An Act of Resistance: Why Getting to Know Your Neighbors Matters Right Now

One reason I do this work is I believe all humans deserve to feel safe – but for a lot of us, that’s not a reality right now. 

Across the country, from Minneapolis to Maine, people, including children, are being kidnapped from their homes under the guise of immigration crackdown. 

So today’s episode is about leveraging connection as a form of resistance to protect our neighbors. What can you offer, and how do you present yourself as a safe person?

You might think the action ideas in this episode are too small. But resistance doesn’t always have to be on the front lines. You can be the neighbor somebody calls in an emergency. You can pay attention and let people who might do harm know you’re watching. It all adds up.

In this episode you’ll hear about:

• Ideas for how to present yourself as a safe person, from hanging rainbow flags or multilingual signs to simply talking about your values in casual conversation
• The truth about numbers: when people who help outnumber those who’d harm, it becomes harder for hateful actors to act
• Why not all resistance is viral and the real value in small, everyday connections and actions, particularly when crises hit
• How to help, from calling congressional representatives to watching for opportunities in which you can show up

Resources & Links

Listen to Episode 120 where I dive into my political beliefs and Episode 126 about how friendship can be a vehicle for radical change.

Like what you hear? Visit my website, leave me a voicemail, and follow me on Instagram and TikTok!

Want to take this conversation a step further? Send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting and use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out!

This episode is sponsored by Are We Friends Yet?, Alex’s book on building the support system you’ve been wanting.

Buy the book and submit your receipt before July 16th to get The Connector’s Toolkit free: a private pep talk podcast for the moments that feel hardest, a full year in The Less Lonely Club, and more. Grab your bonuses at alexalexander.com/are-we-friends-yet

This episode is sponsored by Slowly, a digital pen pal app used by over 10 million people worldwide. If you’ve been looking for a low-pressure way to connect with someone completely outside your normal friendship circle, this is it. Exchange letters at your own pace, no small talk panic required.

Download Slowly free and get 30% off Slowly Plus using my link: https://open.slowly.app/miXL/l8ei5iw6

WANT MORE?

My book, Are We Friends Yet? is here. Order your copy today!

Dive into The Connection Reset. A 10-day private podcast to help you see the abundance of connection that already exists in your day-to-day (Yes. Really. I promise you have more than you realize). Start today. 

Transcript

Podcast Intro/Outro: 0:55

All right, gang. Here's to nights that turn into mornings and friends that turn into family. Cheers. Hello, hello, and welcome to the Friendship IRL podcast. I'm your host, Alex Alexander. Each week we talk about what is working(and what is not) in our friendships, community and connections. Have you ever wished you could sit down and have a conversation about what is really going on in your friendships? Well, you found your people. Join us as we dive into real life stories and explore new ways to approach these connections. Together, we're reimagining the rules of friendship

