say no to the denigration of and violence against women. Let us say no to white supremacy, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. To the accumulation of wealth by the few at the cost of the many. Go to the devastation of our precious Mother Earth. Let us say no to empire and tyranny wherever it may exist. But with the other hand, let us say yes. Let us say yes to the power of our prophetic resistance. Let us say yes to welcome and inclusion and beloved community. Let us say yes to a moral economy and to work that is valued and dignified. Let us say yes to the stewardship of our planet and her resources. Let us say yes to rising together for justice and freedom for all. And with the spirit of love and justice within us and among us, let us say we are here. We are. Blessed be. Ah-ho. Hello for coming. My name is Mackenzie Murdock. I use she, her pronouns and I am a women's march organizer. I understand that it is very cold and we all really appreciate you standing with us today. The speakers that we have lined up come from very different backgrounds and are a great representation of women's march for Mont's core values. The value that I personally am most focused on is inclusivity, which I really think the speaker list encompasses. We are so lucky to be able to hear the stories of all of these women and with that being said, help me welcome our first speaker. Amanda Gar says as the founder of the Vermont Coalition for Ethnic and Social Equity in Schools, which works to advance legislation that aims to review, revise and expand educational standards to include the histories and contributions of excluded and or underrepresented groups such as people in the LGBTQIA community, people with disabilities, Indigenous people, women and people of color. I'm Bian and I am a proud, on October 2008, was 14 and was crossed to see their mother. Jocelyn did not make it and it took three weeks for her remains to be found. Hakim, she was said on sketchy from Guatemala. Jacqueline died in Border Patrol custody from dehydration and for Felipe Gomez Alonso. From Guatemala also in Border Patrol custody. A trans woman from Honduras murdered and beaten in Border Patrol custody and dehydrated. For the people who have died in their custody, murder. I am also here because I am afraid. The woman's shutdown isn't simply about the wall or the current administration. I am afraid in the desert and thousands have disappeared. Border Patrol is destroying humanitarian aid that can save lives. That children are in cages and that the Border Patrol has a military arsenal. That private prison stocks double since election day. I am afraid you did not notice that those private prisons have a lengthy history of abuses and deaths and that there is a direct correlation between the militarization of the Gaza Strip and the militarization of our border. Oh, a border patrol ways to harass and detain my brothers and sisters, my community. And that puts herself against the ocean and expulsion. Continue to face racism. The LGBTIQA children continue to be harassed. Seven showed a black and Latina driver to be stopped in search. Afraid you have not noticed that white supremacy walks around us. And then I remember, I can't be afraid. I can't be afraid because I also know a border resistance. This is such as Operation Streamline that communities stood up against checkpoints, supported families looking for the loved ones, recovered remains and gave their families peace of mind. And overall it is people of color carrying the heavy weight of a military. Border Patrol here was born to bring an intersectional approach to our education. Equity to curriculum standards does not deter migration because migration cannot be deterred. We are here to celebrate resistance in the Abenaki cultural revitalization movement. Melanie believes that women are the culture bearers that make tomorrow possible, that women are creation itself and any wrongs committed against Mother Earth's daughters is a violation to the natural world. Let's together. This is so cold. I used the term red road to signify that we carry traditions of our ancestors forward to those ancestors yet to be. One of my friends, Wayne Newell, Passamaquoddy, said that nothing is ever lost. It is only us that's lost our way. I have dedicated my life to walking that road because the world that my ancestors created was beautiful and what they know is still valuable. They modeled what being human being meant. In order to understand the people, look at what stories they tell and look at what they fight for. When our culture hero Gluskavi said about creating human beings, he shot an arrow into the ash trees and out walked society. Men, women, children and all of the people in between. Women were not companions. We were partners. And without us, there was no society. Only beings that can call a spirit from the other world into this Earth world and make them human with a face. Women are creation itself. And if you want to reach between worlds and feel our grandmothers, thousands of them, loving you always, just touch your belly button and they will feel you. ancestors is always at your fingertips. Many, which are really cold. Many key ceremonies of renewal are centered upon reconnecting with our ancestral first mother, Mother Earth. When you do sweat lodge, you climb into the womb and you come out reborn. Her heartbeat is always as close as our drum. No matter where you go in this world, she supports you so you can always go home to a place that you've never been. Tehran Anderson, Nubiak and Athabaskan once said, we are daughters of this Mother Earth. And as Mother Earth is disrespected, raped, abused and marginalized, so are her daughters. We are all connected to what happens to Earth. Violence against indigenous women is at epidemic levels. And in this post-mietume world, don't forget about the original woman and what is being done to her on a daily basis. As Rhonda so eloquently pointed out, I am her daughter and I feel it too. All of our ancestors were once on this circle of creation together and we treated this place and each other like we mattered. From our non-human relatives to our human relatives, all of us, come back to the circle of creation. There is a place waiting for you and forget what you are conditioned to be, reach through the worlds to your grandmothers and be who you were born to be. We often talk about historical trauma woven into our DNA but I'm not sure I can play the victim today because when I have so much strength woven into me, that's a lot more powerful than sorrow, I think. So I will not let sorrow feed me. I will never tune out injustice. Think about the people you come from and what had to happen for you to even exist. Never question you should exist in this time, in this place, exactly the way you are. I had a moment the other day as I was talking to my dog who gives me all of my best ideas. I think the reason my people were so successful in their society is I've never heard us tell stories about people banished or hurt or not accepted. It's because they valued difference. They didn't use diversity as a catchphrase. They understood right down to their core that seeing the world through a different set of eyes brings value to it. And when our contrary went through life and we were doing tests the opposite of the majority, they balanced our society. By performing tasks in odd ways they begged the question, why do we do what we do? We live with purpose and we are willing to ask if the status quo served us well. We saw those that modern society would deem unfit mentally as people touched by creator that saw the world differently and we were all better for it. They brought medicine and that is the value of diversity. Incorporate difference into the fabric of our life, celebrate