Reflections on the Women's March in D.C.
Having just returned from the Women’s March on Washington, D.C., I felt it fair to attempt a representation of what I experienced. In the new reality of false news, real or imagined, I would like to provide a relatively pure interpretation from a man who was on the street. It is however my interpretation and my short story about the power of the people.
To say I wasn’t apprehensive of the trip to, and the immersion into, a potentially crazy group of hundreds of thousands, perhaps I was. That didn’t last long. After the long stroll down the mall, not any ol’ shopping mall but a very important patch of land between the Lincoln Memorial and your U.S. Capitol Building, we began blending in. The important word here is “blending.” Unlike here in Montana, there was diversity and acres of it. Like it or not, this is what America really looks like. Categorizing it, adding labels, and providing convenient genres would be doing it a grave disservice. Democracy in action created a community of attendees with something to say and a great place to do so.
Clearly this was a women’s march as they were well represented. However this was also a girls’ march as teenage girls and younger were in attendance by the score. They may have been too young to vote, but not too young to see the writing on the wall. My personal favorite was the older gals (careful) that have been fighting all their lives. What comes around goes around, and the lines on their faces reflect a sweet but hardened attitude, not wanting to lose the gains that have been hard won. Moms and daughters, dads and daughters were everywhere sprinkled in the crowd soaking up the moment.
It’s not every day that millions of people take to the streets to make a point. To be perfectly honest there were lots of points of view represented in tens of thousands of posters, banners, and signs. “Human rights are women’s rights” was the prevailing theme described in so many ways, funny and deadly serious.
Walking among the masses was challenging at best with streets for blocks in a total gridlock of happy humanity. I didn’t mention that essential fact that despite repressive congestion, reported to be the largest protest ever staged in our nation’s capital, it was festive, obscenely polite and peaceful. That there were no incidences of violence does not amaze me whatsoever. What I observed was somewhat surreal as I and hundreds of thousands of others were nearly completely immobile, yet congenial to a fault. I make a point of not singing at the top of my lungs in public but not so that Saturday. Singing broke out regularly throughout the ranks and spread across the masses typically ending in a proud hoot and a holler. Pride and prejudice were thrown out to the wind that day.
If you have never observed hundreds of thousands of people organically moving, singing, while ranting and raving it is not to be missed and doesn’t happen often enough. The waves of citizens, like amber waves of grain, have the right to assemble, and assemble they did. Agree or not with the messages and issues raised, I feel a new level of empowerment has been created. Due to poor cell service we didn’t realize the worldwide movements going on simultaneously. It was humbling and would be days later when sister stories tied us all together. This is what democracy looks like.
Yarus is a resident of Kalispell.