- There is something invasive about hope, something formidable about it’s own character. There is also something about hope that people will cause people to chase it to the ends of the earth.
Hope is omnipresent for it can be found anywhere. It raged through the crowds of people that streamed onto the streets of Washington D.C. on Saturday, Jan. 21, to take back what they believe in.
There were pussy hats atop heads of all colors and all ages. There were creative signs that had slogans like, “Mike Pence Uses Internet Explorer”. There were empowering shouts of the classic “Pussy Grabs Back” which were heard from the Washington Monument to the gates of the White House. The Women’s March on Washington was simply a beautiful conglomeration of hope.
In more ways than one, resistance has always been a part of American democracy. It has sometimes been the only way to feasibly achieve relative equality. The suffragists did not ask for the right for white women to vote, instead they took it through human action.
We did not, as a country, fall closer into the realm of equality by a bill introduced into Congress or an executive order by a president. We did it by marching into the offices of our government and yelling. The white women who acted in audacity and channeled abrasiveness did so, because the hope for their future was further incited by each other.
The mass media portrayal of the idea of protests or marches being dangerous is not wrong. When people organize with similar ideas, or similar dispositions, hope can and will return to the atmosphere. And hope is a dangerously powerful force.
Hope gives courage to those that need it, and emboldens those who are already brave. Hope is eternal in its existence. Seeing hundred of thousands of strangers acting on each other’s hope, endorsing democratic resistance is an indescribable experience.
It is hard to lose hope when one is encircled by people willing to fight for and with one another. However, physical presence at the Women’s March and the inaugural protests does not and should not matter. Whether one is screaming along with the crowds, glimpsing at its coverage on a screen, or hearing about it through another’s voice, these forms of protest all inspire hope.
The concerned citizens who marched through the streets of DC poured kerosene onto the kindling that is our democracy’s current resistance. The message is clear: we will not tolerate pussy grabbers, we will not let walls be constructed that separate our cultures and our families and we will defend ourselves and each other before we let anyone come for our freedom.
The message of hope is inclusive. The marchers in DC have made clear that resistance and hope belong to us all, no matter the creed or color of skin. With a message that belongs to everyone and will therefore call everyone to the battlefield, hope is incited and change will find it’s footing.
