March

On  a Saturday in January I, along with 250,000 new friends, took to the streets of Chicago to march.  We joined 600 other marches here in the U.S. and around the world.  The response was overwhelming.  In Chicago and a few other places, there were so many more people in attendance than anticipated that the actual march portion of the morning had to be cancelled; there were too many people to safely take to the streets.

It was an unbelievably beautiful day for a January in Chicago.  The sun shone for the first time in what felt like an eternity and there was a warmth in the air we hadn’t felt in a while.  As we waited in our suburban train station I was surprised at just how many people were also waiting.  I’d sort of assumed there would just be a few of us, mostly young women or hipster guys.  Instead there was a pretty large group of people already gathered, carrying signs, wearing pink, sharing stories about why they were standing there on a Saturday morning, ready to March.  And it wasn’t just young people.  I was surprised to see how many people my mom’s age were there too.

After our stop the train was deemed full and went express, another train coming behind us to pick up the rest.  As we blew through stop after stop I saw so many people patiently waiting, signs in hand, pink hats on.  This was going to be bigger than I thought.

My friend Charity and I met up with our friends in the city, watching as train after train arrived and people flooded into the station.  There was an energy and excitement in the air as the sheer number of people buoyed energy to one another.  We started making our way with the masses towards the place where the march was to gather.

On of our friends had brought her parents.  Her sweet father was so excited to be marching.  He kept saying, “We are all activists now.”  Indeed.

The signs ranged from hilarious (one of my favorites: “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit”) to poignant (“‘My humanity is bound up in yours, for only together can we be truly human’ Hope Wanted”) and it each one reminded me why it mattered that I was there.

For me, and I think many others, this wasn’t sour grapes about an election that went to the other guy.  And I certainly wasn’t protesting the GOP or republicans (my beloved father was an elected republican and many people I love most dearly claim that party’s allegiance.  I cannot or will not hate republicans).  But after a year and a half of watching the very worst in humanity play out I needed to be with others who felt angry and inspired to action.  

If I’m being honest my heart has always been drawn towards the fight for justice; my very favorite books growing up were the ones that centered on this theme. Maybe it started in third grade with my teacher Mrs. Gibson, who captivated me with her stories of marching with Martin Luther King, Jr.  Or maybe that was just how I was created: to care deeply for the marginalized and oppressed.  Years ago, in college, I took women’s studies and African American studies courses where my eyes were opened wide to the depth racism, sexism, prejudice, oppression and injustice that still existed in the world. I have been drawn to understanding and fighting this ever since.

There was something I learned during those African American courses in college that I was reminded of again and again during the course of 2016.  When you start to pay attention to racism, sexism, prejudice, and oppression, you start to see it everywhere, sometimes in the most unlikely places.  It’s scary and ugly and quite frankly can make a person a little overwhelmed and despondent.  As a person who comes from a place of privilege (and we need to be honest here when we say that all white people in the United States hold some level of privilege that is not afforded to everyone) there will come a point during this period of discovery that you will want to stop looking.  It will be so hard, you will feel so terrible and guilty and bad about yourself as a person whose race had and continues to perpetuate so much injustice, that you will just want to stick your head in the sand and return to what is comfortable.  

It is at this point, as a person of privilege that you will be afforded a choice.  You can ignore what you’ve seen and quite easily return to life as status quo or you can stand up and choose a side on which to fight.  (It is here where I would argue that by choosing to ignore and return to a comfortable life pretending the injustice doesn’t exist you are actually choosing a side on which to fight; your passivity contributes to and supports injustice, but that is another conversation for another day.)

And so on that Saturday in January I marched because I wanted to physically stand against oppression and prejudice.  Because I wanted to speak truth to power.  And also because I’ve come to believe, deep in my bones the truth of that protest sign: “my humanity is tied up in yours, for only together can we truly be human.”

But I also marched for hope and love and redemption because I’ve found that when you go looking for those things, you can find them everywhere too, often in the most unlikely places.

Now of course, the work has just begun.  I marched on that Saturday morning but I continue to march each day.  I’m paying attention.  I’m calling people in power.  I’m looking for ways to lend my resources and time to fight injustice.  The march was the call to action.  Now it’s time to move.