Why I March

I'm about to start blogging a lot, y'all.

Yesterday, as a still relatively new resident of the D.C. Metropolitan area, I had the great privilege to march with about 1 million of my fellow humans. (Plus a few dogs.) The whole day was full of positivity, empowerment, and unity.

A little old lady in a wheelchair got on our Metro train on the way to the rally, and the whole car cheered.

A little girl got separated from her family in the Metro station on the way back, and the whole station cheered when she was found and escorted down the escalator.

We walked together, we stood together, we laughed together, we cheered together.

Today, I saw a post shared on Facebook by a woman listing her reasons for not marching. This, in and of itself, is fine with me. I can appreciate diversity in thought, unlike some elected officials. I cannot represent every woman in America. But then she starting writing things that got my blood boiling. Things along the lines of "We have it better here than lots of people around the world" and "You can't be victims and victors."

Please, friends, don't miss the point so badly.

This march was not about whining. This march was not about painting ourselves as victims. This march was not about comparison. This march was not even about changing the minds of those power-hungry individuals who have just taken power.

Just because we have been victimized by institutional sexism, racism, etc., does not mean that we are victims. We are so much more than that.

Just because we have been victimized by individual acts of violence, hatred, etc., does not mean that we are victims. We are so much more than that.

I march because I am proud to be a Christian and a feminist.

I march because "better" does not equal "solved or "erased." I won't be satisfied with the system getting better. I want the status quo overturned. (We're all living the reaction to our progress - electing a black man as our President, and trying to elect a woman - the racist/sexist minority came out of the woodwork and stole away the Republican party.)

I march because I resist authoritarianism.

I march because no one in a developed country should die from a treatable disease.

I march because I believe black people should be treated as people. And immigrants. And people with disabilities. If you're human, I want you to be treated as a person.

I march because I want to decrease the number of abortions. However, I realize that the best way to do so is with education and birth control, not banning potentially life-saving procedures.

I march because Black Lives Matter.

I march because I believe education is a good thing. Ignorance is bad. (And I believe not having a college degree does not make you automatically ignorant. Bill Gates dropped out of college, right? Self-education is just as important as schooling.)

I march because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

I march because I want girls to be able to be scientists and I want boys to be able to be teachers. For girls to be ambitious and boys to be gentle. For girls and boys to have the same opportunities and self-esteem.

I march because transgender people are attacked for using a bathroom.

I march because corporations should not be more important than their workers.

I march because the homophobic agenda is killing people. (Compared to the gay agenda which results in more sinister things like weddings, hugs, and rainbows.)

I march because this country has got to stop violating Native Americans and their sacred lands.

I march because the school to prison pipeline disgusts me.

I march because this is not normal. If it becomes normal, then we have lost. Not democrats. If people like Trump win, democracy loses. (Have you noticed that Russia can't get Putin out of power now that he has it? Remember how Hitler did that? If we give an inch, they will take a mile.)

I march because I reject a policy of appeasement. I will not let the haters come for my LGBTQ, Muslim, Latino, black, differently abled neighbors. I won't wait for them to come for me before I act.

I march because I believe in community. The only time I have ever felt unsafe in my new neighborhood was walking home the night after the election. I kept checking over my shoulder for an emboldened, misogynist white supremacist. Thankfully, the next day I dropped by the White House at the end of an Immigrant's Rights rally and remembered that I live in a safe place, a place where people join together "sin miedo."

I march because I have so many friends who do have to deal with the white supremacists.

I march because a "great" America does not include Jim Crow laws, lynching, voter suppression, reduced opportunities for women, unsafe abortions, and people going bankrupt to pay medical bills.

I march because I care.

And no amount of fascism is going to make me stop caring. No amount of apathy is going to stop me.

So I continue to march.

Numb

I was going to begin this reentry to my old blog with a challenge to hope more, love better, and understand fuller. To envision a more positive future. To point out the ways that "Christian culture" in America could act a little more Christ-like.

But I can't do that today.

Today, I'm numb. I'm shocked. I'm tired.

I'm hopeless.

I haven't felt this hopeless in a long time. The memory of it had started to seep out of my bones, until I read the news last night. But I feel it settling in, pray that it will be abated tomorrow.

But will this senseless violence be abated tomorrow?

I doubt it.

And I wish, I wish, I wish that I could wave a magic wand and make it all go away. To erase the existence of racism. To bring back the lives that have been lost. To wipe away the tears shed by mothers, brothers, sons, girlfriends, too many to count. To eradicate prejudice and hate.

I wish.

But too many times in the month and a half that I've been home, I've woken up to a world where sound bites are more important than relationships. Where the fear of losing power makes people lash out rather than seek understanding. Where blame is shifted onto the victim rather than the perpetrator.

Enough is enough is enough.

And yet, I'm losing my capacity to hope that enough really is enough. That tragedy will spark preventative action. That rational minds will win out over fear-mongering lies. That our country will ever be the shining beacon it was envisioned to be - embracing the tired, the hungry, the poor. [Nowadays, embracing the gay, the Muslim refugee, the black.]

At this point, it feels like all the words have been spoken. All the stories shared. All the vigils prayed at. All the pleas for peace and gun control and fair treatment.

And yet.

49 names from Pulse in Orlando. Forty nine.

Alton Sterling.

Philando Castile.

And 5 more names from Dallas. Brent Thompson, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Smith, and Lorne Ahrens.

All I have left is one word. Listen.

Listen.

Please listen.

If you are white, listen to the voices that have experienced police brutality, unequal education, racial profiling, and generations of oppression.

If you are heterosexual and cisgender, listen to the voices that have experienced name-calling, physical assaults, discriminatory legislation, and attempts to "pray the gay away."

If you are male or Christian or able-bodied or middle class or part of any other privileged group, listen to the voices that have negative experiences because they aren't like you.

Their stories are not about making you feel guilty. Their stories are not about comparing one group's pain to another's. 

No.

Their stories are their stories, just as much as yours and mine.

Their stories are about affecting change in our society. 

Their stories are about making all of America better.

Right now, though, we just keep spinning around a merry-go-round cycle of violence and intolerance. We argue for stereotypes instead of against them. We treat the symptoms of societal ills instead of the root problem. We see a rise in hate speech, culminating in Donald Trump spreading slanderous lies about refugees, immigrants, minorities, women...and still having people willing to follow him.

Black people ask that it not be dangerous to walk/drive/exist while black. White people get offended and yell "We matter too!"

Gay people celebrate equal rights. Christians refuse to bake them cakes. 

Cop kills innocent driver. Sniper shoots innocent cop.

The only way we have a shot at changing that is if we quit going around on this endless merry-go-round. If we take just a minute to listen to the people who are different from us.

Listen.

Listen.

Because I don't see how we can take much more of this without all our hope bleeding out and evaporating on the ground. Our idealism mocked and beaten to the point of no recognition. Our spirits destroyed, just like the lives that violence takes.

They don't get to dream anymore, or love anymore, or rejoice anymore, or suffer anymore.

They don't get to feel anymore.

But can we?