October 10: HOPE

Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. About 600 marchers from Selma, AL, on their way to Montgomery to protest racial inequity and discrimination, were met by a cordon of white troopers and deputies, who attacked them and charged them on horseback. Today, 65 years later, these things are happening again.

But there is still hope. Look at that bridge. Do you even know who Edmund Pettus was, without looking him up? That’s the source of hope: that we can remember the name not as a traitor to his country and a slaver, celebrated by a white supremacist state, but as a place where people began to see the brutality and injustice of white supremacy, and be moved to do something about it.

That said, I’m all for changing the name of this bridge to the John Lewis Bridge.

October 9: THROW

It was a protest that was a precipitating event in the Revolution that created our country.

It caused damages of nearly two million dollars in modern money, and it was widely criticized as lawless, extreme, and unpardonable, even by moderates. (If only the Sons of Liberty had kept to peaceful protests, and sought change through lawful means, huh?)

Now the Boston Tea Party is a cute activity that tourists can enjoy when they visit Boston. It’s an American legend that most Americans don’t even understand well. What will today’s protests look like in 200 years? Will there even be an America anymore?

October 8: TEETH

People protest for all sorts of reasons. It takes a lot to get me riled up enough to go out in public, into a crowd of people, perhaps in defiance of laws and law enforcement officers.

What are you protesting? Is it the murder of Black people at the hands of police or vigilantes? Is it the degrading treatment of women, LGBTQ people, or BIPOC? Is it the celebration of white supremacy or the deification of traitorous generals who lost a war? Is it the conduct and actions of a President who has flaunted the Constitution and decency for four years? Or is it the subversion of the very underpinnings of our nation, the threat of fascism come to our doorstep?

No? You’re protesting the wearing of a mask to prevent the spread of a virus that’s killed hundreds of thousands of people, because it feels a little uncomfortable?

Do you even see the difference?