I was born in 1961, basically right in the middle of the era of civil rights protest marches. As such a young child in a smaller almost all white town, with conservative white parents I was blissfully ignorant of the turmoil that was happening in the larger society all around me. I learned of it later in school, like the world wars, as history. And that is what I thought it was, history, in the past. Something that was done and settled, and troubling as it was, we were better as a society for having gone through it. We had become more mature, decent, and civil. Or so I thought. For decades I never thought that I would ever feel the need to participate in something like a protest march. No we weren't perfect as a society, but I thought rights were largely being protected, I thought we were more civil, I thought our environment was being cared for more, etc. But the last few years have been a wake up call that the problems of racism, bigotry, hatred are not gone, or even or perhaps especially the issues of protecting the environment are not solved, far from it, and the election of Donald Trump to be President of the United States of America have caused these issues and many more to raise their ugly heads in ways I have never personally witnessed before. To the point that I know I can no longer just sit on the sidelines as an observer. To say or do nothing is to be complicit. So today I did something I never thought I would do. I went to a protest march, and it was one of the proudest days of my life. To be fair, I had been to one protest before and with the same sign actually, it was at a rally Trump had here at the fairgrounds during the Primary. I thought about dismantling the sign many times, but with the way I saw the election going I thought I might need it again. Sadly I was right. Today for me was far different, it wasn't about trying to stop this man from winning, it's sadly now about stopping him, after he won, and saving our society from the wreckage he has already caused in just one month! When I went I didn't even actually think it was a march, I thought it was just a rally at Five Points park in downtown Sarasota. But then the crowd started moving and the march was on! I do not know how many were there, but I would guess at least a thousand (If it had been a pro Trump march, I'm sure he'd say it was at least ten thousand!) We went down Main Street which was expected, it's a street with car traffic but also a lot of shops and foot traffic it get's closed for events a lot, then we turned on Lemon Ave which was already shut down with the farmers market, so no surprise with that. But next rather than going by city hall or back to the park, we kept on and turned on Fruitville shutting down one of Sarasota's main traffic arteries! This surprised me and it was there that I bumped into my landlord who was also in the march, that was really cool! And everything was remaining very peaceful which was great. But I was close enough to the front that I had a feeling that the police officers were trying to direct us off this street back onto less heavily traveled street. But the lead marchers and thus everyone else persisted, right onto Sarasota's main traffic thoroughfare Tamiami Trail shutting it down! At this point there was definitely some confusion at the front, but the march persisted on, as did the Sarasota Police in keeping the peace. We continued on the Trail from Fruitville back to Main about half a mile! I have no idea if this was planned or approved of or not, what I do know and am thankful for is that it was peaceful. I did not see any violence on the part of protesters or police. I am thankful and commend the Sarasota Police Department for allowing this assembly to proceed peacefully. I am sure there were many who were not thrilled with the situation. Back at the park there were a few more speakers that were hard to hear over mega phones, but one point made that I want to pass on is to get out of Wall Street Banks. This is something I did years ago during the great recession. I will only bank with a small local bank or credit union. Money moves our society and the more it is in the hands of a few corporations, the more a few move and control the many. The more we can move money from centralized to distributed, be it banking, investing, shopping local, energy (going Solar) and more, the better society we can create for more people. So what is the big deal about marching? It is taking a stand and being visible. Visible to politicians, certainly, but also visible to other Americans, fellow citizens of this country who still support Trump and the GOP. We need to be visible and say this destruction of social progress (ethnic, sexual, and gender!) is not acceptable. The destruction of health care is not acceptable. A ban on people due to their religion is not acceptable. Continually expanding inequality is not acceptable. The destruction of our educational system is not acceptable. The destruction of environmental protection is not acceptable. Denial of the facts about climate change is not acceptable. Shutting down scientific communication and advancement within our government is not acceptable. Defunding arts programs is not acceptable. The attempt to repeat lies so often that people accept them as truth and oh so many other things is NOT acceptable. We will not be the nice polite Germans who did not want to cause any trouble, and thus allowed Hitler and the Nazi party to destroy Germany. If needed we will cause trouble, we will persist, and we will resist! We are the people!
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