Why I Marched

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." ~ Alice Walker.

Unless you've had your head in a hole for the past year or so, you're well aware that yesterday was the largest global protest in history - the Women's March. 3 million people worldwide. Not just women, but men and nonbinary folk. Not just the young, but the old and even children.

The New York Women's March was not as big as DC's, but as NYC is huge it was still pretty big. I heard people saying it was upwards of 300,000 people. And you bet your ass I was one of them.

You see, I've been in a hopeless kinda funk since the outcome of the election. I'll say it, I do not think Tronald Dump should have won. I do not think he even should have had a fighting chance. I don't think his platform of hatred has any place in our world, and for a long time I felt like I just didn't wanna live in it. My decision to go to the Women's March was a last-minute one. I'd heard about it, but thought "What's the point?"

But on Friday I decided, you know what? Fuck it. I'm always saying how much I hate the idea of "slacktivism" - people who make a post on facebook and then think "well I did my part, my work is done, now where are all my likes?" (Side note - if you are unable to do anything else, this criticism does not apply to you. This criticism applies to able-bodied adults who are totally able to contribute time or money to a cause, but instead just use it to get attention online.) So I signed up. At least, I figured, it would be a way to kill a Saturday.

It was so much more than that.


 

On the bus over to the United Nations plaza (where the march started) I was nervous. Terrified, even. I was going alone - my roommate wasn't feeling well and my best friend was stuck at rehearsal. (I later found out my kind elderly neighbour had gone, and I would have ridden over with her had I known, but like I said, this was a pretty last minute decision.) I know New York City is a pretty liberal city, and I've been to smaller protests before, but I was still anxious. What if something bad happened? What if some white supremacist, emboldened by that hateful man's election, fired a gun into the crowd?

An old woman on her way to the march invited me to come sit with her and her daughter when she noticed my hands shaking. The old woman had been at the civil rights protests in the sixties and at some feminist ones in the seventies. Another old woman across from us had been to protests in the Soviet Union - where that kind of thing was so illegal and easily could have gotten her killed. They encouraged me and reminded me that was why we were doing this. It's our right to protest. It's our duty.

I then found out when a nearby man called out to us that the whole bus was going to the protest. That sounds completely unreal, doesn't it? It sounds like I'm making it up, and even living it it felt pretty surreal. But it's true. That was my first hint of what the day was going to be like.

You see, because 0% of the millions of people think Tronald Dump is gonna see these protests and be like "whoops! You're right! I have been being an asshole! Let me step down. Hilary, here you go, have the presidency!" He's a tyrannical wannabe dictator pissbaby, no one thinks that. That's not the point of these protests.

The point was to remind tyrants like him - and everyone in the world (including the cars honking at us as we walked down 42nd Street. NYC has been posting warnings all week that 42nd would be shut down, why the hell were you trying to go that way?) - that we will not be silenced. They cannot take our freedom to protest their hatred away from us. We are not going anywhere. And we are not alone. There is power in numbers.

Jewish spirituality demands a duty to speak out against oppression and tyranny, to stand up against any power that would silence another. This is especially true after WWII, which is why many Jewish people say "Never again." (And I was particularly moved yesterday by the Holocaust survivor holding a sign that said just that.) And Judaism is not the only spirituality that demands that. For example, Norse mythology's hávamál has the line "When you see misdeeds, speak out against them." And spirituality aside, um, what about common human decency? Humans are highly social primates. We are supposed to be compassionate towards other human beings - we've evolved that way for our own survival.

And for me, the march was a much needed reminder that I am not alone in this strange new world that would allow a hateful man like Donald Dumptruck to be elected.

Every sign, every chant, every hug and smile and fist in the air over the course of the FIVE AND A HALF HOURS I was marching yesterday - all were reminders of that fact. Yes, fighting will not be easy, but we have a duty to do so. To lie down and let the fear make us docile is what the "alt-right" neo-nazis want.

It was empowering to be in a crowd of thousands and screaming "Can't build a wall! Hands too small!", "My body, my choice!", "This is what democracy looks like!", and the classic "Hey hey! Ho ho! Donald Trump has got to go!"

Not to mention the people waving at us in support from nearby office and residential buildings, including the day care we passed with the children waving homemade signs out the window.

Also shoutout to whoever brought a whole marching band

I marched for me. And for those like me. And for everyone.

I marched for my fellow queer and LGBTQ+ folk who are now afraid to be themselves in public because our "president" wants to appoint anti-gay Supreme Court justices to take away all we've gained and our VP believes in conversion therapy.

I marched for Jewish people who have to see a new Nazi party rising to prominence despite all our cries of "Never again!" I marched for Muslims who they want to put on a registry just for practising a beautiful faith. I marched for the Japanese who were interred in the 1940s who are now getting flashbacks seeing this happen all over again to our Muslim brothers and sisters.

I marched for women and femme-aligned nonbinary folk and sexual assault victims who had to watch a man who bragged "grab 'em by the pussy" rise to power.

I marched for people of colour. Black people getting murdered in the streets just for asserting their lives matter. (They do matter!) Mexican people who work their asses off only to be stereotyped as lazy bottom-feeders when nothing could be further from the truth. Native American people who were here first and yet are continually shit on, alternately ignored and systematically murdered, by the US government

I marched for immigrants, the ones who truly made our country great.

This kind of solidarity between marginalized groups is important, I think. This is how we are going to get through the next four years.

I am no longer shocked or afraid. I am angry. I am empowered. And I am ready to fight.

-Nym