With each passing day for the last few months, one question has tumbled around in my head: "What can I do? I'm just one person; what can I do? I can't just sit around and do nothing... but what can I do?"
The fear that my friends' and family's rights might be ripped away right in front of me, or even worse, that they themselves might be ripped away from the nation and people they love consumed me. That fear, at one time, was a crippling one. One that paralyzed me and made me feel completely useless.
Then came the opportunity to march, and that fear was no longer crippling.
It became powerful.
On January 21st, 2017 I marched in solidarity with over 500,000 of my brothers and sisters in Washington D.C. and over 3 million of my brothers and sisters marched on every single continent around the world. The fact that people from all over the world came together in peace, and love to fight for justice and equality was the single most impactful experience of my life. On the morning of, the city was overflowing. It felt as though people were spilling out of the mouths of metro entrances and pouring down the streets. Hundreds of people packed themselves into the small metro cars and all you could see for miles above ground were pink pussy hats in every direction. The unity and unspoken agreement that we were all friends, fighting the same fight, fighting injustice was so powerful. You could feel the energy and determination as a tangible comrade as if it were standing right next to us. People locked hands as if they had been old friends for years, spoke to each other with a genuine kindness and camaraderie that I had never before witnessed. Total strangers helping one another, loving one another for all that they are, and I thought "THIS is America." I could see it in the eyes of everyone I met, the desire to take back what felt like a lost nation. I could feel the fire igniting, my resilience returning, and the resistance forming.
I had never viewed our world as a hateful one, but in light of recent events like hate crimes on campuses and across the nation, countless Facebook and Twitter posts, the cry by so many Americans and high-ranking officials to ban Muslims, retract gay marriage rights, and deport undocumented immigrants, and countless demeaning, offensive, and hateful comments directed at women and other minorities, I had begun to think that was the world we were surrendering to. But, with hundreds of thousands of people surrounding me, I began to realize that love was stronger, both in numbers and in resolve. Love is stronger than any hate or discrimination or objectification or oppression and no matter how many times hate will try to win or try to beat us down, love will rise stronger every time. This has been shown to us time and time again. Shown to us in the hands that reach out to help us up, the voices that cry out for peace, freedom, and equality. Shown to us in the promises to stand by and fight next to the oppressed and the threatened, no matter what.
This march, for me, was a symbol of the love we have for this melting pot of a nation that we call home. The desire to continue to make it a safe place for immigrants and refugees and all of the beautiful people that make it up at its core.
So we marched.
We marched in hopes of equality and acceptance.
We marched for the love of our friends, our family, our daughters that we have, or one day hope to have.
We marched with the prayer that they may grow up in a more loving, accepting, and equal world.
We took the place of our grandmothers, and our great-grandmothers and everyone who marched before us to continue the long battle toward equality.
The Women's March on Washington was not simply a march, it was a continuation of a movement that has lasted for decades and generations and it will not soon be stomped out.
Marching down the streets of Washington D.C. we saw hundreds of thousands of signs, but the one that stood out to me?
"Welcome to the Resistance."
