Inauguration Day: 7 things you can do to fight the Inauguration Day Blues

SO, YOU'RE DREADING tomorrow? You feel sick to your stomach, have headaches and depressed? You're experiencing all the symptoms of stress. Stress from the idea of Donald Trump being installed as the 45th President of the United States.

1. Relieve your stress by not watching the inauguration. We can make sure that the Inauguration is the most poorly watched inauguration since they began televising it. That will really anger Trump. He's all about ratings, you know.

Cher's idea is along the same lines:

2. Protect the Constitution!

Join other patriots by vowing to protect the Constitution's tenets like the people featured in the ACLU-produced video above.

I, ________(Say your name)________________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States  against all enemies, foreign and domestic ... 

"Foreign AND domestic)"... you know who I mean.

3. Write, phone or email your Congressional representative and ask him or her to opposed the  Trump nominees for his Cabinet and White House "advisors." This is especially critical for those of you have Republican representatives. Tell them to vote use common sense and vote in the best interests of the country, not the GOP or Trump.

4. Post this message on your Facebook page:

5. Can't go to the Women's March in Washington on Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration? Don't worry, there's probably one closer to you that you can attend. Misery loves company, but it can also be uplifting and energizing too. You'd be surprised how many people share your feelings. Never forget, there are more people who voting against Trump than those who voted for him. Hillary Clinton outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%). In the San Francisco Bay Area, go here; Los Angeles; New York City; Honolulu; Seattle; and Chicago. For information on the march in other areas, just Google the name of the city and "women's march."

6. Stay involved! Learn the issues! Be vigilant as Trump and his anti-government appointees try to undo all the things that makes America great and all the progress we've made in civil rights since the time of Franklin D. Roosevelt, such as Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the 1965 Immigration Reform and a whole host of other safety net programs. Follow the money and find out who is getting rich when Trump deregulates Wall Street, the oil industry and environmental protections. Find out who your elected official is and let him or her know what is important to you.

7. Share this post. Thank you. It's time to join the fight for change! Watch this video by Mic's Gabe Gonzalez, Natasha Noman and Jamilah King show how you can stay active in your community. Keep your head up and eyes open. Keep fighting against injustice and for equality.

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Day 2 of the Trump presidency: AAPI groups join the march in Washington

ON SATURDAY, Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration of the 45th President of the U.S., Asian/American men and women will join a march in Washington D.C. to give notice to Donald Trump that the progress made by traditionally oppressed or ignored groups will not be undone.

The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF) will convene a contingent of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) women and girls from across the country to join the Women’s March on Washington. NAPAWF will join AAPI organizations from other movements as well as reproductive justice partners to send a sharp, strong message to the incoming administration.

“NAPAWF is proud to march with grassroots activists from across the country to demonstrate for women’s rights and social justice,” said NAPAWF Interim Executive Director Sung Yeon Choimorrow. “We will march on behalf of the 10 million AAPI women and girls in the U.S. to demand our rights.”

Representatives from NAPAWF will march with other AAPI organizations to form a contingent of cross-movement AAPI solidarity. Korean drummers will lead the contingent through the Women’s March. NAPAWF activists will carry identifying signs and wear beanies emblazoned, “I Am Not Your Model Minority.”

“AAPI women, girls, queer and trans people stand to be directly harmed by the promises of the incoming administration,” Choimorrow said. “We will march on Washington and continue to build the grassroots movement across the country to work on the issues most important to AAPI women and our families.”

NAPAWF activists from New York will arrive in D.C. by bus, and even more will travel from across the country, including AAPI activists from Georgia, California, Minnesota and Texas. 

Constance Wu

Actress Constance Wu of ABC's Fresh Off the Boat and an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter will join a contingent of celebrities who have said they would participate, including Katy Perry, Scarlett Johansson, Cher among others.

"I think having a march in Washington that is headlined and frontlined and led by women is a statement about the patriarchal standards that we don’t even see because they are so woven into the fabric of our existence," Wu told The Hollywood Reporter. 

