Hi there! Welcome to Easy A–Your go-to source for quick and easy actions you can take in five minutes or less about the issues you care about.
Are you a busy mom? Or maybe your work is so hectic you can’t think about anything else during the day? A lot of us are also taking care of parents or other loved ones too, leaving little time for anything else.
The good news is that these are things you can do while you’re waiting in the school pick up line, on your lunch break, or even at your kid’s soccer practice – anywhere you happen to be! And you can easily share Easy A with your friends so they can be in the know, too! We’ll send you a new action to take every week–just one, we promise –and it will always be something you can do in five minutes or less. Ready to get started? Let’s go!
Watch This: What Can We Do About Racism?
As we take on the work of anti-racism, we’ll probably run into friends and family who have varying degrees of understanding about it.
Some may have their own deeply personal experiences with racism. Their stories are important and can teach us valuable lessons. But some may not understand why we’re even talking about racism, thinking it’s a thing of the past. And some may be doing or saying racist things without even realizing it.
No matter what our experiences are — or theirs — it’s important to have open, honest conversations, even if they’re difficult. Find out why in this one minute video about racism and what we can do to stop it:
This is the ongoing work we have to do to truly end racism in America.
Read This: Anti-Racism, It’s More Than Any Of Us Think
None of us want to think of ourselves as racist, and it’s true that we don’t intend to be. But saying (and believing) that we’re “not racist” is not enough to tackle the very real problem of racism in America. We need to be anti-racist. But what exactly does that mean?
WHAT IS ANTI-RACISM?
It can be tough to talk about racism, let alone call it out, but that’s exactly what we have to do if we’re ever going to end it. We have to be willing to learn, speak honestly, and work intentionally to confront racism when we see it. And that is what anti-racism is — the active practice of opposing racism and working intentionally to confront and stop it. That includes stepping outside of our comfort zones, speaking up, having difficult conversations, and calling out examples of racism when we see them.
WHY DO WE NEED ANTI-RACISM?
When America was founded, there was a prevailing belief that white people were better than others and should hold all the power. The most obvious example of racism — slavery — began in the colonies well before we even became a country, and it lasted almost 250 years. As the social, economic, and political systems of America were created, they were shaped by that racism.
What some people don’t realize is that a system rooted in white supremacy hurts everyone, including white people. For example, after desegregation, many communities (led by white decision makers) chose to drain and completely close their public swimming pools rather than share them with Black families. Everyone lost something in that scenario.
It might be tempting to think that because slavery ended, and because the Civil Rights Era brought about progress, and because we elected our first Black President and Vice President, that racism isn’t a problem anymore, but that simply isn’t true.
After slavery ended, racist laws and codes persisted. Segregation kept education, shopping, travel, and dining, among other things, separate and unequal. These centuries of inequality kept Black Americans from equal opportunities to gain education, work high-paying professional jobs and get associated benefits like healthcare, own land and homes, and build wealth. The resulting gaps in equal representation in all these areas exist to this day.
Now of course, a lot of important progress was made during the Civil Rights Movement, but it didn’t magically erase racism from society. In fact, extremists are trying to reverse that progress now by eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, ending federal civil rights investigations, banning books written by or about Black and brown people, cutting funding for minority-focused healthcare research and environmental justice, conducting mass deportations of immigrants, and more. They are taking us back in time!
This is why we need anti-racism. Racism won’t go away just because some individuals aren’t racist. We have to do intentional work to fight it.
DOING THE WORK OF ANTI-RACISM
We shared some typical examples above, but racism and imbalances of power in our culture sometimes exist in ways we don’t even notice. It even influences our own behavior whether we realize it or not.
We have to start looking at the world around us in new ways. And it’s not just about calling out overt examples of racism, like someone using a racial slur. It’s also about looking for ingrained biases and imbalances of power that may (even sometimes unintentionally) be perpetuating racism. Like noticing if the hair policies on our kids’ sports teams disproportionately impact traditionally Black hairstyles. Or noticing if our Homeowner’s Association rules disproportionately affect a minority population. Or recognizing that a proposed voter ID law in our state will harm voters of color more than white voters. Practicing anti-racism means that once we see things like this, we speak out and stop them.
Being anti-racist takes a lot of learning and a lot of intentional effort. We recently launched a new webpage that has some introductory resources for anyone looking to start or level up their anti-racism work. Over the next few weeks, we’ll share even more!
Do This: Join the Red Wine & Blue App!
For the past few weeks, Easy A has celebrated women, past and present, who organize for the greater good in their communities. These women have shown us how we can all do our part to change the world.
