This diary is going to be part travelogue and part activism. The title is a quote from my husband. If you’ll bear with me as I tell the story of yesterday — of our participation in the Women’s March on Washington — it will hopefully cast his statement in its proper context.
The Context
I am no stranger to citizen activism. In fact, I’ve exercised that activism with more than a few of you here, as a diary I wrote that chronicled the anti-Iraq war protest in DC attests. So it should surprise no one who knows me or has had an reasonable interactions with me that I planned to attend the Women’s March on Washington yesterday in DC. As a lifelong resident of the DC Metro area, it was a no-brainer.
I’m a huge advocate of netroots to grassroots and I have tried to put my money — and my time — where my mouth is in that regard. Canvassing, training others to canvass, getting involved in a meaningful, one-on-one way has become what I, along with so many others here, do.
So now let’s talk about my husband, Mr. RenaRF. First, he’s Canadian. He maintains his Canadian citizenship and despite living here for the overwhelming majority of his adult life, he has not sought dual citizenship. He supports what I do and repeatedly lets me know how proud he is that I do those things. Until recently, however, I would describe his opinion of US politics as “cynical”. Prior to this election, I think he just generally believed that the whole system is generally corrupt and that to place faith in a person or party is folly. I can’t say I totally disagree — and my mantra in return has been that it will take people — average, everyday people — to serve as the impetus, the accelerant, if you will — of meaningful, people-focused change. This is a vastly oversimplified summary, I will admit. But it serves to set the stage.
It follows, then, that Mr. RenaRF was completely unsurprised when I announced my intention to participate in the Women’s March on Washington. It certainly didn’t escape anyone’s notice this past year or so that the election was heated. In many respects, it felt dangerously polarized — as in, supporting either candidate publicly brought with it a risk that felt more actual than theoretical. This feeling didn’t escape my husband. So, when I announced my intention to march, he announced his to go with me because of his worry that it might be unsafe. So be it. Happy to have him along, provided he didn’t harsh my protest mellow. Haha.
So I made a plan, fully expecting the march in DC to be exceptionally well attended. The first part of the plan was strictly tactical — I read through the FAQs, and familiarized myself with the restrictions on what I could bring. I borrowed a clear plastic tote from a friend so that I could put some energy bars and water bottles in it. I purchased a warm over-jacket with zippered pockets in which to secrete my valuables and car key in the event the bag was lost or stolen. I bought new tennis shoes two weeks prior and broke them in. The second part of the plan was logistical — how would we get there? What should we think about? To that end, I pre-purchased parking at a hotel in Crystal City VA that is literally in the shadow of the 14th St. Bridge. In that way, we were only two blocks from the Pentagon City Metro station and, if shit went down during the march itself, we could walk out of the city and back to our car in a worst-case scenario.
Pentagon City Metro, 10:30am Saturday January 21, 2017
The Travelogue
So, with this plan and all the stuff in place, we struck out yesterday morning. Getting to the hotel to park was a snap. The Metro was another story, however. To add some context to the picture, mid-way on either side of the picture are where you purchase Metro cards. Waaaaay up on middle left is where you go through the “turnstiles” to access the Metro escalators that take you to the actual platform. Behind me (not pictured) is the extension of the line being two times what you see up to the turnstiles. As we stood there, word filtered back that the platform was completely full — jammed — so they weren’t letting more people in until it cleared. Problem is, every train that came through was completely full, so the platform never cleared. Hence, we didn’t move.
So, I made a judgment call that we should get out of line and Uber or taxi downtown to as close as we could get to the march and then walk the rest of the way. Although phone reception was already starting to get spotty, I was able to pull up a real-time traffic map and while the 14th St. Bridge and the Memorial Bridge were jammed, the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge was clear. So we set off.
On the curb as we decided how to get a taxi (I don’t have the Uber app), a young couple told us that they had requested an Uber and if we would like to ride along with them, the more the merrier. So we did. We got in, instructed our driver to angle towards the TR Bridge and get us as close as possible once in DC, and with that, we were off.
So this was the first interesting thing to happen in the day. Because the young couple — newly married in October — shared with us on the ride that while they had always been voters, that had been the extent of their activism. They’d never canvassed, never really even donated to candidates or campaigns. They told us that the election results were so disturbing that they felt they couldn’t operate that way any longer. They felt strongly that they had to do something, anything. I told them I was so encouraged by that, and shared my own stories of activism with them. I underscored that it was important to carry this over after the march, to find a way to get involved locally to exert pressure on elected officials, to show up at town halls and be heard. Loudly. I shared my own plans (which I will discuss later).
The Uber dude got us to near the Washington Monument, and from there we broke off from the couple as they went in search of friends they were meeting. They had an entire group — a group of young, compassionate millennials — and they were going to march together.
We were only able to get as close as the pin on the left — rally was at the endpoint on the right. It was nearly a mile away!
