After the presidential election, many citizens were disappointed and depressed about the results, and found themselves asking how they could take action to ensure that America becomes stronger and more united. RiseUp LA is an L.A.-based initiative run by Stacie Rasmussen, and she happens to be a friend of Mayim’s, so we sent our Grokker-in-Chief to interview her about her organization and what actions we can take to shape a better future.

Mayim Bialik: Tell me about RiseUp LA. Why did you decide to start this group?

Stacie Rasmussen: This was born election night. I really thought we had this election in the bag for our world and then Trump won. I was shocked. I realized that I’d been living in this really groovy California socio-political bubble and I didn’t realize how bad people have it in other areas of our nation. And they were voting for any change because their lives aren’t good under the current administration, even if it was Donald Trump. And I had no idea about this. And so I felt kind of blindsided and my partner in starting RiseUp, Wendy, called me around 10.30 at night. She was in tears and I was in tears and she said, “Can we get together tomorrow? I just feel like I need a hug. I feel like I need to be with like-minded people and figure out how we’re going to get through this next four years.”

So we put out the word that we were going to meet in a park in Sherman Oaks and about 85 people showed up and we had music and we talked and it felt so good. And at the end of the event, people started coming up to us and asking, “When’s our next meeting?” And Wendy and I had no idea; we were just kind of gathering for a group hug and and all of a sudden, we were a group! So we got to work. That was a Wednesday night and by Monday we had a meeting set up at the Sherman Oaks Women’s Center. We had a speaker who was the Senior Director of Public Affairs of Planned Parenthood. We had the Chief Innovation and Advancement Officer of Tree People and we had Stephen Stills from Crosby, Stills and Nash to come to talk to us about activism and political activism and what he has done throughout his years as a political activist. People were needing what we needed. So that’s why we made RiseUp, to fill that gap and to meet that need.

MB: Channeling anger and disappointment into not only support, which is a thing that all humans need, but channeling it into action is very important. How do you see what RiseUp does as differing from ‘armchair activism,’ like signing petitions and posting on social media?

SR: Underneath our logo on our Facebook page is our slogan. It’s three things: support, inspire and action. You need to have support. You need that group hug. Once we got together, everyone had a collective notion of “We’re not alone. We’re not going crazy. I’m not the only one feeling this.” That’s a foundation. Then what? Then we bring in people to inspire them. Stephen Stills was very inspirational that night and made people feel like they could actually do something. So what can we do? That’s where it goes from being inspired to taking action. On our website we have calls to action. Right now it consists of making a lot of phone calls; letting the GSA know that there are conflicts of interest and you’re aware of them. And what we want to do is keep building on that. At our next meeting we have a representative coming from the Los Angeles LGBT Center and they’re going to tell us what they need. And we will continue to have people come in. I have people e-mailing me all the time asking if we can help them get people to get others to do something. So now we are a portal for people if they want to do something.

MB: There’s a sentiment being expressed from certain Trump supporters that all of this rising up is liberals throwing a tantrum because they didn’t get their way. Or this ridiculous notion that liberals just want to burn things down and have what they call “useless” sit-ins.  I’d like to know how you distinguish what you’re doing from what people think you’re doing and why it is important to have productive action as part of this movement.

SR: I’ve lost elections before. I’ve been disappointed before. The SuperBowl hasn’t gone my way before and I pick myself up and I’m okay. This is different. There are issues that go beyond “my guy didn’t win” that will affect every single one of us. Even if you voted for Trump, and you don’t see it now, I’m worried for you. I got worried when Trump appointed Steven Bannon, former executive chairman of Breitbart News [a news agency that was identified by Bannon himself in a Mother Jones interview as being “the platform of the alt-right,” which the National Review defined as “a small but vocal fringe of white supremacists, anti-Semites, and Internet trolls”].

This new administration is already infringing on the civil rights of people. I don’t have to be Muslim to know that even floating the notion of registering Muslims is a bad idea. And that is something I will not stand behind. It boils down to the Golden Rule: treat others the way that you would want to be treated. For me this translates into standing up for all of our human brothers and sisters, regardless of religion, creed, color, sexual orientation, etcetera.

MB: I recently posted on Facebook after Trump’s tweet about wanting to put flag-burners in jail that flag burning is protected by the First Amendment and that there have been several rulings about this. The response of many people in the Internet world was, “But it’s so disrespectful!” To which I responded, I never said whether I think it’s respectful or not. And that to me is a fundamental point that many people are missing: there can be rights for things thsat you don’t like. You don’t have to like that someone is gay in order to allow them the right to be gay and to have all the rights and privileges of every other human being. You don’t have to like that someone wants to use birth control or get an abortion for it to be legal to do so, and that’s a subtlety that is missing in our conversations that we need to have our leadership reintroduce. So Trump can say he doesn’t like flag burning and it makes him feel yucky inside, but to say that it’s not legal or that you’re going to prosecute those people simply because you don’t like it is disturbing to me.

SR: Men and women fought under our flag for the right to burn that flag. That’s absolutely profound. I love that about our country. We have the right to choose what religion we want to be. Or they can choose non-religion; there are countries where that’s not the case.

MB: Thank you very much for starting this kind of organization and good luck. Giving people that arena to have support and also to start doing things so that they do feel a part of a solution that works for them. And I also appreciate you starting a more general conversation that hopefully our readers will be inspired by as well, so thank you.

SR: Thank you so much!

For more about RiseUpLA, or their upcoming event on December 12, visit them on Facebook or their website.