This week, we’re excited to announce that Red Wine & Blue has a brand new place for us all to organize like these women and get sh*t done — the Red Wine & Blue App!
Our new app is a place just for our community, free from social media algorithms and rich tech bros who have been increasingly stacked against us. It’s a safe and moderated space that combines community groups (just like Facebook groups) with all our resources, conveniently in one place.
In the app, you can connect with people in your state, share ideas with other RWB members all over the country, and tap into resources like our 160 Ways to Change the World guide. You can also register for our events, get our voting guides, read Easy A, and more. It’s truly everything Red Wine & Blue has to offer — right in your pocket!
So earn your Easy A this week by joining the RWB App! It’s free and all you need to get started is your name and email address. Take a few minutes and download it right now!
You can learn more about the app on our website. We look forward to seeing you there!
Watch This: TroubleNation Women Organizing for Good
Last week, we shined a spotlight on nine women throughout American history who have organized in their communities to help others. There are countless examples of women seeing a problem and taking action to fix it, because that’s what we do! And not just in history — many women are doing it in this moment.
Take a minute — forty seconds, actually — to watch this video about a group of women who are organizing in Prince William County, Virginia. They recently collected 2,300 pounds of food and $5,000 to support local food banks in their community!
Jess Schaer knew that some kids have less access to food during the summer when they’re not in school. She wanted to do something to help, and this was the result! By organizing her group, PWC Women that Wine, and asking others to chip in, she is making a difference.
PWC Women that Wine is one of more than 825 Red Wine & Blue TroubleNation groups who are organizing locally like this. That’s more than 106,850 women! In a time where so much is going on in the world and the weight of it all can feel overwhelming, these women have found that they can best tackle the problems they see by going local.
This is something we all can do with whatever amount of free time we have. Even if we all can’t organize our own group and host events like this food drive, we can support local organizing with donations, volunteering whatever time we have to give, or even just by spreading the word about their efforts on social media. We can all be a part of the beautiful history of women organizing for good.
Read This: A Seriously Brief Timeline of Women Organizing for Good
Throughout history, women have organized and fought for the greater good. Right now, as we witness great injustices and many of our freedoms are at stake, let’s recognize and celebrate some of the American women who showed us what’s possible through local organizing.
Esther de Berdt Reed
In 1780, Esther de Berdt Reed formed the Ladies Association of Philadelphia to support soldiers in the Revolutionary War. She organized dozens of women to go door-to-door raising more than $300,000 from 1,600 individuals! Working with George and Martha Washington to decide how to use the money, the women purchased linen and made much-needed new shirts for the soldiers in the field. Their efforts became a standard for combining social and political activity for good causes in other states.
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland. In 1849 she escaped and made it to freedom in Philadelphia, but her family stayed behind. She decided to return to help them and became a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad, building a personal network of abolitionist friends and helpers. In 1854, she succeeded in helping her parents, brothers, and others escape to freedom. In total, she made about 13 trips, helping an estimated 70 people reach freedom in the north.
Ella Baker
Ella Baker, the Executive Secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was impressed by the student sit-ins during the Civil Rights movement. In 1960, she organized a conference to bring all the student leaders of the sit-in movement together. There, she encouraged the 126 students in attendance to create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She connected them with each other and with powerful leaders from the NAACP and SCLC. Many Civil Rights leaders grew out of the SNCC and the organization went on to become an important part of the movement.
Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta grew up in an agricultural community of diverse, working families in California. As a teacher, she was bothered by the economic injustices faced by her students. This led her to become an organizer with the Stockton Community Service Organization and to found the Agricultural Workers Association. She arranged voter registration drives and advocated for workers’ rights. That’s how she met César E. Chávez and together, in 1962, they started the National Farm Workers Association to help farm workers organize, negotiate for better work contracts and insurance, and secure aid and safer working conditions. At 95 years old, Dolores still travels the country helping working families organize and advocate for themselves.
Heather Booth
Heather Booth was already active in civil rights causes in 1965, before Roe v. Wade, when she formed JANE, a secret abortion service. She organized ten women and even more anonymous volunteers to run JANE. For seven years they helped 11,000 patients get the safe healthcare they needed. Heather never stopped organizing and also founded Midwest Academy, which trains grassroots organizers on how to successfully make positive change in their communities.
Ai-jen Poo
Ai-jen Poo is the daughter of immigrants who volunteered in an Asian women’s shelter and saw the struggles faced by domestic care workers — low pay without benefits, overwork, and workplace violence. She started a campaign to organize domestic workers — mostly immigrants — through the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence (CAAAV): Organizing Asian Communities. She did true grassroots work, visiting playgrounds, parks, and churches to connect with workers. Since then, through founding other organizations, Ai-jen has continued to fight for better resident care in nursing homes and for improved working conditions for caregivers and domestic workers.
Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi
In 2013, George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. This sparked the creation of the #BlackLivesMatter movement by Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi. A year later, after Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson, MO, the movement spread with more than 600 people gathering in St. Louis to protest. From there, these organizers were determined to help any communities fighting violence against Black people. Initially spreading to 18 more cities, #BlackLivesMatter is now a global movement with a network of support for leaders making a difference in their communities.
All of these women saw an issue they cared deeply about and set out to fix it. And this is obviously a non-exhaustive list! There are countless other women – sung and unsung — who have organized in big and small ways to make a positive difference in their communities and in the lives of others. We are so inspired by all these women and hope you are too!
Do This: Fight the Climate Crisis
Remember learning about the hole in the ozone layer back when we were in school? And that to fix it, we had to stop using aerosol hairspray?
We also learned the importance of recycling to preserve natural resources. And none of us will ever forget to cut through plastic six-pack rings so that animals don’t get caught in them once they are thrown away!
The bottom line is, we know how to take action when there are problems threatening our environment. It’s the same with climate change.
The climate crisis is serious but solvable. Scientists understand it and have given us solutions including solar and wind power; improving transportation, engineering, and architecture; and implementing sustainable farming and land management.
Of course, those are big, systemic changes – not exactly the same as putting newspaper in the recycling bin. But there are also small, individual changes we can each take to help every day — things like planting native pollinators instead of grass in our yards, or eating less meat and dairy.
We’re going to dig deeper into how to fight climate change on August 19 when meteorologist and climate action advocate Chris Edwards returns for another event with us! He’ll be joined by Tina Catron from EDF Action for How You Can Fight Climate Change.
Earn your Easy A today by signing up for this event.
We’ll walk through actionable steps we can take, big and small, to reverse the course of climate change. Remember, if you sign up for our events, we’ll email you a recording afterwards. So even if you can’t make the live event, sign up and watch when your schedule allows!
When Chris joined us for Climate Change 101, he was honest. He said solving the climate crisis is going to be hard, but reminded us that we’ve done hard things before (like giving up that Aqua Net!) and we can do it again. Join us!
Watch This: The Climate Crisis Is a Health Crisis
We’re not doomed yet, but we’ve wasted a lot of time. That’s one of the takeaways we learned from meteorologist and climate change communicator, Chris Edwards, when he joined us recently for our virtual event, Climate Change 101: What You Need to Know.
Chris talked about the science behind climate change and how it affects us all. One of the impacts he discussed echoed what Dr. Alice Chen wrote in your Easy A last week — the climate crisis is also a crisis for our health. Watch what he had to say about the impact of climate change on our health in this short video:
Climate change doesn’t just hurt our bodies, it also hurts the health of animals and ecosystems.
Chris showed us that climate change is simple, serious, and solvable — if we act soon. Next week, we’ll take action together.
If you want to earn extra credit this week, you can watch the full Climate Change 101: What You Need to Know event with Chris here.
Read This: The Climate Crisis Is a Health Crisis
Thank you to our guest author this week, Dr. Alice Chen! Learn more about Dr. Chen below and follow her on Bluesky here.
When I was a kid, summers meant riding our bikes around the neighborhood, lazing around outside watching clouds and ladybugs, and generally relaxing and recharging. Today, our summers are filled with suffocating heat waves, choking wildfire smoke, and more hurricanes and floods destroying entire communities.
Last week, we saw the heartbreaking consequences in Texas. Extreme flooding has left hundreds dead or missing, including dozens of children and counselors from a girls’ summer camp.
Our climate is changing fast, and it has quickly become a crisis that threatens the health and well-being of our children and our communities. Last summer broke heat records that had just been broken by the summer of 2023. From 2004 to 2021, heat-related deaths increased by a factor of 4. Extreme heat is the deadliest weather-related hazard.
We are at a high-stakes crossroads where we have a real but narrow opportunity to build a better future and avoid the most catastrophic outcomes of the climate crisis. As a doctor and a mother of two kids in elementary school, I am constantly reminded of why climate action is so important. As hot days increase, I worry about my spunky kids wilting and lying with their eyes closed on the couch as they suffer from a dehydration headache. I worry about my family in the Bay Area and Miami where worsening drought, wildfires, hurricanes, and floods threaten the homes where my husband and I grew up.
My colleagues and I are spreading the word about the health impacts of extreme heat and worsened air quality that follows. We are reminding people to hydrate, get in the shade or somewhere cool, and watch for signs that your body is not handling heat well – headaches, nausea, extreme sweating, lethargy.