We walked from the Monument up to Independence Ave. The rally stage was at 3rd. Street & Independence Ave. SW. We were only able, at that time, to get as close as between 14th and 12th Streets and Independence Ave. It was, by 11am, literally impossible to get closer than almost a mile from where the rally was occurring. We hadn’t even eyeballed the National Mall or Constitution Ave. at that point, so this was only the view on Independence Ave. SW. We did work our way up towards the rally location, foolishly thinking we could navigate that. But as we got near the Smithsonian Metro stop, people were pouring out and it was literally gridlock, so we reversed and went back to where we could at least stand without being crushed.
So back to my husband. As mentioned above, I’ve done this before, but he hadn’t. He was taking it all in, particularly the signs. He pointed to this one and then to that one, and I stopped to take pictures of the crowds and some of the signs.
These ladies proudly display their signs.
Mr. RenaRF was particularly struck by the young girls wearing their pussy caps and carrying signs that openly talked about grabbing pussy, “don’t grab my pussy”, and pussy-grabbing generally. His observation was that, a year ago, you wouldn’t have seen something like this. My comment in reply was two-fold: that it’s just a word, but also that while I agree with him generally, this is the state to which Trump has driven the discourse.
Indeed.
His most general but totally apt observation was something to the effect of, “Clearly, the ‘grab her by the pussy’ thing has left a mark.”
Again, indeed. One that I personally hope stays with us in perpetuity. The history books should tell the story of the election of the first pussy-grabber.
The crowds continue to build.
We kept moving — I had my own sign which wasn’t nearly as creative as most. On one side it said #RESIST, my hashtag for everything. And on the other it said #ILLEGITIMATE, one that I’m now using as well. The crowds continued to build — people poured off of buses and out of the Metro.
As we walked along Independence Ave, which was literally a sea of pink knit pussy caps (I totally missed the memo about these caps and failed to acquire one! There were vendors along the route, but they were completely sold out of these caps), we spotted a phalanx of RED knit pussy caps in the near distance. As they approached, we could see why. These were Canadians, and their caps were red with little white embroidered maple leafs.
So — did I mention that my husband is Canadian? Yeah. I did. :) What I haven’t mentioned yet is that he naturally likes people, and he likes talking to them and asking them questions. He wants to understand them, their lives, where they come from. In fact, he had a conversation in the Uber ride to the Monument (he was in the front seat) with our driver, who was Moroccan and studying statistics. He likes knowing those kinds of things, and I’m proud of him for that quality.
Me (left) and part of the @wmwWindsor crew
So naturally, he stopped to talk to the Canadians. He identified himself as a Canadian from Toronto, but indicated that he had lived here since the early eighties. He introduced me (of course), and discovered that these folks were from Windsor, just across the bridge from Detroit. They were a part of 11 buses chartered to bring them from Windsor to the march (you can check out their Twitter feed here). They told us the bus trip was about 14 hours, and also that they had been stopped at the border by US Border Patrol and held for three hours. They had to answer questions about why they would be coming into the US to participate in a march that was centered around US politics. They started to think the US BP wasn’t going to let them in, when they were finally released and continued on their journey.
The button they gave me.
They all had hats — mostly red pussy caps, but others that had the women’s march logo and the Canadian maple leaf on them. They had brought a news crew with them. They had brought little rubber bracelets and festooned both of us with these. They had brought buttons that they had made, and pinned one on me (you can barely see it in the picture). Mr. RenaRF asked what it was that caused them to get up, get on a bus for hours and come down here to march. Their answered were varied, but they all followed the same theme:
What happens to you happens to us. We are starting to see Trump-like candidates emerge in Canada. We have to stand up for everyone’s rights. We are appalled and embarrassed for you, and we want to support you.
Humbling. I can’t describe with words how deeply grateful I am to these people.
We thanked them — profusely — and continued walking around to take it all in. The mood was one of pure excitement. But mixed in with that was a profound sense of a shared release of pent-up anxiety. We chatted with others along the route — sign holders who were anxious to explain their signs, as well as two ladies who were long-time friends who had traveled separately from Wisconsin and Missouri to meet up in Washington DC for the march. Their reasons for doing so, when asked, were the same as those given to us by the Canadian group. They wanted to be heard — they wanted to take part.
Pussy grabbing the very symbol of liberty, hope & freedom.
My favorite sign I saw that day was the one pictured here on the right. Her poster had that picture on both sides, and she was standing squarely in the middle of Independence Ave. with her arms up and with the bottom of the picture resting on the top of her head. She didn’t speak, she didn’t smile. Her face was grave in countenance. She slowly turned and paused, turned and paused, turned and paused. Her actions told me that she believed this picture said it all — and I would have to agree.
We decided to dip over into an area that would normally be parking for official Federal government vehicles, because it was a place we could get a little more breathing room (at least at that point, roughly at noon — in an hour that area would be shoulder-to-shoulder). I wanted to drink some of my water and eat a snack that I had brought in the aforementioned clear plastic tote. So we did that.
Shortly after this respite, another pair came over. They were more of the red-hatted Canadian cadre, and one of them was blind and with a guide dog. Mr. RenaRF, again, went over to talk to them. Both ladies were interesting, and both talked about the long delay at the border that others had discussed earlier. The lady who was not blind said that she was a staunch defender of community, which she described as “the arts”, and she was chilled when she heard that the National Endowment for the Arts was being scrapped. She quoted Lyndon B. Johnson to me, a quote that I looked up when I got home:
“Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves and to others the inner vision which guides us as a nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.”