it, marvel at all of its beauty, and we will all be successful. And within the cradle of the Abenaki homeland and our culture hero Odziotso, the man who formed himself, watches over all of us. In the beginning Odziotso formed himself out of the dust and the world was not as you see it today. The great transformer shaped mountains, hills, waterways, valleys, rivers, and as he rolled he grew arms and legs and hands and feet. And as he transformed the land he also shaped himself. And isn't that always the way of creation? As we seek to transform a new world, we also transform ourselves. So we must always build new legs to stand on, just as Odziotso did. Creation is ongoing. We came here and we shaped the world for 10,000 years and now we have the privilege to shape it with you. Indigenous woman author and professor Robin Kimmerer wrote, for all of us becoming Indigenous to a place means living as if your children's futures mattered. To take care of the land is if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it. There are not enough words to convey to you the travesty of what is being done in Indian country today. The number of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and boys weighs on us daily. Violence against women is not traditional. When Columbus got lost and we discovered him, up centuries of rape and murder and we still bear the brunt of that colonization. And how can a society change with such heroes? Vermont, do you still celebrate Columbus Day? I wonder. For every caricature of a native mascot, dominant society makes us less human. Shame on our leaders for the travesties they perpetuate. Trudeau and invading the camps and reservations even at this very moment, all from pipelines, fossil fuels keep it in the ground. And for our presidents that allowed the pipeline to be built straight through our rights at Standing Rock. For every academic committee that decides native history is not important enough to offer, we fade into fetishes, spiritualists, eco-warriors, caricatures, and we find another woman at the bottom of a lake that we are just human beings, all of us together. We have our grandmothers to find behind us and they will not be broken. Next up is Caroline O'Founder of the Me Too Orchestra, the world's only classical music organization created for individuals living with mental illness and the people who support them. Over the past several years, she has used her musical and administrative skills to fight the stigma surrounding mental illness and addiction. Perhaps as many as one in four will experience a mental illness during their lifetime. So I'm able to look out at all of you today and I know that many of you had to fight the effects of trauma, addiction, depression, or anxiety just to get out of bed and be here. I want you to know that I appreciate your effort. I really do. I may not know exactly who you are, but I see you. I live with my own diagnosis of depression and anxiety. So if you're fighting the darkness today, please remember that you are never alone. There are other people that feel this way too. In 2010, I met Ronald Brownstein, the man who would become my husband. Ronald is a proud Jewish man who grew up in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh. He's an accomplished orchestral conductor and the kindest person that I know. He also lives with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. When I met Ronald, he suggested that we launch a one-of-a-kind orchestra. He envisioned a musical ensemble where everyone would feel safe and supported, regardless of their diagnosis. We launched Me Too Orchestra here in Vermont with the mission of erasing the stigma surrounding mental illness and addiction. Our work combines great music, education, exposure, and sharing of personal stories. Today, we make music with the most amazing people, many of whom live with illnesses such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, addiction, anxiety, PTSD, and dissociative identity disorder. They come from all walks of life and constantly remind me that mental illness and addiction are equal opportunity diseases. Please understand, mental illness is not a character flaw. The people that I know that live with mental illness and addiction are some of the strongest human beings on the planet. We often keep their illnesses secret because of the stigma and the discrimination that remain prevalent in our communities. Now being a woman with a mental illness or substance use disorder can mean living in secrecy. There's long been a societal expectation that women not inconvenience anyone for long with our feelings of pain. We've internalized the messages that we should be independent and self-reliant and we're supposed to keep our houses in order. Heaven forbid we express our pain and then risk being called emotional or hysterical. Trying to be everything to everyone while dealing with the stigma of mental illness and addiction puts a soul-crushing weight on us. And if you're a woman of color or if you represent another marginalized community, that weight is even heavier and the stigma runs deeper. So how do we make a change? I would suggest that you start by creating your own stigma-free zone. How do you do that? I have some ideas. Begin by checking your language. Language is powerful. Please don't use mental illness to describe your character or personal habits. Don't joke that you're so bipolar on a day when you're a bit moody. And don't say you're so OCD just because you have to keep your desk organized a certain way. These are diseases. Please don't diminish that fact by using them as pseudo-punchlines. Another thing we can all do is to talk about suicide. A lot of people die unexpectedly or suddenly. This is code for an epidemic that we must face. It's like we can't talk about it because we're afraid we're going to catch it somehow. Nobody's going to catch suicide, but a people will continue to die as a result of their battles with depression if we don't at least talk about it. It's a dishonor to the deceased if we don't acknowledge their truth. And I would add that the same is true when someone dies from an overdose. We as citizens must demand that our police forces receive training so they can de-escalate the situation when someone is in a psychiatric crisis. They also need to know how to keep someone safe once they're in custody. I know that some Vermont police departments are making great strides in this area, but I still hear gut-wrenching stories. I have a friend who was in a psychiatric crisis and the police took her to a cell and they left her there with her keys, which she promptly used to cut her wrists. That didn't need to happen. That wouldn't happen with some basic training. In another incident, this same young woman was taken by the police to a hospital during a psychiatric crisis and they just dropped her off and left like a taxi service. Surely the police in our hospitals can do better than this. I can tell you that if she'd been having chest pain, it wouldn't have ended the same way. For some reason, when a person's brain betrays them, we seem to respond with either extreme fear or gross disregard. Neither response is appropriate. It's our responsibility to expect more and do more for our family, friends, and neighbors. With that in mind, I implore you to take a stigma-free heart into the voting booth with you. Support candidates who will make mental health a priority and ensure positive changes to what is, frankly, a horrifying mental health care system in Vermont. In Vermont, people with acute mental illnesses are waiting for days and sometimes longer than a week in the emergency room just trying to get a bed. This is beyond unacceptable. Let's elect leaders who will provide funding and make the necessary changes so nobody