Besides NAPAWF, some of the other AAPI partner organizations are:

• Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta 
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Chicago 
• Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles 
• Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA) 
• Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) 
• Council on American Islamic Relations – Connecticut (CAIR-CT) 
• Council on American Islamic Relations – San Francisco Bay Area 
• GABRIELA Washington, D.C. 
• Indian American Democratic Club 
• Korean American Resource and Cultural Center 
• Korean Resource Center 
• Muslim Community Network 
• Muslim Women’s Alliance 
• National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC) 
• Women for Afghan Women

Following the march, at 4 p.m., NAPAWF will host a post-event convening to strategize with other AAPI activists in preparation for the first 100 days of the Trump administration. The convening will provide space for AAPI women and transgender people to debrief the march and reflect and share in community, as well as looking ahead to resistance in 2017.

Other marches will be held throughout the country, London and Germany. In the San Francisco Bay Area, go here; Los Angeles; New York City; Honolulu; Seattle; and Chicago. For information on the march in other areas, just Google the name of the city and "women's march."

Launched by a Hawaii grandmother who was devastated by the results of Nov. 8, she posted on the Pantsuits Nation website, "I think we should march." The idea kept gaining momentum that will culminate on Jan. 21.

"In the spirit of democracy and honoring the champions of human rights, dignity, and justice who have come before us, we join in diversity to show our presence in numbers too great to ignore," reads the website for the march. "The Women’s March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world that women's rights are human rights. We stand together, recognizing that defending the most marginalized among us is defending all of us."

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No to Trump: 'We will not go quietly into the night'

NO! I will not give Donald Trump any slack.

It has been three weeks since that black day in November when Donald Trump surprised almost everyone in the world to upset Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. The passage of time has not soften my feelings about the man.

My only solace to come out of this elections is that AAPI voters joined Latino and African/American voters and voted overwhelmingly against Trump. We - people of color - felt we had the most to lose. And now that Trump is President-elect, do we return to what we were doing, out jobs, our schools, our houses of worship and simply endure the next four years?

There has been a huge upsurge of hate crimes against people of color and immigrants. I can only assume Trump supporters feel emboldened by "their" victory that they feel they can act with impunity and take back "their" country.

In his campaign, Trump encouraged violence, won the support of white nationalists and the KKK by racist code words and proposals against Mexicans, against China and Japan, against Muslims, against Syrian refugees and against women.  He will say and do anything to advance his cause.

He lied so much and so often that the media couldn't keep up and focus on any single fabrication. No sooner would the press catch his falsehoods but before they could write about how terrible it is that another lie would pop up. An ordinary candidate would slink away from the public view in shame.

President Obama, Clinton and other Democrats say we need to give Trump a chance and the demands of the job will force him to move to the center, calm him down, force him to moderate his views. I don't believe a charlatan can change his ways so easily.

In his meetings with members of the media last week, he used the time to show a calmer side, backing off on some of his more extreme positions such as his promise to jail Clinton over her missing emails. He told the journalists that he felt he was treated unfairly. 

Respect the office, they urge us. Sorry, I can't do that.

"You worry too much," "He's no Hitler,"  we are told. Well, before Hitler became Hitler, he was a frustrated architectural student. No one foresaw that he would become one of the worst despots of the 20th Century.

Before Trump, I used to ask myself, how can a nation of basically good, educated people  allow themselves to be taken in by a maniac like Hitler. I no longer have the privilege of asking that question from afar. This last campaign has provided me the answer.

How can we rally around a man who has done so much to divide this nation, who used racism to drag out the ugliest form of bigotry from out of America's darkest corners.

If you "rally 'round" the President-elect for the sake of unity, you are saying that you accept Donald Trump as he revealed himself during the campaign, his self-centered, win-at-any-cost, bigotry-espousing, ignorant anti-science, anti-intelligence, stubborn behavior.