Alex Alexander: 1:51

I yap on this podcast endlessly. About community and connection, and normally I come at it from a very personal lens, right? How this will benefit you? Very rarely do I talk about connection as resistance, but behind the scenes, when I am picking my topics and constructing my outlines. That is very much how I think of connection. It's just not how I normally frame it to you today, we're talking about connection as resistance. We have to because people are being disappeared from their homes, and one thing in these desperate times, maybe the only thing that could stand between a person and that kind of harm is whether someone standing around them would notice, and then beyond that, whether anyone would care. Now there has been a lot of news suppression. So if you are not aware why I'm recording this episode, then I'm just going to give you the briefest of primers. Okay, I'm going to tell you to go find some independent journalists. I don't have exact names, but that would be my suggestion. If you are not aware of what's happening in Minneapolis, I saw reports of people in Maine today in many cities across the US, including Seattle, where I live, ICE is kidnapping people, including children, all under this guise from the administration of cracking down on immigration. But there are hundreds, if not 1000s of videos and accounts of citizens being arrested people who are following the legal process. There are videos of people screaming, I have papers as they are being brutally dragged into a car. This administration, ICE. They don't care. It is about fear and control and the hope that the average everyday person will become too scared to take action. I also think they hope that the average American, right is too separate from their neighbors, too atomized, and that will cause the average American to be indifferent. So when we are out here seeing abandoned cars that are still running on the side of the road, People's Front doors being busted down, raids on daycares. We have to ask ourselves, what are we all doing? I know I have I do this work for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that at the very core, I believe that humans deserve to feel safe, and that is not the world that so many people are living in right now. Now, just as a side caveat, if you want to know more, if this episode has not made clear my political beliefs and you want more nuance, then I have an episode that is always out there for anyone who wants to listen to it. It is episode 120 where I dive deeper into my political beliefs, but also how I show up online and offline, most importantly when it comes to those political beliefs. So with that, I want to lay down some groundwork about this episode today, because this episode is for a very specific type of person, honestly, a person who is like me, right? I did this reflection for myself about what I was doing as I was watching all of these videos, right? Because if you're like me, you have probably spent too much time Doom, scrolling, feeling sick to your stomach, feeling helpless, wondering what you can possibly do. From where you are, and so when I reflected on that for myself, I hope that this episode gives you just one idea. Now it's a small idea. It might feel too small, too insignificant, but I think we can either sit in our helplessness, or we can try to normalize in our own routines, taking small actions that hopefully add up. The people in Minneapolis and some other cities across the country are basically under occupation right now, and if that is you, if you are listening, my thoughts are with you, but I want you to know that this episode really isn't for you, because you are in a very desperate place, and you are so far beyond what I'm going to talk about in this episode today. I've mentioned many a time on this episode that people who are desperate suddenly do not care about social norms, and I've talked about that in reference to myself. Right when I was desperate. I did a lot of things that were not normal ways to connect, because I didn't care. I needed the connection, and that is what is happening in communities that have been overtaken by ICE right? People are knocking on their neighbor's doors even though they've never met them. They are giving their phone number to complete strangers, they are standing on street corners with whistles. All social norms have gone out the window, and they are doing whatever they can to band together to survive. So today's episode that I'm recording is for anyone who is not in panic mode but feels really lost about what they can do. We can wait until we are desperate, but I don't recommend it, because it is then just one more barrier you have to cross in order to survive. So if you can start building some of these connections now, there is no harm in anything I'm about to suggest being better connected to your neighbors and your community cannot hurt you at all. Now, one final, really important caveat before I start talking about kind of my thesis, my takeaway, if you are listening to this and you are in a vulnerable position right now, if you are part of a targeted community. This episode is not me telling you to go out and make yourself more visible to people you don't trust. Your safety comes first always. This episode is for people who have relative safety and want to leverage that privilege. And some of the things I'm gonna talk about in the episode like there are layers. I really do need you to use your discernment and always err on the side of caution. But if you, like me, have relative safety, there's work you can start doing right now. My inspiration for today's episode when I was sitting on the couch just wondering what I'm doing with my life in the world that we live in right now. My brain brought me back to Episode 126 which is an episode I did with Priya volchi, the author of good friends. And the premise of her book is that friendship isn't just a nice to have. It is a vehicle for radical change when you know someone and you care about them, you show up differently. And in the episode, if you go listen to it, I talk about my personal experience with this. I share a story of someone that I love, that was affected by something, and how suddenly I was paying way more attention to the news, to the bills that were being introduced than I ever had before. Now, if you are this person with relative safety, there are two things that you can do right now, and they both require the same basic action, which is developing some familiarity with the people who live around you. Now, the first thing you can do is become more known as a safe person, make yourself available, as someone who would help, put