We are asking people to check in with community members who are at higher risk because they are outdoor workers, student athletes, people in neighborhoods with few trees or no air conditioning, pregnant, older, very young, or if they have medical conditions that put them at risk like heart disease, lung disease, kidney disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, mental health conditions, disabilities, and autoimmune diseases. It doesn’t take much — just a quick text, call, or knock on your neighbor’s door.
Beyond heat risks, we are raising the alarm that climate change is increasing wildfire smoke, smog and pollen in the air — increasing the risk of asthma and affecting childhood brain and lung development.
Here’s the good news:
We are not helpless, nor should we be hopeless. We made a lot of progress over the last few years, after Congress passed historic climate legislation that sparked a boom in clean energy growth.
It was a win-win, showing we don’t have to choose between protecting our families and revitalizing the economy. Those investments helped generate over 400,000 clean energy jobs and produce cheaper energy — all while reducing toxic pollution that sends people to our hospitals with asthma, heart attacks, strokes, and lung cancer. In my own household, we have cleaner air because we’ve been able to switch away from our gas stove and say goodbye to the gas station, too. The investments sparked a clean energy boom that won’t be stopped.
Here’s the bad news:
In the Republican budget bill signed last week, Trump rolled back the clean energy tax credits that drove so much progress. The bill also slashes money for weather forecasts that save lives in climate disasters. And it threatens our kids’ health — gutting clean air and water programs, then ripping Medicaid away from millions of families.
If you’re outraged, you are not alone.
Trump’s bill is more unpopular than any major legislation passed since 1990. Days after signing it, Trump’s approval rating has plummeted. When people learn what’s in the bill, they hate it.
There are three ways we can protect our health, air, water, and climate:
- Organize in our communities to help people understand the link between fossil fuels, climate change, and our health.
- Accelerate our transition to clean energy by taking advantage of tax credits before they expire at the hands of Congress.
- Show up. As families feel the effects of the Republican budget, they need to know that Trump and his allies in Congress are responsible.
In congressional offices, town halls, social media, and our communities, we can show lawmakers — and our neighbors — that we won’t be silent when our kids are in danger. We can demand action to protect our families from climate threats.
I know it matters. In 2009, I co-founded a physician advocacy group called Doctors For America, and after decades of failed efforts to pass healthcare reform, we helped get it across the finish line by elevating the stories of real people and what they needed to protect their health.
We can do it again.
Alice Chen is a licensed MD and public health advocate. She was a founding board member and Executive Director of Doctors for America — a grassroots organization of physicians and medical students in all 50 states who push for policies that improve the lives of their patients.
Do This: Celebrate the Fourth of July with Red Wine & Blue
It’s a long holiday weekend, which means many of us have even less free time than usual. So our Easy A is simple this week — invite your friends and family to join you in the Red Wine & Blue community!
As we celebrate America’s 249th birthday, we’re all worried about the state of our democracy. It’s fragile and facing some serious threats, but it’s worth fighting for. The most patriotic thing we can do is celebrate the freedom and justice that America stands for and bring more people into our fight against extremism. Share this post on your social media today.
Have a safe and joyful Fourth of July!
Do This: Show Up for the Trans Community
This year alone, legislators have considered more than 900 bills in 49 states which target the rights of transgender people. These bills try to tell trans kids and adults which bathrooms to use, take away their healthcare, keep them from playing sports, and keep schools from recognizing their existence. And this is in addition to all the federal actions that are doing the same things.
So as Pride Month comes to a close, we will keep leading with heart, not hate. We support the entire LGBTQ+ community and will keep showing up for the trans community as these threats against them increase.
Join us and earn your Easy A this week by downloading our resource, Showing Up For The Trans Community.
This resource gives you tips on how to show your support locally and how to talk about it with family and friends. When extremists go low, we go local, and we can show up for our trans friends and neighbors where they need us most — right at home.
Watch This: Supporting the Transgender Community
Extremist politicians have been stepping up their efforts to demonize transgender people and take away their rights. Through new laws, lawsuits, and executive orders, they are denying the existence of trans people and trying to keep them from living full and happy lives.
We can’t sit back and let this happen. While many American companies are pulling back their support for Pride Month this year, Red Wine & Blue is doing the opposite. Our members and TroubleNation groups are celebrating Pride nationwide. And earlier this year, on March 31, we also recognized Transgender Day of Visibility. Watch our one minute video from that day here:
We will continue to fight for trans rights, even after June ends! Next week, we’ll have another action you can take to support trans people in your community.