This OTYCD entry originally posted in November 2017.
Updat, April 8, 2018: Juli Briskman is suing her employer over her dismissal.
Read her April 5 Op-Ed in the Washington Post about her decision:
If she launches a GoFundMe for legal expenses we will update this post accordingly.
Original text follows.
Help Juli Briskman, the woman who flipped the bird at Trump’s motorcade and subsequently lost her job over it.
Juli Briskman is like you and me. She’s a 50-year-old single mother and a marketing executive from northern Virginia, and she despises Trump and what he’s doing to our country.
When she was out cycling, Trump’s motorcade passed by. She did what any one of us would have done–she flipped the bird at the fleet of cars. (I don’t know about you, but my middle fingers are sore from raising them so damn often. –Sarah Jane)
When Briskman revealed to her employer that she was the cyclist in the famous photo, they turfed her out of her job. We are not going to name the employer here–they’re dealing with enough fallout. We at OTYCD want to focus on helping Briskman.
It’s a small thing, sure, but helping Briskman is its own satisfaction, and a way to push back against creeping fascism and self-censorship. She should not have lost her job for her action. She does not regret doing it. Let’s reward her, in abundance, for it.
A friend of Briskman’s started a GoFundMe for her, named ‘Thank You Juli Briskman.’ As of 6 pm EST on November 10, it had raised more than $51,000. Update November 25: The GoFundMe has collected $128,660, well past its $100,000 goal, and it is still accepting donations:
https://www.gofundme.com/thank-you-juli-briskman
Alternately, you can follow Briskman on Twitter. Before news of her firing, she had 24 followers. As of November 10, she has more than 17,000. Seeing as she’s in marketing, having a large Twitter audience should definitely help her job prospects.
Her handle:
@julibriskman
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Read the Washington Post stories on Briskman’s firing and the aftermath:
One Thing You Can Do 