Well, it’s been a rough couple of weeks.
Scrolling through my Facebook feed these past two weeks has shifted from initial shock, rage, and hangovers to the eventual coming to grips with Donald Trump being our president-elect. Some people, justifiably, have been feeling this rage more than others, resulting in protests around the country, around Washington, DC, and on American University’s own campus.
The burning of the flag outside of the Mary Graydon Center was met with some opposition. Protesters were accused of inciting violence and being un-American or unpatriotic. One sentiment on campus was that spreading hate wasn’t going to get anyone anywhere, and people should be more tolerant of the Trump supporters that came out of the woodwork after his victory. Suddenly, anti-Trump protesters were expected to turn the other cheek, to be the bigger person. To protest quietly. To not protest at all.
That’s all well and good, but there’s just one problem: that’s not really fair. The hate and intolerance that protesters were accused of were already there, and Trump’s entire campaign was based on it. The thing is, unless you are someone who will be directly affected by Trump’s emerging and promised policy changes, you shouldn’t be telling anyone how to protest.
The idea that protesting a certain way, like, say, kneeling during the national anthem or burning a flag, is unpatriotic is understandable, sure. But here’s a thought — maybe protesters aren’t burning the flag because they hate America. Maybe they’re doing it because they hate White America. And no, that doesn’t mean White people. It means the system of oppression — which does exist — that has been costing people of color their opportunities, their education, their health, their sanity, and their sometimes even their lives.
Maybe it’s because, when a protester says “F*** White America,” they are met with, “that’s racist,” from someone who has clearly never experienced racism once in their life. Maybe it’s because a pending Trump presidency legitimizes all of these biases, all of that bigotry. Anti-Trump protesters are taking to the streets to fight against the normalization of these things. Everyone is going to have to find a way to make sense of this new America, and whether that’s by wearing a safety pin, writing, protesting, or burning a flag, if that is what it takes to get people’s attention, to make that statement against the normalization of bigotry, I’m behind it. Someone’s gotta do it.
