Dear Unpackers,
Hi there, and hope you’re hanging in there. We’ve heard from many of you that you’ve felt helpless, anxious and uncertain how to act this week, given the crisis in Ukraine. We feel the same. This week is not a typical week, so we’re going to mix up the format a bit.
Emily here. For those of us working wholly or partially from home, it can feel odd not to stop and acknowledge the ongoing wars and pandemic at the office water cooler between meetings, connecting over the things we collectively feel underneath our exterior, professional selves.
For many, the crisis in Ukraine could feel like one more tragedy in a long line of tragic, global events. It starts in similar ways—reading about it online and experiencing it within our online selves, then slowly it seeps into our physical lives. All of a sudden, it becomes very, very real.
It sometimes feels like divorcing the magnitude of these vast, external forces from our daily lives is the only way to keep going. Yet, the crises are real, and they persist. How can and should we act?
Here’s where I land now: It makes sense to first respond to the online world however we can. Donate, read, raise awareness. Then, we carry on, keeping our eyes open and straight ahead. It feels like we’re living in a period of history that requires this “long-game” approach. Carrie, what do you make of this?
Carrie: I really appreciate your take on the immediate steps, coupled with the long-game perspective. Maybe we can also think harder about what a local, direct response could be. In other words, channeling our feelings into something we can grasp in our physical world too.
With these thoughts in mind, here are a few resources we’ve gathered:
Give: Here’s a curated list of where to donate by NPR.
Read: For analysis on the crisis from a U.S. perspective, we recommend the Atlantic, Foreign Policy or Coda Story (we recommend Coda’s explainer on how Ukraine isn’t Russia’s only war.) For breaking news, our go-tos are CNN or BBC. For English-language Ukrainian based news, see The Kyiv Independent.
Look: These photos from TIME are particularly harrowing, and striking.
Say: Ukraine, not “the Ukraine;” Kyiv (kee-yiv), not “Kiev” (kee-yev). Here’s a 2019 WaPo explainer that is highly relevant today: How to properly refer to Ukraine, according to Ukrainians.
If there is a resource you really love, please share.
We’ll see you next week,
Carrie & Emily