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Community leaders, institutions, and even entire communities can inspire us to do great work ourselves. They can serve as role models, spark new ideas in us, or provide us with a place to place our energy. There are a great deal of community members and places left unsung or only recognized by a narrow population and while we can never show all of the people that deeply affect and serve their communities, we hope to shine a light on and share the stories of some of those people and places and what they mean to their community.
January 27, 2017
Submitted by: James Riley
On Saturday January 21st 2017 I, like nearly 3 million human beings across the globe, attended a Women's March. I, in particular, went to the one in Washington D.C. with my mother. It was crowded and not altogether especially organized, I could not find the stage let alone hear the speakers, and it was the first time I was happy in nearly three months. The following are the top 4 questions that I frequently asked myself on that day.
Will this march matter?
This, I think, is the biggest question. After the march, walking away from the White House, after the secret service pushed the crowds back, I saw the streets filled with people and more crowded than any city I have been in. They were people both young and old, radical and moderate, moving out in all directions. There were people within a range of political views but ultimately united under the idea that all human beings deserve rights and that those rights are more important than anything else. And yet despite the feelings of hope and excitement that I felt that morning, I left with doubt.
As I headed back to the train station, I saw young women and men, riding the feelings of the carnivalesque power they were wielding, be inconsiderate to motorists and people not in the march by stopping cars and walking in the streets that the march had no permits for. Though they were ultimately non-threatening and non-violent, it still gave me pause to see. It made me question if they were there for the same reason I thought we all were. Then, it made me question if I knew why I was there. It made me question as I did all day if I should even be there. To whom does this fight belong? Which are the voices that we should listen to? Are the young men and women blocking traffic the actual leaders of this struggle? Am I judging them by another standard for a different time and place? Am I simply too moderate and complacent to be of any use at all?
I am sure that the hearts of the people of the march were not uniformly tolerant. I do not believe that every single one of them had the same import of what the event meant, or even agreed on the purpose. Each person, if interviewed, could not necessarily articulate the problems facing the trans community, nor explain the threat of climate change in a fully informed way, nor claim a true and long lasting solidarity with Black Lives Matter. But each of them, I believe, has the potential and willingness to grow in the ways that they need to. More importantly, I saw real desire in the hearts of the women I spoke to, many of whom had never done this sort of thing before, to do the work that is coming. Most importantly, I believe that each of them cared about something and to listen to them talk about what that was would be worth anyone's time.
What is my role here?
From the moment I boarded the Amtrak train packed with women and girls, one of three extra-long trains added just for that day in order to supplement the average Saturday run, until I boarded the train home, equally filled with tired and sleeping women, I felt, if not out of place, at least keenly aware that I was a man going to a women's march.
What exactly was my responsibility in the march? What was I allowed to do? Should I be there at all? I made a conscious effort not to start chants but to only answer them, to let others walk in front of me, to yield whenever possible to each person that I thought would, at any other time, be made to yield to someone like me.
It can be paralyzing, the political arithmetic it takes to figure out what to do. What do I do as a white man, who can neither lead a charge for, nor sit out from, the civil rights movements of marginalized groups.
At one point, someone yelled out, "Whose lives Matter?" and I started sweating like I was in a calculus exam. Certainly, it is true that all lives matter, but to answer that is a deep undercutting of the Black Lives Matter movement. Or it could be. Can I even chant "Black Lives Matter"? Not unless I do something else about it. What about "Trans Lives Matter"? Is that a co-opting of a movement? Should I say that? Should I be able to? Can I even use the word "woke"? (I think the answer is a technical, yes I can, but I really shouldn't.)
I have heard some push back against the ubiquitous pink pussy hats from the protest. People of color and trans women have expressed that the hats are an exclusive symbol and are a prime example of how white feminism is not intersectional enough. I have no choice but to believe them. They are the experts on their feelings and I do not know their experience. And yet I would be lying if I said that it didn't make me defensive on behalf of the women and men wearing those hats. We still live in a world where not every person counts themselves as a feminist and when a man wearing pink is a meaningful signifier and something noteworthy.
I cannot help but wonder if this is precisely the infighting and defensiveness that keeps us apart. I cannot help but wonder what faux pas I am committing, completely unknown to my well-meaning but ignorant self. I cannot help but feel a fraud and a goon because I do not know the right way to speak, the right way to move, the right way to be. And though I know how important it is for me to listen and learn and to not speak sometimes, I also do not want to run the risk of silence or compliance. And to be honest, I do not want to be silent. I want to have a seat at the table in the new world. I don't want to feel like I am not cool enough to sit there. And yet, maybe I don't deserve a seat because someone else who has been standing for too long needs to sit down and there is only so much room.
I guess, if I were wearing a hat like that, or a safety pin, or any other sign of allyship, I would feel really bad if someone made me feel like I was the problem instead of a person trying to help. I would feel worse if I did hurt that person. Then again, I would feel even worse than that if people like me were continually excluded from all discourse.
It would do me a lot of good, and I suspect many other people a lot of good, if we listened to each other and gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and only after they have shown a complete disregard for others and a total unwillingness to grow, should we know that they are the problem. There are plenty of those people. America's current President is one example. But not everyone who disagrees with us is.
Should we choose our neighbors?
We met a group of three older women who were kind and wonderful and talked to us for a long time while we marched. And as we marched, even though they were indeed very generous and kind human beings, it became apparent they were not anomalies in the crowd. Every person and group that we spoke to, and much of the individuals we did not, were obviously patient and kind and ready to share what they had with others. One of the three women we marched with asked us "Wouldn't it be great if these were your neighbors? Wouldn't it be great to have any one of these people be the people living on your block?"