in a psychiatric crisis is left waiting for days in the emergency room. I'll wrap up my remarks by stating very clearly that mental illness and addiction are not separate issues. Just like other mental illnesses, addiction is a disease. You would be hard-pressed to find any woman with a substance use disorder who does not also live with a co-occurring mental health diagnosis. As part of my personal commitment to care for my fellow human beings who are battling addiction, I recently started carrying Narcan in my purse. Narcan is the nasal spray that is used to reverse the effects of an opiate overdose. I carry it in the front pocket of my purse right next to my lipstick. I would love for every one of you to start carrying Narcan. That might be unrealistic, but there's a reason that I bring it up today. Even though it is statistically unlikely that I personally will be in a situation where I will administer Narcan through the simple act of carrying it in my purse, I'm reminded daily of my personal pledge to be stigma-free and supportive of my fellow human beings when I encounter them during a crisis. I've taken a personal pledge to intervene in a positive way. It feels great and it's empowering. So would you be willing to make a pledge to be stigma-free in 2019? Can you say it with me? We are stigma-free. We are stigma-free. One more time. We are stigma-free. Thank you. Please make a serious pledge to be a champion for those living with mental illness and addiction. Together, we can make our communities healthier and stigma-free for everyone. Thank you. Amy Adugnia, Ethiopian grassroots organizer for Sun Common in Windsor County. Before working at Sun Common, she was an environmental justice and black liberation community organizer and facilitator. Her work used a queer black feminist, Afro-futurist, abolitionist framework. How y'all doing? What's good black women? I see y'all. The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman, Malcolm X. Start off by acknowledging all the black women out there, especially those of us who are organizers. Black women who are surveillanced, policed, incarcerated and killed and disposed by the hands of the state every day. We need to listen to black women. But we also need to protect black women. We need to believe black women when we say we're in pain. We need to pay black women for our lives to stop commodifying co-opting black women's intellectual property. Echo the acknowledgment of being on indigenous land. Land belonging to the Abinac-y people. Land that has been stolen and colonized by European settlers. I also want to acknowledge that not only are we in an occupied country, but much of the infrastructure and institutions here were built and financed by slavery. This legacy of colonization lays the framework for the environmental racism we see all around us today. Environmental racism plays a part in deciding where black, indigenous and people of color live and the quality of air, water and food. Environmental racism describes the policies, regulation and design, policing of space and capitalist business as usual that result in marginalized communities being disproportionately confined to hazardous and undesirable housing, communities and regions. Environmental racism is a slow and insidious form of ethnic cleansing. Environmental racism manifests in many different ways, including proximity to industrial pollution, toxic waste and garbage dumps, chemical incinerators, as well as placement of polluting multi-lane highways, factories and power plants. It can be exposure at home and school to lead paints and less dust from gasoline. It's also deforestation and ecosystem destruction through fossil fuels and mining extraction. Indigenous and black displacement and disposition of land is also a form of environmental racism. It's also food apartheid and lack of sidewalks, trees and parks in our communities. What makes environmental racism especially insidious is that it has a long colonial history dating to when European settlers violently displaced Indigenous people off their land and then destroyed the land as well as during slavery when enslaved Africans were exposed to extreme weather conditions and diseases. It is imperative that when we're talking about environmental racism we discuss how and why all this happens. It happens on people with resources and political power, white people, except factories and highways as being necessary for the working of the economy but do not want those facilities or infrastructures where they live. Meaning those facilities are a place in someone else's backyard. I want to give some examples. Historic housing policies such as redlining, economically segregated people of color to polluted-air neighborhoods. Thus, race is a greater predictor of who is assigned to live in toxic waste communities than class is. This means that black middle-class households are more likely than low-income white households to live in communities that had incinerators, oil refining and coal burning. Another example is food apartheid. This refers, notice, food apartheid instead of food desert. This refers to deliberate use of regulation and free market economics to restrict people, especially poor people of color, from access to healthy foods. Communities in food apartheid zones typically only have fast food chains and expensive convenience stores that sell limited items of fresh food. Environmental racism has detrimental health and social impacts on marginalized communities. Health impacts of environmental racism include lead poisoning, asthma, birth defects, hormone disruption, miscarriages, heart attacks, cancer, and learning disabilities. Environmental racism can have huge social impacts too, like economic and political disempowerment. There are also spiritual and mental health impacts that like depression and despair from losing culture and land. Black, brown, and indigenous women are at the highest risk for experiencing these negative effects of environmental racism because of the intersection impressions that we face related to gender. Indigenous people both in the global north and the global south have been fighting for environmental justice and land sovereignty through anti-colonial, anti-genocide movements. Black and indigenous women and femmes have largely been the frontline leaders of these movements. I'd like to read a statement from the 1991 National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. We, the people of color, gathered this multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit to begin to build a national and international movement of all peoples of color to fight the destruction and taking of our lands and communities. Do hereby re-establish in our spiritual interdependence to the sacredness of our Mother Earth. To respect and celebrate each of our cultures, language, and beliefs about the natural world and our roles in healing ourselves. To ensure environmental justice. To promote economic alternatives which would contribute to the development of environmentally safe livelihoods. And to secure our political, economic, and cultural liberation that has been denied for our 500 years of colonization and oppression. Resulting in the poisoning of our communities and the land the genocide of our peoples. Do affirm and adopt these principles of environmental justice. Even environmental justice without black liberation. We cannot achieve environmental justice without Palestinian liberation. We must support the BDS movement and apartheid. We cannot achieve environmental justice without trans liberation. We cannot achieve environmental justice without disability justice. Environmental justice without prison and police abolishing. To fight to abolish the police and prisons we need to replace it with a transformative