Why I Really March: The Birth of a Movement
On Saturday, January 21st, 2017 I stood on the steps of Los Angeles’ City Hall and took part in the Women’s March, protesting alongside a reported 750k other men, women and children. The organizers expected 80,000 people, and we blew them out of the water. The situation was the same in cities across the nation, with unprecedented turnouts making it the largest protest in United States History, with “1 in every 100 Americans march[ing] to protest [the] new President’s inauguration, with no arrests reported.” If you’re interested, here are some more officially calculated numbers from marches around the world.
But you can get those stats anywhere. To add some personal context to those numbers, I felt compelled to document why I really marched on Saturday.
To me, this was never just a women’s march; it was always about women using the issues that have plagued our gender — and that affect our entire society as a result — as a rallying cry to stand up for every single other disenfranchised group in this nation. We just made it about women to get everyone out there, much in the same way how every year I use my birthday as an excuse to gather busy friends together for dinner. It’s never actually about me — it’s always about us.
And get out there we did. Strangers stood arm in arm and looked at one another with unadulterated love and vowed — both silently and through invigorated protest chants — that we are going to speak up for each other until there is no “other.”
The chants varied — of course there were many about women’s rights (because ok yeah of course that’s where this all started), but sometimes we chanted about #BlackLivesMatter.
Sometimes about immigrants and refugees being welcome here, sometimes about the environment and climate change deniers.
Many times about how “the people…united…will never be divided!”
Definitely lots of “love trumps hate” chants. But the most powerful chant I experienced was surprising. It stays with me even now.
A sea of women’s voices would chant “my body, my choice,” and an equal amount of men’s voices would immediately, following the same tone and matter-of-factness, chant “her body, her choice.” And we would say it over and over and over again, with the only difference being the pronouns used in front of the words “body” and “choice.”
The concept; the conviction; the community — they were all the same. We were one. Unified.
This is what this march was about for me. Unity. Showing up in such masses in order to physically reassure each other that No, we aren’t going mad. That No, we aren’t in the minority of sane-thinking folks in this country. It’s not hard to succumb to the feeling of suddenly being a stranger in your own home since the tragic presidential election results and the series of unfortunate “‘alternative facts,”appointments and press conferences dividing our nation even further since. I have at times thought that maybe, just maybe, liberal and progressive thinkers really have been living in a bubble. And while we’re not blind to the problems that are still very real in America — racism, gender inequity, destroying our environment, the school-to-prison pipeline, student loan debt, etc.—I started thinking that maybe we really were crazy to have the audacity to hope and trust and love our fellow citizens in believing we were on the right path to harmony.
Thankfully, the droves of kindred spirits who showed up not only in Los Angeles but around the world on January 21st, 2017, united in hope and love reassured at least this bleeding heart that no, we aren’t crazy. And no, we aren’t wrong.
We ARE on the right side of history.
To continue an analogy from above, the march was quite the birthday celebration — I feel like we’ve witnessed the birth of a unified movement. And just like growing up is messy, I know that this movement will be imperfect and covered with knee-scrapes, temper tantrums and PBJ at times, but in the end we get to raise it. It grows up with us.
As I made my way back to my car after the protest that day, lost in thought and high on endorphins activated by what I had just experienced, I walked through Grand Park in DTLA. I heard musical twinkling to my left, and looked up to see the sun starting to set right over a small, enclosed playground. It was filled with children. Happy, innocent children playing together in harmony with their surroundings — they fit right in. I pulled out my camera one last time to document why I really, truly, march.
It’s for the kids, man. They are the future. Period.
Here are some of my favorite signs and moments from the Los Angeles march. I hope they fill you immediately with hope, maybe make you chuckle a bit and remind you that we always have direct access to the ultimate source of life: love.
