Why Protesting Is Important
When human rights and freedom are at stake, if we’re not part of the solution, we’re part of the problem.
I might be on a government list somewhere. The idea doesn’t scare me as much as the idea that we could lose all of our freedoms in the United States. Of course, I could lose all of my freedoms if the government acted on that list, treating me and the other legal protesters as if we had stepped over the line, and in a very legally sanctioned way, I guess we have.
Last year, I protested for the first time. I heard about the sanctuary seekers being jailed and their children taken away, and I made time to stand up for them. I joined one of the larger groups in Minneapolis put on by MoveOn.org. Just the thought of someone’s baby being ripped from them like they weren’t human and didn’t deserve the basic rights of all humans to protect our children struck a cord with me. For you see — I am a mother. Maybe if I hadn’t had my own offspring, I couldn’t have empathized quite so well, but I am and I did.
So I stood up. I marched on a ripped tendon. It was that important to me.
Then in January, I joined the Women’s March, knowing that it would be below zero temperatures and that there was controversy everywhere about it. Minneapolis seemed untouched by the scandal, and this is where I realized that we too often put too many…
