anon: How do you guys stay safe while advocating irl? With seeing you guys handing out pamphlets and everything it makes me wonder and also worry

beyondtheplus:

People seem to think that doing stuff like this IRL is a lot more dangerous than it is. We haven’t encountered danger partially because we haven’t gotten too much foot traffic or people picking up pamphlets.

Though we are prepared in the case that on the off chance someone does get violent, which consists of us each carrying self defense, never leaving someone at the table alone, and having a basic safety plan. We haven’t needed to use any of it yet and we hopefully never will, but odds are something scary will happen at least once, and we need to be prepared if that happens.

So far we’ve done tabling three times and have left impressions on around 30 people, and so far only one has shown some level of concern. The rest either did not know what we were really advocating for, did and didn’t care, or did care and didn’t show it.

People online seem to think that people in real life are privy to knowing about para stuff, but I have never met a single stranger who recognized what MAP meant or the pride flag. (I only use that as an example because I [Ally] personally wear MAP pride bracelets on occasion, as do a few of my friends, and because MAPs are mentioned by name in the pamphlet.)

Antis have done a good job at scaring people like us into thinking we’re more alone that we are, and that if you dare show your face you’ll get hatecrimed, and while that can happen, it is so extremely rare, and can be prevented if basic safety precautions are taken. In reality, in a far left city like Seattle, most people aren’t gonna see the word “MAP” on a pamphlet and start throwing hands.