There’s nothing sexier than social responsibility

For many Hopkins students, this will be the first weekend back on campus. Usually this first weekend is a pleasant time, a time before work has spun out of control, a time before nights have become completely sleepless.

However, now that we live in Putin’s Russia, it can be a little hard to relax. And rightly so. It’s difficult to feel like we have the power to do anything, even though protests are happening all the time and we have a lot of privilege in our attendance of a high-caliber institution.

Of course you can go to protests if you want to be socially active, and you should! There is a No Muslim Ban protest this Saturday in D.C. that is worth attending. However, not all of us are the protesting type, and that’s all right. Protesting is not the only way to work against injustice. In fact protest by itself is extremely unlikely to do the trick right now.

Other actions are necessary, too, such as calling your representatives, doing your level best to contact the White House, and donating money directly to organizations that will work for refugees, protect our public lands and water, fight injustice, and help women keep their reproductive rights, among other things.

While donating money is great, we don’t all have money to throw around much, and sometimes we want to save it for fun or for groceries. Guess what? You can spend money on fun and  necessities and still spend it thoughtfully.

If you want to relax this weekend but also want to do something good, Clavel Mezcaleria is currently running a fundraiser for Syrian refugees. All proceeds from the sale of Jinji’s peanut butter fig chocolates will go to a fund that helps to support families in Syria who are in trouble, and so will $4 for every Margarita, Mezcalita, and Queso that Clavel sells. They are halfway to their goal of $6500 now.

You can also give your business to locally owned and immigrant-owned businesses. It’s wrong to talk about immigrants as a weird economic product who should only be let in if they’ll benefit our country somehow, but it’s not wrong to enjoy what immigrants have contributed to this community and to support them. It’s also cool to see just how many businesses are immigrant-owned.

It is especially important to support everyone in our community as this country’s government becomes increasingly hostile toward immigrants and people of color who apparently look like immigrants. This is, of course, because all immigrants look exactly the same.

It’s not hard to find cool immigrant-owned businesses, but I have one suggestion: Juan of a Kind Foods sells grilled avocados filled with egg, cheese and happiness at the Fell’s Point Farmers Market. If that doesn’t sound amazing to you, I’m not sure what would.

Since our government is not going to be environmentally responsible for the next four years, it’s now our job to make sure that we live as sustainably as possible. The farmer’s market is a great place to shop, and it can be just as cost-effective as Giant, if not more so. You could also spend a day volunteering for Gather Baltimore, which Hannah Melton covered in the article above.

While you deserve to have fun and be happy on the weekend, it’s hard to do that when you know how many things are going wrong right now. If you are easily able to relax, you are probably not reading the news. So try to combine your relaxation and your normal errands with your ethical sensibilities And remember there’s nothing sexier or, often, more fun than social responsibility.