justice system. Or a white supremacist institution like the police. We cannot achieve environmental justice without decolonizing the environmental and green movements. We cannot achieve environmental justice without environmental reparations to black and indigenous people. Environmental justice without reimagining a world without colonization and imperialism and racialized capitalism. Lastly, the state university as acting assistant security for international affairs and deputy assistant secretary for international policy and the department of homeland security and the Obama administration as policy advisor to Arizona governor and at Columbia University. I attended my first women's march in 1989, the march for women's lives in Washington DC. It was the first time I had ever seen that many women in one place from all over the country making their voices heard. The first time I experienced that palpable sensation of change and progress. It was exhilarating men as it is today. Today it is cold to remind us to bring the heat. It is cold to remind us to stomp our feet and clap our hands and dance for the world we want to see. It is cold to remind us that we only rise and survive with the warmth of others. Reminds us that we do the work. Extraordinary people up here do the work. All of you extraordinary people out there do. We do it from the inside. We do it from the outside. We come together to remind ourselves what it takes. And what it takes is to be together, to listen to one another, to hear the change so that we can make the change. In January 1989 there were only 29 women in Congress. Today there are 102 Muslim American women and the first two Native American women. But we have so much more work to do. We have work to do at the national level and we have work to do right here in Vermont. If we didn't already know it, the reprehensible treatment of my friend and lawmaker Kaya Morris demonstrates it to us. We have to stand together, we have to fight together, we have to dance together, stomp our feet and bring the heat. Because uprooting systems of inequality, that doesn't happen overnight. As Audrey Lord said, revolution is not a one-time event. Until the work is done, we have to keep returning to this place. The place where we show up for one another, where we listen as much as we talk. We inspire one another and we make plans to keep working, to keep learning. Where, and thank you very much to our wonderful sign language interpreters, we make the less visible, more visible. Give her time because I didn't tell her I was going to say that. It may not always feel like we are making progress because it is not a straight line. But this movement is stronger and more effective today because we are recognizing that our strength lies in our differences, that our fates are intertwined, that the heat only comes from being together. We are getting serious together about rejecting the old binaries of gender and sexuality, proclaiming unequivocally that there is no place for racism, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism within this movement. Because we want no place for it in America and we want no place for it in the world. In so many ways these rallies, called as it may be, are the reward for the day-to-day grind of activism. For the work that we do inside the system, for the work that we do outside the system, for the work that we do together, for one another, and for others, to teach, to learn always. This is the moment to take a nice cold breath, to find nourishment in our numbers and regroup. This work takes moral endurance, sometimes it takes toe warmers, and we are here. I believe educators in particular have a mandate right now to help build moral endurance in future generations. We need young people who are ready to enter adulthood with moral clarity, a desire to listen carefully, the stamina and support to keep going. And in nurturing these future leaders, we must instill in them an attention to how we bring forth revolution, not just why. As Gloria Steinem often says, marks and angles were wrong when they said that the ends justify the means. On the contrary, the means create the ends. We need to build this revolution with friendship, dancing, especially when it's cold, and laughter. If we want these things at the end, then we need to live them along the way too. And don't get me wrong, we can do this while we fight. And we must do it together, seeing and supporting one another. It's not enough to fight for reproductive rights, criminal justice reform, a humane immigration policy. We must also let the experiences of the women on the front lines of those fights guide the way. We must elect more women of color, and we must ensure that the faces of this movement mirror the faces of our vast country. Events like this one, peaceful protests and civic demonstrations, are the reward. They're the meat and potatoes, but it's also those meetings. As I sometimes tell students, it's those 10,000 meetings for social justice that make the difference. It's the organizers on the ground that make the difference. And we all need to show up for them and for each other. And I know we have a lot of strong feelings here today, but we need to remember the difference between partisanship, politics, and principles. We may not share every view on every issue, but we share those principles. Those principles animate us. Those principles bring us together. And I want to remind us too, as author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichiea said, I am angry, we should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change, but I am also hopeful, because I believe deeply in the ability of human beings to remake themselves for the better. That's why we educate. That's why we come together. That's why we work together. That's what we're doing here today. So I will leave you with this. Stay focused. Continue to show up for each other. Continue to stomp your feet. Continue to clap your hands. Continue to raise your voices. Continue to dance together and keep each other warm. Thank you for being here today. The first time that I took this podium, I was able to drape the podium with a cape from my son. He was his new favorite superhero of his own making. He was a rainbow superhero, and his job was to help people heal. And so I was able to share and bring that spirit of youth and that spirit of future into that moment. And today I was presented with this beautiful sign from the students from U32, who wanted to make sure that we all knew that the youth are watching and they're listening and they're learning. And that's what I want for everyone, and I want that for youth from Bennington all the way up to Burlington, that they know that this work is not just about this moment, but it's about creating the world that we know we need and the world that we believe should be. So I want to thank you so much for this and keep on fighting you. So I have a speech. Thank you, Kenzie, for that beautiful introduction. Thank each of you for being out here in this ridiculous cold and this outrageous weather. We have a necessary test of our dedication to this work, but we're passing and we're flying. It brought me to this place of power. And what defines my movement within these power spaces is simple. It's what I consider to be political courage. For me, political courage is the ability to push forth policy that is responsive to the people's needs, regardless of its consequence. The ability to drive agendas that may not be popular but are absolutely necessary. As a woman, and especially as a woman of color, my courage must work towards the eradication of issues of race, gender inequality, class inequality, and the promotion of human and civil rights. That courage must be centered on true social justice. I must be willing