Every Demonstration is a Manifestation

I was 17 when I first walked onto a major protest site. Occupy Wall Street at Justin Herman Plaza. My friends had tents there and invited me welcomingly. To find them, I walked through a belly of people, mic checks, tents and cardboard signs, unrealizing the power of intention. I didn’t understand then how one cause could bring so many people together and how the energy from this one event ripples into the future. I showed up simply because I wanted to recover from a long day of walking around in San Francisco. A year later, when I was 18 I followed my parent’s paths and moved to France where they awaited their refugee sponsorships to America. There, everyone lives and dies by liberté, égalité, fraternité. Since the overthrowal of their monarchy in 1789 by storming Bastille, French civilians have continued to defend their country’s motto for liberty, equality and fraternity through manifestations.

In America, we call demonstrations protests.
Protest is defined:

• a statement or action expressing disapproval of or objection to something; express an objection to what someone has said or done (Oxford Dictionary)
• a solemn declaration of opinion and usually of dissent; the act of objecting or a gesture of disapproval; a complaint, objection, or display of unwillingness usually to an idea or a course of action (Merriam Webster)
• a strong complaint expressing disagreement, disapproval, or opposition; an occasion when people show that they disagree with something by standing somewhere, shouting, carrying signs, etc (Cambridge Dictionary)

I strongly believe that acts of dissent are testimonies of patriotism, that civilians challenge their government as an act of faith and trust in knowing that we can do better, yet I also understand how others nullify these efforts by focusing on the negatives. When French civilians unionize and shut down public trains and electricity for big corporations and banks, their acts of dissent are done in the name of manifestations. Knowing this, I am aware that the language used to describe ‘protesters’ here in America is intentionally harmful. Our oppressors assigned us our roles as “protesters” knowing that language is powerful and that protesting comes with limitations. Like Audre Lorde teaches, we have to reclaim the language which has been made to work against us.

Turn on any news outlet today and witness the reckless distortion that protesting is synonymous to looting. How is it that so much attention can be drawn to a protest without any mention of the injustices which first motivate people to show up? Review those definitions for protest and consider how it may guide others to prematurely disregard activists as uncooperative naysayers, people who are unwilling by nature. Our language alone gives critics a head start in the discreditation of mass demonstrations as a meeting ground for contrarians with little life aspiration outside of objecting and scorning. People who have never participated in a demonstration can falsely believe these judgements are justified by the very definition of the word. Meanwhile it isolates those who have interest in participating but are discouraged in fear of being labelled injudiciously.

Attend a protest. Witness for yourself the abundance of people who think innovatively. Who commit their time and energy to the reimagination of the world. Who have plans to better their communities in proposals that extend beyond signs, beyond chants, beyond marches. Spectators at home will surely see curated content of vandalized stores meanwhile the betterments always remain censored. On the ground there are community members who jump between shop windows and the people they love to share ideas for a future that is not dependent on material wealth and instead prioritizes the safety and health of the community and its members but you won’t find these clips on mainstream media.

In fact, a majority of demonstrators I have met are everyday people who volunteer their time ensuring that their neighbors are fed, that they have access to childcare, and that their children have access to education. They are people who open their homes to host lunches, dinners and write-ins to discuss the matters which affect us. They are people who write letters to our incarcerated, fighting for parole for the many society has already forgotten. They are people who create pamphlets and brochures and speak with vulnerable neighborhoods to inform them of current events and remind them of their rights. These are people who act without public funding, without even the pretense of operating as a non-profit. They are simply neighbors.

For many it is a challenge to visualize life divergent from reality, and even more challenging when one wants to make it a life that is better for more. At times it seems it is a task so few want, masses of people are willing to forfeit and live with the burden of complacency until they are convinced there is hope otherwise. How dare we discredit the people willing to put in the work, their creativity and commitment, reducing them down to nothing more than a naysayer?

In France, demonstrations are called manifestations.
Manifestation is defined:

• an event, action, or object that clearly shows or embodies something, especially a theory or an abstract idea (Oxford Dictionary)
• the act, process, or an instance of manifesting. manifesting: readily perceived by the senses and especially by the sense of sight; easily understood or recognized by the mind : OBVIOUS; (Merriam-Webster)
• a sign of something existing or happening (Cambridge Dictionary)

What if instead we considered people gathering in public spaces to be manifesting collectively? They are marching to show us a sign of something existing or happening. They gather to widen the perspective of those blind to the stirring of change. Demonstrations are visual and immersive proofs of new worlds emerging. All across America people are risking their lives to remind us that a world exists where Black Lives Matter, that the lives of Nina Pop, Tony McDade, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Abery, Monika Diamond, Philandro Castile, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and too many more are being lynched daily because of somebody else’s unwillingness to cross over to a world which already exists for many of us. People congregate to show which reality we are choosing, it is a very conscientious and intentional act. And it is not fruitless. It is because of demonstrators that the white supremacists who murdered Ahmaud Abery were finally arrested and charged TWO MONTHS after the murder occurred.

If these causes are readily perceived and obvious to a great majority, then how are protesters still positioned as the disagreers? Consider the Fridays for Future students who skip school because they desire a future. Using the same information we as a society confess and present to students everyday in classrooms, kids mirror it back to us in large scale walkouts to remind us of the atrocities we haphazardly acknowledge. We should be proud that these students are educated and able to apply their education in real world shaping skills yet we pay them our applause by telling them the inconvenience of climate correction is too costly for their lives. The opposition is the objection, the demonstrators are not.

In our personal lives, we practice the power of “speaking things into existence” yet shy away when our communities “speak” things into existence collectively. Do we need reminders that the desires of an individual are only micro samples of the desires of hundreds more? Black Feminists have long stressed the importance of these integral life choices, Jennifer Richardson writes in Healing Circles as Black Feminist Interventions “I argue that in order to produce true social transformation and strive for a radical notion of collective freedom, we must pay attention not only to our political/ideological positions, but also to our individual and collective practices of self-care and healing — practices that are themselves deeply political.” These demonstrations serve as reminders.

Behind the scenes of every action there is an immeasurable amount of time invested in the organizing, the outreach and the maintaining of momentum to ensure that those who feel the same visceral feelings can find each other. They are already one step past simply speaking things into existence for they have acted. To act with others is the awakening, energizing and aligning of precise wants as tangible realities for the whole. It’s time we give the demonstrators and organizers credit for the hope and faith they have in us in our humanity and ability to move forward.

If our language discourages us to aspire for a just life then it is time for us to shift away from the language given to us by our oppressors. We must stop forcing the perspective that protesters are in disagreement with the rest of the world when they are in the field workshopping a more inclusive and stomacheable present. Every demonstration is a manifestation. A manifestation that invites all to witness the proof of movement towards a fundamentally different present as if to say here are all the people who share the same intentions. Show up to take your petition offline. Show up to say you endorse the cause, that there is a different world you desire and demand. Show up to say that Black Lives Matter indisputably. Show up to say a sustainable world is possible. Show up because there should be no reality where children are taken from their parents and thrown into cages. Show up because if you carry enough conviction others will help with its weight.

Why stay here when we can manifest a new tomorrow?