She was right to point out the exceptional kindness around us. Everyone was kind and caring here, at least for the day. We exchanged stories with the three women about people we had seen. They talked about a woman they saw clipping open the locks that someone had placed on all the porta-potties the night before and another woman handing out water to anyone in need. In the Smithsonian Visitors Center's gift shop we saw a man give his hat to a woman because it was more important for her to have it. She in turn bought him the lunch of candy bars he was waiting in line for. There were more examples anywhere you cared to look.
And I thought about that question more and more. I suppose the answer is yes, but it made me think of my neighbors and how I don't know them. I thought of the neighborhoods that these women must have come from. Or any of the women from deep red towns, counties, and states. I imagined the people they must be surrounded by, who make them feel like anomalies, like loudmouths, like loons.
That day felt like that special class of day in which the normal rules do not apply. It was the type of day that you talk to strangers. It was the type of day you dress in costume, that you walk in the middle of the street and speak loudly to everyone all at once. It was the kind of day that defines what is normal by exploring what is not.
But it was also a coming together of people in the face of disaster. It was women and men looking out for each other because they were scared and angry. We see this in all neighborhoods with floods and storms and fires that destroy homes and take lives. You see all people pitching in then. It takes an event of chaos to help us see the real purpose of the order we have imposed through laws and customs. We set about re-establishing a deeper order of communal love before time puts things back to normal and puts distance back between neighbors. The only difference is that the people at the march see the Trump administration and the other abuses of human rights as the disasters they are, while others do not recognize it yet.
I thought about what kind of neighbor I am to my neighbors. I am still thinking about it. Do I know their names? Do I speak to them and ask them how they are? Do I show them the same kindness I would show to the people in the crowd? No, I don't. But are those people any less deserving of my kindness? No, they aren't.
In theory it would be nice to move to a place where all the people think like I do and a place where I never feel alone, but ultimately it is a blessing that I do not choose my neighbors. The work that needs to be done is right here in our hometowns. If I were asked again "Wouldn't it be great if these people were your neighbors?" I would answer "Wouldn't it be great if when we get home tomorrow, we were the neighbors we are today?"
Is that the best sign I have seen all day?
Protest signs are now a place to express originality, cleverness, and creative abilities as well as a place to share your ideology and message. Nearly everyone I noticed had clearly crafted not just their signs but their bodies, clothing, and hair for the spectacle of solidarity, each woman and man wanting to bring attention to themselves and therefore the movement in which they participated.
I do not just mean the pink hats, but the serious stoic faces of Queer rights advocates, the funny slogans and costumes, the solemn black dress of those in mourning, the T-shirts emblazoned with challenges to politicians, fascists, and each other, were each a symbol and a marker purposefully chosen to play a character in the demonstration, even if not consciously so. Even the everyday choices people made to their appearances prior to the march such as tattoos or beards helped form a type for the ritual play. It was an example of the oldest and deepest ritual in which humans engage in: the exorcism of demons and the driving away of bad spirits.
I said "I like your sign" to many people and though they were different signs held by different hands, each person was genuinely pleased for the recognition. They had crafted the signs and the signs were, at least for that moment, a thing that each protester desperately wanted to express and an extension of their inner mind. Though some were funny and seemed lighter than others, each was a deep form of communication.
It might be that my slight alienation from the event sprang from my lack of a sign. I had no burden to carry, no cross that marked me as one of the persecuted or accessory to the march. If things went bad, I could have turned and walked as if I wasn't even there. And yet, I choose my shoes (my "special event" chuck taylors), my shirt (one satirically placing a yelling Donald Duck in the place of Trump above the line "Donald 2016"), and even my coat (a Carhartt hand-me-down from my dad) to say something about me. It is hard to imagine that there was anyone there who did not put some thought into what they were wearing. To put it another way, all fashion is politics.
As I said, I told many people that I liked their signs but there was one sign above all others that compelled me to approach its holder. When the march was starting forward, lurching and stopping like the most tolerable traffic jam imaginable, I saw it and little by little and with only a little intentional effort, I merged next to the group with the woman holding it. They were young black men and women, clearly excited and enthusiastic. I told her quickly "Excuse me, I really like your sign. I really like it a lot." She smiled and said "Well, thank you." The crowd shifted and we marched on separately.
I do not know if I was slightly tired of the cleverness or cheekiness of the other signs (of which there were many wonderful examples), or if it really hit me as deep as it felt. It was simple: black foam board with white or gold paint marker on it, I cannot with certainty recall which. On one side #BLM was written and on the other the phrase Ain't I A Woman? with no quotation marks. bell hooks and Sojourner Truth and the man who rewrote her speech in Southern stereotypical vernacular, even though Truth was from New York and spoke Dutch until she was 9, and the whole complicated farcical tragic history of gender and race in this country converged on that small sign.
The phrase on that sign encapsulates the struggle for inclusion while pointing out the inherent problem with a struggle for equality that is not intersectional. It is a serious sign held by a young woman who will have fun later but is getting to work now. And it is a question that is a sentence for me and all the other people like me who have profited off the systems I don't want to admit I profit from. But it is gentle, not a punishment. An invitation to admit that I was wrong without shaming me, which is the kindest gift a person can give. It was an invitation to be a better neighbor, to fulfill my role as a listener, to do things that matter. It is an invitation to answer that question, with both word and deed, an emphatic YES, you are a woman and that is a powerful thing to be.