by Alison Condie Jaenicke
January 29, 2017
Ever since I returned from DC last Sunday afternoon, bouncing into my mind at unexpected moments have been Bob Marley’s catchy beat and lyrics: “Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights! Get up, stand up: don’t give up the fight!” And then the question arises: after standing up, how does one continue to fight?
Unless you’ve been in a complete media blackout recently, you’ve heard by now that people took to the streets around the world on Saturday, January 21, 2017, the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, out of concern for “the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families” (https://www.womensmarch.com/).
I attended the Women’s March on Washington, the central march that drew over 500,000 marchers to our nation’s capital and spurred numerous sister marches around the globe. Somewhere between 3.3 and 4.6 million rallied and marched in more than 500 cities across the United States, and an additional quarter-million people came to Women’s Marches outside of the United States, in countries ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe (and every letter of the alphabet in between…except perhaps O, Q, and W).
Did you hear it was crowded? And peaceful? And energizing, inspirational, and educational? I’m here to testify to all of that and to echo the chant that reverberated throughout the crowds all day, punctuated with drumbeats: “Tell me what democracy looks like! THIS is what democracy looks like!”
I was inspired to attend the march by my 18-year-old daughter, environmentalist and first-time voter in last fall’s election, who like many of us needed a way to direct her restless energy after November’s outcome. Our weekend of standing up began Friday night as we gathered at the DC home of my college roommate and her husband to make placards. Joining us were my roommate’s 20-something daughter, a friend who drove down from State College with me and my daughter, and several other local friends. What pithy messages could we write that best encapsulated our hopes and fears for the new era after the inauguration? We were frozen by the many issues that called out for expression. Reproductive rights. Environmental concerns. Gun violence. Immigration policy. Freedom of religion and fair treatment of Muslims. Combatting gerrymandering and encouraging reform of an election system that allowed a candidate with several million fewer votes than another candidate to step into the White House.
On the morning of the march, we caught a MetroBus at 7:30 to the rally at 4th and Independence, pushed through the crowds until we found a space under the protective arms of a small magnolia. We would stand there for over five hours as we listened to the speakers who energized the crowd, following their images on a massive screen. From time to time, we would step up onto the tree’s limbs to catch a glimpse of the speakers on the nearby stage. Then we would march haltingly through the streets with a much-larger-than-expected crowd, not sitting again until we collapsed on a bus after 6 p.m.
During the rally, I nodded and cheered as recently elected U.S. Senator from California, Kamala Harris, offered her response to those who ask her to address “women’s issues.” Her reply: “I’m so glad you want to talk about women’s issues. Let’s talk about women’s issues. Let’s talk about the economy, because that’s a women’s issue.” Then she rattled off other “women’s issues”: national security, health care, education, criminal justice reform, climate change, immigration reform, and the crushing burden of student debt. All issues that affect women. Women’s issues.
Another speaker called for us to live in a “righteous community of radical love,” to be an “uprising of love,” and these words buoyed and inspired me.
And then Van Jones of the Love Army took the stage, again to call on us to activate love, “the most powerful stuff on earth.” He spoke of the reaction he gets from some people to the concept of love, those who say, “LOVE?! That’s some weak stuff.” His retort: “If love is weak in your life, that sounds like a personal problem. You need to get off Tinder and get off Grindr and get some real love, because real love is the strongest stuff in the universe.” He then went on to explain the Love Army movement as one “built on that mama bear love. That mama bear loves those cubs and that mama bear’s not going to let you mess with those cubs. This movement is not going to let you mess with the Muslims…we are not going to let you mess with women, we are not going to let you mess with the Earth, we are not going to let you mess with Black Lives Matter. …When you have a movement based on that kind of love, you can talk to people on both sides of the aisle.”
His message resonated with me, a mother who knows mama bear love. I can feel, for instance, the fierce and protective love mothers in Flint, Michigan, must have felt when they found that they had unwittingly exposed their children to water tainted with lead, trusting in leaders who let them down.
This emphasis on LOVE takes me to our colleague Heather Holleman’s lessons about argument and persuasion in her fine book Writing with Flair. When teaching rebuttal to ENGL 202B students, I use her recipe, which includes the injunction to “Put in some love.” She goes on to advise students (and me): “If you write from a position of love, you will most likely have a captive audience. If you write from a position of love, believing that what you have to say is good for someone else, they’ll most likely believe it too. Facts do not persuade. Facts argue.” She emphasizes listening and finding common ground before gently exposing weaknesses in the other’s argument and advancing your position.
I have listened this past week to people who don’t support the march, who don’t see what it will accomplish, who see it as hate-driven or toxic, who claim the pink hats are in poor taste, who call it an overreaction by sore losers. With love and respect, I try to understand where they are coming from, as I would hope they would try to understand where I’m coming from. I believe we are probably committed to a lot of the same values and want some of the same things: a country that does not discriminate on the basis of religion, for instance, or universal access to clean air and water.
To those who say our priorities are misguided, that charity begins at home, that actions speak louder than chants, so why not act instead, I say this: as a life-long Christian who goes to church with a community of people who share my values, all of us seeking words to inspire so that we can go out and enact those values in the world, I see the march as serving some of the same purposes as church, an igniter of actions. My religion teaches me to “love thy neighbor” and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This Christian love manifests itself in demanding access to clean water for families in Detroit and welcoming needy strangers to our land of immigrants.
Many of the issues raised on the day of the march, I should note, were issues calling out for attention before President Trump took office, but at this moment they seem to require more vigilant attention than ever before. Since the march last week, President Trump’s first week in office brought some alarming actions that I feel compelled to resist.
Let me name just one: as I began writing this post on Friday afternoon 1/27/17, President Trump signed an executive order banning newcomers from seven countries from entering the U.S. for the next 90 days, including people already permitted in the U.S. on visas and green cards. As I digested this news, my mind went to the Iranian graduate student who is working with my husband on his dissertation. What will happen to him, his wife, and their young child, this lovely family that has been to our house for parties, brought us gifts of saffron and pistachio nougat made “in the old-fashioned Persian style”? They are afraid of planning any trips home to visit family, for fear they will not be allowed back into the U.S. to continue the studies and work they’ve legally begun here.
And then on Saturday, my fears were realized. I read that students returning from visits abroad to resume studies at Yale, MIT, and other universities across the U.S. were refused permission to board planes. Refugees already on flights when the order was signed were detained and prevented from entering the country when they arrived at U.S. airports. The placard I ended up painting and carrying at the Women’s March—“We are ALL Immigrants!”—felt prescient and heavy. What good had it done? I wondered. But then word began to trickle in of resistance: my friend’s daughter, with whom I had painted signs the night before the march, was at Dulles Airport with crowds of people to protest the effects of the order. A former student, now an immigration lawyer, was traveling to Denver International Airport to assist detained passengers. Protests spread to airports across the country. And by Saturday night, a federal judge in NY had issued a stay that meant refugees and other immigrants stuck at American airports would not be sent back to their home countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. The drama continues to play out as I finish writing this post.
Cornel West said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” The Women’s March was just the beginning of standing up with love for justice. Now the hard work of walking the real walk begins.
10 Actions, 100 Days: https://www.womensmarch.com/100/
For of Alison’s photos see Women’s March photo gallery.
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