to not only speak the truths about what must change, but accept that this power is not mine to hold and it was granted to me by the people. My political courage is shaped by our collective morals and values and it is strengthened by your voices. It is defined by revolutionary movement politics. Consider the tenet of movement politics and the challenges that that narrative, that there must be some leader that has to save us. That the ability to destroy and dismantle systems of injustice can only happen and be executed by a particular leader. Revolutionary movement politics requires that the systems of power become egalitarian and decentralized and that the leadership we need resides within us all. Out that structure, we become lazy and inept when our leaders are forcibly removed or disenfranchised from the process. It leaves us disappointed when those we sought to deliver us fail to deliver on the promises that they gave or that we projected onto them and our quest to find this movement Messiah. I think of the election in the tenure of Barack Hussein Obama. So much hope and promise imbued in that era that was also punctuated with critical departures from the social contract that drove his campaign. I'm blessed to have been in Chicago when President Barack Obama won the election. I remember riding the subway downtown to wait for the results with nearly a quarter million other souls in the heart of the city. Beautiful black and brown people crowded the streets adorned and head-to-toe Obama gear. The excitement and the elation as the results were announced as a moment that I'm never going to forget. And the next morning my thoughts fell on the weight of it all, this movement that made history the promise of so much change. And I thought it's going to be heartbreaking for folks the first time that he disappoints them. It was an inevitability that he would be complicit in some policy or endorse some action that would result in real pain for some Americans that might cost the lives of our military, that might result in further oppression of the poor, that normalized deportation and the destruction of our communities. Activists and scholar Angela Davis talked about the potential and the problematic aspects of seeking a deified personhood to embody the revolutionary changes that we need to build a just society. She says, quote, the problem was that people from the Obama campaign who associated themselves with that movement did not continue to wield that collective power as pressure that might have compelled Obama to move in more progressive directions. She says that even as we're critical of Obama, what we lacked was not the right president, but a well-organized mass movement. So once again, it is not in seeking a singular savior of sorts to help guide us to the promised land but an intricate network of courageous truth-tellers who will amplify the voices of the people to critically shape political will and redefine political courage. When I consider what the core policy entails, I try to remind folks that every political movement from Stonewall to Standing Rock, from Adapt and Resist to the Birmingham Children's Crusade, the Brown Berets to the Black Lives Matter movement are all fueled from the truth that the political is deeply personal and that our laws, our policies, and our government functions are to work in service of the values, morals, and ethics of our society. For example, there should be no question in anyone's mind that individuals with disabilities should be granted an ability to move in the world unencumbered. The baseline accommodations should not be a request but a standard. We get that? Yet it had to be reified with a national policy called the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ADA, and the ADA is constantly under attack. Yet, many of the movements that I'm engaged with do not have individuals from that community on their leadership team. Sister Davis reminds us that we have to extricate ourselves through narrow, identarian thinking. If we want to encourage progressive people to embrace these struggles as their own, whenever you conceptualize social justice struggles, you will always defeat your own purposes if you cannot imagine the people around whom you are struggling with as equal partners. Four, if you think of them simply as objects of the charity of others, you are constituting them as inferior in the process of trying to liberate them. Can I add that without their direct participation of marginalized communities and the development of your movement, your movement has no real meaning? Or, as Lyle Watson, Aboriginal elder, activist, and educator says, if you've come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you'll come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. People of the second-rightest state in the union has become a crutch to keep us from doing the real work of meaningful revolutionary inclusion. This is lazing leadership of the most tough at form. In reality, the anxiety of the presence of people of color is that our opinions might challenge group dynamics and distribution of power. The truth-telling of the lived experiences of our leaders might question not only the assumptions of the movements that they're engaged in, but will likely push members of these entities to experience the discomfort of personal growth required to become truly anti-racist, meaningful allies and comrades in this work. You might just learn that you're doing it all wrong and that perhaps you have to begin again. I urge you to take the charge that has been weaponized against marginalized people everywhere to endure it. The charge that demands that when we are down, we get back up again and again. So the question before us is this, is this the best we can do? Are we complacent with enacting half-measures, broken policies, and insufficient systemic changes, knowing fully the terrorism that marginalized people endure every single day? We must be willing to do so much more than we thought we are capable of doing to achieve what has not been done, but should have been done ages ago. Dr. Gerald Wing Sue, who's one of the most genius and prolific solution seekers in building an anti-racist society, reminds us, it's not about how you cover up your racial blunders, it's about how you recover. This work involves bearing careful witness to what has been revealed to each of you, and will continue to be revealed to each of you today. This work involves understanding clearly that the present is ever guided by the past. This is Vermont, and we have an opportunity to show the world how it can be done, and believe me when I say that the world is watching to see what we do next. A leader of a prominent nonprofit asked for my opinion about initiative they were launching to push for transformational change towards diversity, equity, and inclusion. They shared their elation at the readiness to change amongst their colleagues about work that was already underway. Once again, my eyes darkened in the world, words fell from my weary heart, how many people of color are actually involved in this process? Of the nearly two dozen minds driving this conversation, there was only one person in the room who would actually be impacted by their inadequate attempts. Despite all heeding the group barreled on ahead on an unnecessary timeline that would not prove or provide the room necessary to seek the review from the very people that they were purporting to support. You can likely guess the overarching reasons that this group would choose to omit these voices. It's mostly process-oriented, mostly fear-based, and that they did not want to learn that they might be mistaken in their assumptions. But largely, it's the need to find a quick resolution to the feelings of guilt and hurt that makes those