What have we gained from President Obama's attempts to mollify his enemies on the right? A flawed health-care system, a weaker-than-wanted climate action agreement, a still-active Guantanamo, a Wall Street still awarding multi-million dollar buyouts of its criminal CEOs. any attempt at immigration reform thwarted and the right to transform the U.S. Supreme Court blocked.

From the very outset of Obama's victory in 2008, Republicans have done everything they could to block his initiatives, even if their selfishness resulted in harm to the country.

Sorry, we've tried compromise and it didn't work. The Paul Ryan-led right wing and the extremist alt-right don't know the meaning of compromise.

I'm tired of being Linus - year after year - trusting that Lucy will hold the ball in place for me to kick; only to have her remove the ball at the last minute as I land on my backside.

Accepting Trump is allowing his truly awful positions to take root and soon we learn to tolerate them. Eventually, we take them for granted. The final step -- like the Good Germans of pre-WWII -- I fear all the Good Americans will learn to embrace Trump's ignorance and the bigotry he has unleashed.

If we take that first step of acceptance, we will allow an entire generation grow up with this environment of us-vs-them and the values of Trump become imprinted into young minds who don't know that we can do better than that. We allow our country to step backwards from all the progress that has occurred over the last 60 years. 

We cannot let this happen!

I can respect the Office of the President, but cannot respect the man who will soon be inhabiting the Oval Office. He has not shown me any reason to respect him.

It's time to stop talking about moving to Canada. It's time to stop being despondent. It's time we rise up, become more vigilant, more unafraid to speak out when we see injustice, bullying or a hate act.

I conclude with this quote from the movie Independence Day when the U.S. President addressed his fighter pilots before they attacked the aliens:

What's next? What can we do to stop falling deeper into the rabbit hole? There are people and organizations starting to meet with each other. Stay tuned.

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Trump's America off to a scary start

President-elect Donald Trump

PEOPLE OF COLOR are now living in fear after the election of a president of the United States that the Huffington Post calls, "a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully."

If you are not Asian/American, Pacific Islander, African/American, Latino, Native American or LGBTQ, you might not quite feel the change in our country since Donald Trump was elected president by winning more electoral votes than Hillary Clinton, but believe me, the feeling of tension is palpable. 

We are saddened to come to the realization that we are no longer welcome in our own country.

It has only been a couple of days since Nov. 8 and Trump's emboldened supporters have unleashed an avalanche of hate on social media, on school campuses and on the streets. You could be minding your own business, going to class, pumping gas or just walking down the street and you can be accosted verbally or physically.

Jose Antonio Vargas, a gay Filipino/American journalist and an outspoken immigration activist, received a barrage of hateful tweets from Trump supporters, including one calling himself Johnny Deplorable, saying, “You’re getting deported. Better pack up.

”The Lansing State Journal reported: "DeWitt Junior High School in Lansing, Michigan was the sight of another attack. White students formed a human wall and refused to allow Latino students to enter the school. Later that morning other students also laid down to form a wall in the hallways and chanted “build that wall” though no one was blocked at that time.

In Philadelphia, swastikas and Trump’s name (with the T replaced by an additional swastika) were spray-painted on a storefront, including the words “Sieg Heil 2016,' the Nazi salute.

In the Buffalo area, property was defaced with swastikas and the words “Make America White Again.” According to the Buffalo area’s Wellsville Daily Reporter, the Wellsville police chief saw no cause for action. The town is located in Allegany County, where 61 percent of the vote went to Trump, according to New York State Board of Elections.

The Southern Poverty Law Center created a web page on Thursday to funnel the reports of hate attacks, and received more than 200 within 24 hours. They also started an online petition, which had more than 35,000 signatures as of Friday (Nov. 10), asking President-elect Trump to condemn the behavior.

Following are some of the social media messages. (Warning: They have not been independently verified.)

Welcome to Trump's America!

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