“Did you have fun at your protest?”
No. No I didn’t.
More than one person asked me this following the recent protest at Rutgers University over the Trump administrations travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East. This followed multiple protests outside of some of Americas largest airports, where refugees and legal immigrants with green cards were detained and separated from their families. Some spent years helping the U.S. Government, sold their homes for a new life in America, but were still denied upon entry. Now, this is not an article designed to sway you one way or another on the issues involving these people traveling to the United States. Rather, I wanted to remind everyone what a protest is about.
You don't go to a protest to have a good time. You don’t go to a protest because it looks fun. You certainly shouldn’t go to a protest just to document it on Snapchat. Someone goes to a protest to incite change, because they something in this world does not sit right with them and they cannot bear to stand by and watch.
In this case, many students were protesting for more personal reasons. Some fear that if they travel home to visit their families they won’t be able to come back at all, to their school that prides them on diversity. Others fear that laws like this only add to the stereotypes that are projected on them. In any case, they were certainty not protesting to “have a good time.”
As of right now, the travel ban has been put on hold by what Trump calls a “so-called” judge, James Robert (Robert was appointed by former President George W. Bush after rising from his own private practice). If more of Trump’s policies are as controversial as this one, then you can bet even more protests will grow across the nation.