yourself out there so that people who need support know where to find it. The goal isn't to become besties with your neighbors. It's not to extract information about people who feel vulnerable. It's to make it clear that you are someone they could come to, even though they may not feel like they know you that well, and you definitely don't know them that well, and that's okay, they can still reach out. The second thing you can do is build some basic familiarity with people that feel like potential threats. Yes, I am telling you to go out there and make some very basic connections with the people who believe that everything that is happening is fine, that seem indifferent to what is going on. Because. Because the more that I was thinking about it, the more I realized that when you strip away the anonymity of someone who might just be callous or indifferent, it is harder for them to act right. We all know the feeling of when we're doing something wrong, and we are hyper aware of if someone is around, if someone could see us right, make sure your blinds are closed. We know that feeling hateful action thrives on anonymity, on the assumption that no one is paying attention, on the belief that your neighbors will just look away. So when someone knows that they are being witnessed right when they are looking over their shoulders, knowing that if that blind is open and somebody saw something that shifts things, I also believe that most people, not all, most people, aren't hateful, but They are apathetic, right? They are unconcerned. They are indifferent. They aren't thinking twice about it. They are very hyper focused on themselves. So part of it is that they don't know other people. They can stay in their bubble. They can act with no community accountability. Both of these require you to get to know your neighbors, to turn faces that are just kind of there into people with names to make yourself known, to pay attention. This is resistance. What we're talking about isn't just nice community building. This is an intentional act of resistance that you can weave into our every day, because this administration thrives on fear and isolation. They want communities that are fragmented. They want neighbors who don't know each other, because that makes it easier to disappear someone without anyone noticing. It makes it more likely that someone will stay in their house out of fear than coming outside to resist. When you build connection, when you make yourself known, when you make it clear that you are paying attention, you are disrupting that isolation, and that's resistance. So let's talk about what I'm actually asking you to do. And again, I want to be clear, because this is a touchy episode, right? The risks are not equal. If you have citizenship, whiteness, economic stability, you becoming known to your neighbors is low risk. But for someone in a targeted community, becoming known to the wrong neighbor could put them in danger. So when I talk about familiarity, I'm talking about those of us with safety making ourselves visible. I'm not asking vulnerable people to expose themselves. So if you are this person with relative safety, at the very least, you can start saying hi to your neighbors. All of them start maybe chatting a little bit right, trying to get a sense of where these people lie, maybe knowing their names, potentially getting their phone numbers, trying to decide if you would recognize them if you saw them in the grocery store. Now, potentially you start to get a sense of people and use your discernment, but maybe you start to tell people like, hey, I really think it's important we all get to know our neighbors and encourage people to meet each other. When I started to write this episode in my head as I'm like, envisioning this act of resistance, I'm very much envisioning a neighborhood that is like full of single family homes, right? You walk down the street, maybe your neighbor is getting their car in the driveway, their garage is open, but that is very different than my reality. So I want to make a personal note here, which is that I live in a very urban, densely populated area. I know everyone in my building. I have all of their phone numbers, but I also can work on meeting people on my street, but with that, because everybody is behind an apartment building door, if you are like me, you'll have to get a little crafty, and I'm going to talk about what I'm doing at the end, but back to being a good neighbor. If you live on a street where you can walk by and see the people and know what home they live in, I want to note that being a good neighbor doesn't require knowing everything about someone, right? This is that discernment piece. If you get a sense that someone is part of a vulnerable population, you don't need to ask them where they're from. You don't need to know their status. You don't need to know their life story. Sometimes the most protective thing you can do is be consistently present, consistently kind, and let people share what they want to share when they're ready. Some ways that I have thought of to make yourself visible as a safe person, right? Put something in. Your window that signals that you're a safe house, safe place, signs, rainbow flags, signs in other languages. Wear something a pin, something hanging off your bag. Be vocal about your values and casual conversation, not preachy, but clear. Offer specific, concrete help. Can say something like, I'm usually home on weekday afternoons. If you ever need someone, or I have a car, I'm always happy to give you a ride. Another one is, I think, for these people who maybe aren't openly sharing with you, you could give them your phone number. You could say, This is my name. This is my phone number. I don't need yours, but always feel free to call me. You can let people come to you when they're ready. Make it clear that the door is open. Now, if you want to go deeper, if that feels right with somebody, then start trying to have more one on one conversations. Invite them over to your front porch to hang out, knock on their door and drop something off, figure out where people sit on your street and who your allies are. Now, again, I know there are going to be some objections to this episode. So what if you are the one that's at risk if you are part of a targeted community? I am not asking you to trust everyone on your block your job right now is to protect yourself and your family period. If there are neighbors that you already trust, lean into those relationships, but you get to be selective. You get to wait and see who shows up as safe. There are things you can do, though, tell them you're worried, ask for their phone number, ask when they're