This year, I did not march on Saturday, Jan. 19. I allowed the excuse of bad weather and exhaustion to stop me. I used, as well, the reports of strife among leaders of the march to stay home.
I wish I had marched. I should have marched. The way so many of us all did, two years earlier, on that mild, winter’s day of January, 2017. Remember? We were devastated then. The election and its shock waves of loss and incredulity. It moved us, energized our resolve, didn’t it? The realization that we were in deep trouble. What we though we knew, but couldn’t begin to really know. What we were in for. What had just smacked us in our blind-sided faces: the lock-her-up mobs, the scapegoated immigrants, the pledge of walls, the re-opened wounds of racism released full force into the national blood stream. We were hurting. We were terrified. We were angry. And so, of course, we were grateful for the opportunity to march.
We came from everywhere, on buses, in cars, on trains, lining up (such long lines) for the D.C .metro. (Those huge crowds too in Boston, New York, Rome…everywhere.)
My husband and I walking for blocks and blocks, waving to fellow pink hats, sensing this was beyond big. It was a day, looking back that exhilarated with that massiveness of US. I didn’t hear the speeches and couldn’t even see the stage. I never met up with the folks I was supposed to meet up with. Although, I bumped into a neighbor and there was whatshername from Wisconsin, who I hadn’t seen in three decades.
We were so many, and yet we kept growing, swarming, becoming. We took up whole streets, the entire mall, the full distance from start to finish. Later, we heard that it was the largest one-day protest in American history. It seemed, just seemed we were, and had to be, a force together. Angry women together.
Yes, I was angry in 2017. And truly, I am even angrier now.
Angry, women are so often called names: shrill, strident, emotional, hysterical. Not pretty. Not nice. “Calm down,” we’re told. “Get a grip,” we’re told, wanting to dispute the anger itself, to send it to its room. Tune it down to a whisper. Bracket it into dispassionate reason.
But anger has its own twangy-clangy voice, spitting energy and staying power. And as I said, the thing is, if I was angry two years ago, I am even angrier now. Angry, even if no one hears a single word, even if it’s a quiet raging at our merciless president, his cowardly party, his ever-revolving administration and so-called base. Angry about autocratic allies, empowered bullies in schools, more lies, corruption and immoral policies: tax cuts for the rich, insecure health care for the rest of us, toxic chemicals released into our air and water, more glacial meltdowns, children severed from their families, besieged families, falsely named and scorned, who come seeking asylum, as did my grandparents retreating from European pogroms, seeking the promise of a better life. Just that. Thank God that.
So yes, I should be marching amid crowds of people cradling and giving voice to outrage. After all, it’s our time in history. It’s a time that has witnessed the take down of Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly and CBS’sLesMoonves. It’s the stunning turnout of many women voting for many women to take their place in Congress. So many women, no longer afraid to be shrill or not pretty, but stepping out in song, in dance, in great signs and knitted hats.
In the end, I know, it’s not really about whether folks attenda march. It’s whether we show up for the long haul. Which, I realize, for me, demands hope.
Hope, even though the movement is at times sloppy and messy. Even though there’s conflict and difficult issues ahead. Even though there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure there’s room at the table for all of us. And finally, it’s not about the leaders, is it? It’s whether our anger will lead to change. And whether, as Rabbi Hannah Goldstein of Temple Sinai stated in a recent sermon, “we can convert our anger into action.” So, next year, I think I will march. I hope we all do.
Ruth Charney lives in Greenfield.