in power move too quickly and ineffectively to relieve their perceived pain. These half-hearted results cannot provide the necessary healing for those who need it the most. So here we are each day, fighting to reaffirm our place in this new world order, each moment trying to muster the strength to fight another day to find the words that feel just out of reach that will heal our collective wounds, to be present for our children to pick up on the vibrations of their hearts and shield them from the generational trauma that haunts our bloodlines. We find ourselves crumbling from failing health, severe mental distress, depression, and anxiety. We watch the dollars and cents that are doled out to us and trickles and tips slip through our fingers into the chasm of this capitalistic life. And yet, here we are in this place, showing up like we always do, standing here, against all odds, against all elements in the center of our heartbreak and irrepressible hope, committing ourselves to the work ahead, committing ourselves to the communities we live in, committing ourselves to the state that we call home, committing to contribute our gifts, our labor, our lives to this deeply flawed nation. A friend, activist, and warrior put it aptly when I asked her how she was holding up against the odds and she cautioned, Kaya, my bones are tired. Yet, here she remains. And a priest once told me that when you consider it in totality, marginalized peoples are the real Vermonters. We recommit to this state again and again. Our love is so great, our hope is so real that we determine that this state is worth fighting for. But we cannot do it alone and we shall not be exploited for our pain. So I ask you to consider what is your real equity analysis for the work you're trying to do? Are you really wedding to seed power and the places that you hold to bring voices to light that have been ignored? Have you considered the ways in which your system, standards, and processes apply in equity and exclusivity? Must we always prove ourselves worthy of inclusion in the spaces that are freaking birthright as sisters? It's time to do the work. It's time to dive in. It's time to commit to changing this world for good. Let's get to work. Thank you. A round of applause for Kaya. Speaker, we will have a musical performance by Patti Casey. She is a voice of the northeastern part of the country. She is the first to be taught as a fixture on the northeastern U.S. folks scene through her sheer talent and artistic self-discipline. The first song we will hear from her is Stronger Than That, which is about resistance, compassion, and love. Thank you for being here. First of all, I was, as I was layering up this morning, I was worried that there wouldn't be anybody here or not many of us, than that. So you gotta help me with this because it's really freaking cold up here. This is your part. We are stronger than that. We are kinder than that. We are moving forward. We are not going back. We are stronger than that. We are kinder than that. Love is stronger than that. I can hear you. It sounds great. One more time. We are stronger than that. We are kinder than that. We are moving forward. We are not out of love. It is not tame. If the lights go out longer than that. Moving forward, we are not out of love. To start off my story, I would like to read a poem I wrote and content warning, sexual assault. Rape is not a graduation requirement. My first year seminar turned into solitary confinement. My rapeist had class in the room next door, and instead of kicking him out, they watched me get called a lying whore. Northern Vermont University held an investigation, but this was nothing more than a nine month long accusation. When I received my Title IX findings, the results were binding. A drunken, flirty mess, but did she really try her best? Did you see how she was dressed? Just last month, I celebrated. A year had gone by. I went to a friend's house, and they began to ask why. I had all these hives on my chest, and it took me a while to determine which answer would be best. I was raped a year ago. I began to explain, and as these words left my mouth, I could tell that my friend was in pain. As she began to explain that it happened to her too. She was raped four days after me at NVU, and her assaultor remained unbothered just as I knew. Title IX is inhumane, and it forces survivors to refrain from telling their truth. Most students leave college with a degree, but I left with more PTSD, and six untreated STDs from a man who forced himself on to me. I didn't leave my room for a week. All my friends could provide was a critique. I mean, you did take off your shirt, but does that mean that I asked to get hurt? My story is normal and representative, and the most infuriating part is that this is preventative. This is why I'm an activist. It's not because I've always been passionate for the attractiveness of reform, but because being raped cannot be our norm. That's why I'm here. There are far too many people living in complete fear. It's 2019, and I'm saying me too, and there's nothing that I would redo. Activist until after December 2nd, 2017. This was the night that I was raped. The weeks following this assault, I became what is seen now as an activist. An activist is someone who fights for social change, but what I was fighting for wasn't change. It was respect and dignity. Respect and dignity should not need to be fought for, but they are the basis of almost every issue you will hear about today. Respect for our Earth, for our bodies, for people of color, for trans lives, for children, for people with disabilities. Respect is a human right. In the world at Northern Vermont University, I spent my days trying to reform the policies in Title IX. This was not to try to save people or to make significant changes, but it was to keep myself put together. Activism is often seen as a heroic thing, and I hear you do such great work. My advocacy was messy and emotional, and it ruined the person I was prior to this assault. The activism I do is a survival response, and is trauma, and is by no means glamorous. As a survivor of sexual assault, I felt a very heavy pressure to front the movement of reform on my campus that I was stuck on, and I very quickly burnt out. I lost who I was because I was constantly trying to fix issues around Title IX. I lost relationships with my friends because I was too much to be around. I gave up on changing policies and meeting with administrators because it consumed who I was. This is where you all can come in. People who advocate for issues that they've experienced have very unique perspectives and can provide information that will surely cause change, but they can't carry all the weight. Step in and have conversations about sexual assault or racial issues or LGBT issues, even if you haven't experienced them. Understand that you don't have personal experience and have respect for those who do, but offer them space for breaks. I did not ask for what happened. People do not ask to be raped. If you read my Title IX findings that Northern Vermont University compiled, you might think that it was my drinking or my clothes. But I have learned from telling this to countless others. My rape was not my fault. About groups like Women's March, I would never get to voice my story. The key part of that is that this is my story. This isn't the administrators putting together a packet of findings. This isn't my detective building a reputable case. My story is conventional, and again, that's why I'm an activist. Rapists need to be held accountable. I'd also like to point out that you don't need to be put together to be an activist. I am an absolute mess. I'm not in school. I just packed up all of my things and moved on my own, and I have no idea what I'm