around. This episode is a call for people who could be protective to step up so you have more people to rely on. Now, if your objection is that my neighbors are the problem, I get that. I have kind of mentioned that here, but if you have privilege and relative safety, you have power here, right? We are trying to create a space where it is harder to act in hateful ways, because they know they are being witnessed. They know that people are watching. So pay attention. Make it known without being confrontational, that you see what is happening on your block, when you wave, when you are consistently present, when you make it clear that you know who lives in that house and you are watching out for them to see what they are doing, that will shift things. The other thing is that when someone starts to realize that there is a web of connection happening in your neighborhood, and they are outnumbered by people who would step in and protect someone. That's a deterrent. My goal here isn't that you change the truly hateful people. It's that you make it harder for them to act and you make the vulnerable people know that they are not alone. The final thing is that you might be thinking, Alex, this is too small. Okay, we've convinced ourselves that we have to do these really big actions. And quite frankly, a lot of the really big actions are what we see modeled to us on the internet, right? That's what goes viral. And if you really want to take bigger actions. If you want to be more involved, that's great, but we all have to start somewhere, and that could be you and your community just getting to know each other and develop some basic familiarity. Because here's what Minneapolis is showing us. There are story after story coming out of Minneapolis about people coming together, about a strong community, people standing guard at schools, mutual aid networks, bringing food, driving kids to and from activities in school, people who are waiting outside of detention centers, meeting detainees who have no Phone, no money, no way to get back home safely, and that's incredible to hear those stories, but Minneapolis had to rally in a crisis, and what I'm talking about this episode is being connected because you care, and also partially setting yourself up if your area is impacted, because knowing your neighbors, as I mentioned, means that you will have one less barrier to cross. In the most intense of times, you will already have people's phone numbers. You will already know their names. Now I want to share what I'm doing, because I mentioned this right. I live in a very densely populated urban area. And I don't just mean like the city of Seattle, like the area of the city I live in is very close to downtown. It is very densely populated. I couldn't even tell you, like probably 1000s of people live on my street. I'm surrounded by apartment buildings, so it's not as. Easy for me to go up and knock on the apartment building door and actually meet somebody who lives in there. What I'm doing there is a response team that is neighborhood specific. And if you're in Seattle, what I've seen is that these are actually all over. So I'm going to connect into that response team. I am keeping my ear to the ground for ways that I can show up, which I've already identified. Right? What are my strengths? How can I help people, giving rides, delivering groceries, meeting detainees. I know there are organizers who are out there already doing this work. So I am paying attention to try and find those organizers and those groups, because I have already identified my strengths. I'm sure there are some more that will pop up, but those are the ones I initially thought of. And so I am watching for opportunities, right? I have already filtered how I might show up. Another thing I'm doing is talking to the people in my life, that includes you, but also offline, because having conversations like this gets people thinking about their own ways they can show up, gets them thinking about the small actions they can take. Maybe get somebody who wasn't informed to go find some information and become aware of the situation. I'm also calling my reps, because we all got to do that all the time. And at the core of it all, at minimum, I am trying to spend at least 10 to 15 minutes a day doing something that makes an impact here. You know, I think at the core of it, we all want our communities to feel safe, welcoming, belonging, and often we can be out there looking for somebody to lead the way, and your community might have a leader, and you might already know who that is, and you might be able to lean in. But if you are somebody who feels lost, you can lead. And it doesn't need to be like the ultimate leader that everybody reaches out to. You can just lead by taking some small actions. If you are somebody with safety and stability, you can spend that 10 to 15 minutes a day, and that might inspire some other people in your neighborhood to do the same thing. You can be somebody who the most vulnerable people know they can count on. You can make yourself visible and help them find you. How do we close this episode? It's always what I wonder. Every single time you know, I have had friends who don't live here in the US anymore, but are American citizens? Talk about like, Well, have you considered moving abroad? And I always come back to the same thing, which is that if all of us who cared left, nobody would be here to stay and fight. And it doesn't need to be, as I hope we've seen in this episode, some big life altering fight right now, right? We're not, maybe desperate enough for that, but what we can do is that if we have some safety, we can use it. We can make ourselves known. We can be the neighbor that someone would call in an emergency. We can pay attention, and we can let the people who might do harm, of whatever kind, know that they are being witnessed and seen and watched. I think that's the work with that. I'll see you next week.

Podcast Intro/Outro: 25:44

Thank you for listening to this episode of Friendship IRL. I am so honored to have these conversations with you. But don't let the chat die here. Send me a voice message. I created a special website just to chat with you. You can find it at alexalex.chat. You can also find me on Instagram. My handle, @itsalexalexander. Or go ahead and leave a review wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts. Now if you want to take this conversation a step further, send this episode to a friend. Tell them you found it interesting. And use what we just talked about as a conversation starter the next time you and your friend hang out. No need for a teary goodbye. I'll be back with a new episode next week.