Uncertainty is hard to tolerate. But the reality is we don’t yet know which of Trump’s actions are part of a malicious grand plan, which are incompetence, and which are both — and regardless, on the ground, their impact is the same. We do know that a lot of harm can be done through the normal, banal workings of government, and that in fact much of the harm done to marginalized groups in our country’s history has been sanctioned by our institutions (e.g. slavery, Jim Crow, the Trail of Tears, mass incarceration, police violence, etc.), rather than achieved outside or against them. We know that, given this, we must strongly oppose and protest against harmful policies whenever they appear. If people are being harmed by a government action or order, it is never a “distraction,” but an urgent call to action. We cannot be overly inhibited by the worry that whatever action we take, we will be pawns of the administration’s machinations. This type of abstract worry will sap our energies and obscure the ways in which our actions can genuinely make a difference. All we have is doing and seeing what works or doesn’t work. Not everything we do will make a difference, but some of it will. Of course we can and should reflect and strategize about our actions, but there can be no sitting back and predicting from the sidelines without getting actively engaged.

If there is one thing we know for certain, it’s that white men will not be the leaders of this resistance. So don’t let their apocalyptic narratives shut down our collective action. Listen to and amplify the voices of the people engaged in the struggles rather than the ones observing from above.