doing. But I know that activism is something that will be in my life whether I want it to be now or not. Reach out to local organizations that work with issues that you care about, and you can do this too. Women's March has provided me with not only an opportunity to share my voice, but also a network of support who allowed me to take breaks and believed me when no one else did, so that will be my take-home point. I believe you, and I support you, and I thank you all for listening. Those who perpetrate identity-based crimes should be held to an additional level of accountability. Representative Morris' first departure from our legislature is a prime example of how we need another update to our legal definitions. Got me all in my feelings about that one. Our system can fully acknowledge that she faced horrific racism, harassment it was even called, but we cannot legally hold the people responsible for perpetrating that harassment accountable? Come on now. With situations like that it's easy to feel hopeless, it's easy to get angry, and it's easy to feel enraged. There's a trope about black women, specifically that we are all angry. I wish to correct that definition for my own purpose. I am not angry, I am enraged. And there is a difference. Anger. Anger is that feeling you get when someone steps on your foot and acts like it was your fault. Or if someone switches into your lane without signaling and almost runs you off the road. Rage. Rage is that feeling you get when you have been rendered invisible and valid or silent. Not just for one moment or one day, but for centuries. It is the feeling that you get in the core of your being that pops up in different situations. And I think Adrienne Rich said it best when she said, when those who have the power to mean and socially construct reality choose not to see or hear you. When someone with the authority of a teacher say, describes the world and you are not in it. There's a moment of psychic disequilibrium as if you looked into the mirror and saw nothing. That, that is rage. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with rage. It's what you do with it that makes the difference. When you move through the stages of grief from shock to denial to anger or rage there's an opportunity to take that energy and turn it into an action. And this my fellow justice warriors is the place from where fire is born. Adrienne Rich continued, it takes some strength of soul and not just individual strength but collective understanding to resist this void, this non-being into which you are thrust and to stand up demanding to be seen and heard. This. This is how you can and must use your own rage if we are ever to progress. Turn it into fire so that you can resist the void and dark vacuum of despair and demand to be seen and heard in the light of day. It is where you belong. It is where we all belong. It is where the white folks in the audience can come in and, you know, in the audience. Because it's still Vermont. But right now that's actually a good thing and here's why. At this point you may be wondering, Tabitha, I came to a women's march. I came here to talk about pussy hats and the right to choose. And take family leave. Why are you standing here talking about right to policy and fire and camels? I'll tell you why. I will never be a woman. I will always be a black woman. And that's a good thing for me. But why? The same reason many of you will always be a woman. The same reason you're here. And some of you might say, but if you put race in everything you will always see racism. You create racism by talking about it. And some of you have heard people say that very argument, haven't you? Yeah, I got some words for that. Ask yourselves, do women create rape by saying me too? Do we ask for lower wages by pointing out that they're unequal? Do we perpetrate violence in intimate partner relationships when we disclose that it happened? No. No, we do not. You see, as much as I may talk about the damage that white supremacists can cause, I'm actually more worried about the damage that my white sisters and those who identify as allies and accomplices can cause. White supremacists are not trying to come to my house and get to know me and hang out and knit pussy hats with me. They want nothing to do with me. But you do. And while I'm grateful for your friendship and allyship and co-conspiring, because we are closer, I am more vulnerable to you. We are more vulnerable to you. Because you are my sisters and daughters and aunties and mothers and cousins and friends, you have more power in my life and in the lives of your trans and black and indigenous and disabled and immigrant sisters than anyone else. And with great power comes great responsibility. Thank you. So, when you're wringing your hands, when you hear that our sisters like Sandra Bland, say her name. And Kelly Stowe, say her name. Our murdered and Ashley Loring heavy runner, say her name. Is still missing. And our indigenous sisters are raped at a rate two and a half times higher than our white sisters. And you wonder what you can do about it? You can speak up to the other white people in your life because our freedoms are and strictly intertwined. Just as the environment cannot correct global warming, nor can people of color undo some systemic racism. We can call it out. We can demand to be seen and heard. But ultimately, if this is to happen through nonviolent means, it will be you who makes room for us at the proverbial table when it comes to race. So, interrupt that racist joke. Ask, what do you mean when someone says something about those people? Learn the real statistics about asylum seekers and crime. Quote the facts about what access to services undocumented immigrants really have. And educate yourself about the social constructs of gender and sex. At this point, it's painfully clear that for any of us to stay silent in the fight for rights of freedoms and access for a trans and immigrant and indigenous and impaired and disabled and poor and queer sisters and brothers for that matter is to not fight at all. Martin really didn't know what he was saying when he said that no one is free while others are oppressed. So please, white people, get your cousins. That is one simple, effective way that you can work toward freedom for us all. It's not an easy task and it's not an easy ask. And many of you already know how hard it can be even standing here in like what feels like negative 20 degrees weather. You have unfriended or blocked people you cared about on social media. You have challenged family at holiday gatherings. You have stopped shopping at certain vendors or won't attend certain state fairs until they publicly acknowledge the rights of your community members. Many of you are tired too. To you I say keep going. There is no dearth of stories of violence and justice or inequity especially with our current national administration. I saw some real great signs out here about that. Open up a story and force yourself to read it. Walk through your sadness and as the energy of today carries you into the coming weeks and months and as you do this work and feel the ups and downs of the progress and setbacks I ask that you remember the words of Albert Schweitzer. In everyone's life at some time our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. Today on this ridiculously cold day I am thankful for you. I am grateful that I get to share my fire with you and honored to feel the warmth and comfort of yours. With that I leave you with a wish. May your fire burn more fiercely than anyone who would try to extinguish you and may the light of your foremothers, sisters and daughters guide you in your path toward true justice for us all. Thank you. Do we stand for do all women stand for each other or are there some