–Lyndon Johnson, on signing into existence the National Endowment on the Arts
I paused in my own mind to wonder at the fact that this Canadian was quoting a former US President. “Wonder” in the sense of awe — that she knows more about our history than many of our fellow American citizens.
Mr. RenaRF then turned to the blind lady and asked — given that it’s amazing people would come so far to make their voices heard generally, how is it that she decided to travel so far and throw herself into the middle of a sea of people in a different country when blind? Again — his question was driven out of admiration, so I would like the tone to be captured as such. And this lady basically told us that it’s important to stand up for human rights, to go as far as you have to no matter the obstacles or challenges you face individually or as a group.
When I looked over at my husband during this exchange (and he’s going to kill me for putting this out there for the world, but it’s important), I saw that he had teared up. When the blind lady finished, he thanked her and told her that the next time he feels like staying home, or like nothing any one person can do can actually matter, he would remember this conversation and take it with him forward into his life from that moment on.
The day progressed from there. The crowds grew — everywhere. We walked over to the Monument and along 14th Street down to Constitution Ave., and it was packed. People had broken free of the rally and were marching — ad hoc — squarely up Constitution Ave. It was peaceful. It was purposeful. It was INSANELY attended, and frankly blew away my expectations for participation. I shared this video on my Facebook page last night, just to give you a sense of the scale.
By the end of the day, our plan to get out of the city and return home was out the window. Word reached us that they had closed — at least temporarily — several Metro stations because they were so overcrowded that for safety reasons, they had to keep people out until they cleared. We wound up walking deep into the NW business district to a hotel and caught a cab — which had to take a circuitous route through Georgetown and out and over the Key Bridge — to get us back to our car in Pentagon City. We made it home, exhausted but exhilarated.
After we had had a chance to eat and unwind just a bit, I had the following exchange with Mr. RenaRF — because remember, he was going along to protect me, not necessarily to participate:
ME: So what did you think of today? Overall impressions?
HIM: This was life-changing.
Score. :) But really — for him, I don’t think he knew until he saw it for himself that people are willing to get out there and put it out there for their beliefs. In the months since the election, our conversation on politics have been centered around me talking about the fact that nearly every meaningful change made since the turn of the century has been driven by citizen activism. Suffrage, workers’ rights, civil rights and a host of other things only happened because average citizens were out there willing to march and protest and hold elected officials accountable. If we sit around and wait for a Congressperson or a Senator or a President to drive change, we’ll be waiting indefinitely. They have to be pushed — they have to be threatened (albeit non-violently) with their livelihood — they have to be driven. And we have to do the pushing, the threatening, and the driving.
His first action, he declared, is going to be getting his dual citizenship so he can vote. He told me that he can’t sit around any longer and take advantage of the Democracy that has cared for him and that he has revered and admired for decades. I fully anticipate that as all of this — whatever “this” becomes — unfolds, he will be there with me. I live for the day when he leads me to these types of activities, and not the other way around. I fully expect that day is approaching.
The Activism
So what now? If yesterday was a blip, we have failed. If this doesn’t translate into action, we have failed. If the young couple who we Ubered with don’t do something more than what they did yesterday, we have failed (and I’m kicking myself for not getting their info so I could encourage future participation — ugh — but there was a lot going on).
We can’t wait for some mythical, unifying leader to emerge to show us the way. It’s not going to happen. Politicians — even the best of them — are going to politicians. We have to stand on our own two feet and carve a path.
So, although it’s a baby step, my immediate plan is to reach out to those in my area whom I know are like-minded and get together a posse to start attending Barbara Comstock’s appearances, town halls and other events. While she is not my Congressperson, her district is less than a mile from the border of mine, and she is a ripe target. I want to apply tea party tactics (although unlike those, mine won’t be astroturfed) and start showing up to ask her about climate change, planned parenthood, the ACA and the like. I plan to do it loudly — and those that know me in real life know that my voice carries.
I also plan to begin organizing the equivalent of a “phone tree”. We know from numerous posts here that Congressional contact works. But it’s not just about the contacts in a vacuum — it’s about the frequency of contacts in a given time period. So we need local activism — Loudoun County, Fairfax County, Prince William County, Arlington County and Alexandria — that is focused on a “blitz” of sorts to email and call our two Senators and related electeds as issues are prominent. Cabinet appointments, plans for the ACA, and tax cuts are likely to be my initial targets. I want to set up a page where it’s easy to reference an issue and easy to access contact methods and start building that locally with actual constituents.
So far, I haven’t seen a central place where this type of coordinated activism is already occurring. I’ve felt that OFA has fallen off dramatically — but has that changed? I would really welcome suggestions. Because while I’m involved with the local party structures, I don’t find them focused on activism and believe that there needs to be more than that.
Ok — that was LOOONG. Sorry. :) Thanks for reading, and for always — for the past 13 years — being a community to which I can turn when I feel like I’m screaming in a crowded room yet no one notices me.
