Ashley Judd Instagram – There is a lot going on in the world. As I reflect on the multiple instances of institutional betrayal with which so many of us are grappling, I wanted to share some of my thoughts, in no particular order: There are 3 Pillars of Protest: Protect Free Speech. Adhere to Principles of Civil Disobedience. Institutional Neutrality. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. described the principle perfectly: “When one breaks the law that conscience tells him is unjust, he must do it openly, he must do it cheerfully, he must do it lovingly, he must do it civilly — not uncivilly — and he must do it with a willingness to accept the penalty.”Destruction of property and violence do not aid any oppressed peoples. And doing so gives material to those who think poorly of protestors to scorn them further. I was a campus protestor. I helped organize a campus-wide walk-out of classes in protest when the Governor of KY refused to remove a member of the Board of Trustees who called black South Africans the N-word when they were discussing divesting from racist minority rule Apartheid. I helped organize the protest on the steps of the state capital. Protest is righteous and necessary. It must also follow constructive norms. Samantha Power — whom I hold in very high regard — is the Director of @usaid, and has had the moral courage to do the right thing and simply speak the truth: there is a full-blown famine in Gaza. She is not waiting for the bureaucracy to “approve” this language to declare it. (“Forced starvation:” thank you for this in the comments. The important documentary, “Screams Before Silence,” details, excruciatingly, horrific male sexual violence by Hamas against Israelis on October 7. First-person accounts, survivors of the sexual violence, and bloody undergarments, it is so difficult to watch and it demonstrates yet again in yet another setting how especially girl’s and women’s bodies are degraded and dehumanized by men in war. Today, we remember the unforgettable: The Holocaust. We breath for those whose breath was taken. Six million Jewish souls left their bodies, and millions of others were scarred and generations, up to those who are young today, were impacted.