The above image is the headline of a Washington Post article by Petula Dvorak.
To my shock, it was not a pro-Trump article. It was even mildly anti-Trump, saying "decency", "humanity", and "morality" were all lost with the election results. However, she also says some other things that were a little disheartening for me to read.
Dvorak also says that Mr. Trump will be our President and that "smashing windows in cities, burning flags on college campuses or staging walkouts at high schools won’t change that."
Let's dissect and talk about that for a bit.
"Smashing windows in cities."
Alright. We've all heard the recent reports of smashed windows and vandalized property along the protest march routes, including in cities like Oakland, New Orleans, and Portland. But it's pretty obviously unfair to classify the thousands and thousands of protesters by the actions of the irresponsible few. In Portland, the police were even quoted on saying that it was the result of an anarchist group taking over the protest. While we as peaceful protesters will actively try to prevent this kind of rare behavior, it does exist but it does not represent us.
"Burning flags on college campuses."
This one I actually witnessed personally as I marched with the Philly protest through the Temple University area. While it was unclear whether it was a standard American flag or a Confederate flag, the response from other marchers was immediate. Fellow protesters rushed to the scene to confront the few burning the flag about what exactly they were doing and the harsh symbolism behind it. While burning the American flag is not currently illegal, many question the morality of it. Understandably so, as it can be very offensive to those who have served and put their lives on the line for our country. However, burning a flag is a form of free speech that does not truly harm anybody or their property, no matter your personal stance on the morality of it.
And the kicker:
"Staging walkouts at high schools."
Okay. The other two I can understand. It's terrible to damage other's property, it's of questionable morale to burn the flag, but walkouts? In high schools?
Tell me, Mz. Dvorak, the problem with this one. A walkout, in a high school nonetheless, is democracy at it's finest being beautifully demonstrated by some of our youngest and newest politically involved members of society. By it's Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition, democracy is "government by the people." We get to do this one. We get to march. We get to yell. We get to peacefully make a statement by marching out of class, onto the Metro, and down to the Pennsylvania Avenue Trump Hotel.
This is democracy.
It is democracy itself that allows us to do this, and we are not protesting it. We are trying to salvage what is left of it for us. Because, Mz. Dvorak, democracy is already fleeting. And in a Trump presidency, it will continue to disappear. That's why we're so angry.
Tell me how, in your democracy, it is okay that gerrymandering has more power than the American voters.
Tell me how voter suppression, like enforcing voter ID laws in a state like Wisconsin where Donald Trump won by 30,000 votes but up to 300,000 Wisconsin citizens lacked the proper ID to vote, is democracy.
Tell me how the concept of basically a whole country voting within limited hours on one day and not guaranteeing it as a national holiday off work is democracy. We're being oppressed. It's sneaky oppression, but it is oppression.
When we peacefully unite to walk together and shout the words "Not my President," we are obviously not saying that Donald Trump will not technically be our President. It's clearly a cry of dissatisfaction, of refusal to identify with the hate that Trump represents. Are you really going to argue us on our choice of language? I'm seeing this rhetoric from Democrats and Republicans (and others) alike. The people are begging you to hear them. Listen to them. Don't take off points for grammar.
What's possibly the most depressing thing to me, is that it's good people like Mz. Dvorak saying these sort of things. I've ventured further into her portfolio, and she has great articles about the effect this election has had on young women, and the corruption in politics that directly effects everyday Americans. They're really smart pieces and I really recommend giving them a read. How did smart people get so disenfranchised with democracy that they could possibly say that high school students staging a peaceful walkout would "do nothing"?
We cannot forget about the 1951 walkout of the black student body in a segregated North Carolina school, or when the women of Lowell Mills walked out for better pay in 1836. This is change. This is democracy. It works.
Protest lies at the core of this country, as we were founded upon it and have grown with it. It is unbelievable to me that anybody could ever tell peaceful protesters, let alone a group of incredibly brave high schoolers, that what they're doing means nothing. That everything they've ever studied in their history courses is invalid. If this concept means nothing, then America is nothing.
We are not protesting democracy. We are democracy.