women we don't stand for? And when other people are saying are these the women we don't stand for they are women who are highly feminine or sex workers who use their beauty and femininity as a way to make money but in fact it's just a valid way to make money as any other way to make money. In patriarchy, menderly choose the wife or the other woman, the good girl or the bad girl and women have to choose if you're a good girl, you get the benefits of patriarchy and if you're a bad girl, you're in danger. The divide of feminine is the way men have a consciously kept women competing with each other which would mean women will say I'm a fan of female alternatives but I hate entered, for example, any celebrity, Kim Kardashian. So the way that women are asked to turn on each other to access male power is a huge problem in our society. In quote, my hands are freezing so it's hard for me to turn pages. I myself talk about what it's like to work in a male dominated, homogenized industry which in reality most industries are. As such you would think the few women who do work in my industry would come together and work arm in arm to be allies and uplift each other in spaces that don't have much representation. Unfortunately that is not the case. From my industry or many others or in life in general. A true ally and friend of mine, Mr. Ross, the wine editor of Bon Appetit is giving permission to share an experience she has had that was crucial for me to hear the next of sentiments of what Jill Solly said in the quote I started with. When struggling at a challenging stage of her career she did perhaps the most dangerous thing she was vulnerable. I set up the help and advice of a colleague who told her and I quote, maybe you should wear a bikini and then it won't matter if the wines are any good, right? I assume like many of you might that this colleague was a man but it says in his say that this colleague was a woman. What makes me so sad is that this is the norm we project our this is the norm. We project our ideas about what a woman should be the male perspective on to each other. We predetermine what a successful woman should wear. We define a successful woman as someone who has a career during but must raise a family define each other as good girls and bad girls. What I ask all of us to consider as we march arm in arm today and on all other days is how we are projecting conceptions of womanhood or femininity on to each on our other sisters. What are these projections are lifting them up or tearing them down? I invite you to play an active role in reversing the trend to no longer consciously and consciously engage with this toxic way of being. I invite us to leave with love and compassion and remember that empowered women empower women. Thank you. So our last speaker is Brenda Churchill the QIA Alliance of Vermont while testifying for House Bill H333 a bill requiring single user public bathrooms in Vermont to be designated gender neutral. She said Vermont is a state that often has shown the rest of the United States where to go and how to get there. Brenda believes that women especially in Vermont will continue to lead and show the way. Good afternoon. I gotta say I stood in front of that heater long enough I spelled chicken cooking. And I want to say good morning to everybody but now it's heading on afternoon so thanks for sticking around. Before I get started with my speech I want to ask a favor. When I say any of these two phrases would you please respond very loudly? Hell no. So let's practice and get this energy level up through the room. When I say I won't be erased or we won't be erased you say. Hell no. There you go. Thank you so much for having me here today. I had a speech all prepared and I just kept reading it over and over and it was good but it didn't ring true so at 5.30 this morning I took another shot at this and coming up with something that I hope will inspire at least one of you today. By the way the G key sticks on my computer so I had to do a lot of punting around to get this here. I want to first say it was a momentous week for me. I went to court and I got my name correctly aligned to me. That wasn't enough. I also fell in love this week so I know at least one person out here will say again? There it is. Thank you Christine for that. I work at the building behind me here and I wasn't elected. I'm not paid and you know what I do say when I'm a lobbyist but I get to call on my job of liaison. I won't be erased. Some other stuff about me besides being at the state house here I'm on the board of a merge. I wrote a transgender support group with the new community center in Morrisville. I worked very hard to get the first transgender governor elected but I did not get there. You're welcome. The fair and impartial policing community board that several of my peers are on a part of I'm starting an inclusive sex education task force to change that to add well good sex education to our schools and I'm on the Vermont coalition for ethnic and social equality in schools. Some of the things I've worked on the last two years include gender neutral bathrooms new laws defining parenting minimum wage, paid family leave universal primary care and I also unionized our campaign and negotiated a contract for the campaign workers guild. One of my benchmark efforts actually has been adding the third gender market to driver's licenses and IDs in Vermont. I want you all to know that as of July 1st you'll be able to have three choices for gender on your driver's license. I won't be erased. Your friend of our transgender community has drafted a resolution to denounce the policy of the current regime in Washington to eliminate transgender from any protections. I can tell you unequivocally that Vermont stands with her transgender community. We won't be erased. Another senator came to me the other day and asked if I would work with him to draft a bill that defines and protects gender nonconforming and non-binary individuals. We will not be erased. The message I want you to hear from me clearly and loudly today is that you are all great exactly the way you are. I've never experienced gender or body dysphoria but it took me over 40 years to realize who I was and then another decade or so to be out, open and authentic in the person you see here today. Oh, and I want to take a minute to say something to the young people who are still with us and not frozen. By the way, I was called a transicle today. I want you to know that try not to look to social media to define your perfection. It's an illusion you are all beautiful and to be beautiful all it takes is self-confidence not starving yourself or trying to force your body to represent something you're not. Take it from me, bodies come in all shapes and sizes. It's how we appreciate this amazing machine that gets us around, keeps us safe thinking, evolving and becoming that's really where the beauty lies. We won't be erased. I want to wrap up with a few things this afternoon. When you come from a place of good and being true to yourself there's nothing you can't accomplish. None of us are perfect. We weren't perfect when we were born we were absolutely perfect ever in our lives. We don't have to be. We just have to be exactly as we are or want to be and accept each other for that and continue shouting in one voice as we're doing today. We all have to be exactly as we are or want to be and accept each other for that and continue shouting with one voice as we're doing today. I won't be erased. We won't be erased. I'm going to close with the quote that was read here because it's one that means so much to me. Vermont is the state that often has shown the rest of the United States where to go and how to get there. Thank you for having me today. I love you all just the way you are.