We Came Late: Thoughts After the NYC Women’s March
by Andrea Crowley-Hughes
The night before the New York City Women’s March, I was stowing Lara bars and neatly organized baggies filled with bandages, gauze and butterfly closures into our backpacks. I had read all the pre-march checklists I could fit into a browser window crammed with open tabs. Still, I was too late in learning that Maalox is a more effective treatment for tear gas irritated eyes than Pepto Bismol.
My mind has the tendency of jumping to – and rushing to prevent – worst case scenarios, and I had never been to a protest as large as the Women’s March. But the fastidious preparations also worked as distractions, reasons to refer to that Friday night “the night before the march” and not “Inauguration night.”
“It might rain. Why didn’t I get ponchos?” is a more manageable worry than “It’s a dictatorship. Why didn’t I phone bank?”
A disaster prevention mindset doesn’t leave much room for surprise. So when my husband and I got into the city and found ourselves pushing through a living current of fellow protesters that felt more like a party than a grim, unified front, I still hadn’t unclenched the anxiety within myself – we’ll get separated, how will we find our friends? Why isn’t the crowd moving yet?
It wasn’t until I was staring out the window of the Starbucks that was the designated meeting place for our friends that the magnitude of what was happening settled in, and all its overlapping meanings started to take shape.
I was sitting next to a little blonde girl who had her mom’s phone number written on her forearm in Sharpie. She had a homemade “Not My President” sign and a Hello Kitty hat was plopped on the table in front of her. We got into a conversation about everything from the sign and the hat to art class at school and her three favorite restaurants.
“My mom told me Donald Trump doesn’t like cats, but I like cats and this is the only cat thing I have.”
The firmness and confidence in her voice that hit me right in the feelings. The declarations children can make before they learn shame, before they learn fear are no small part of what keeps the rest of us going.
Outside the window a group leader was handing out Miss America sashes with phrases like “Miss Represented” and “Miss Construed.” A woman held up a sign that looked like it was painted in watercolor: “I Won’t Let You Destroy My Daughter’s Future.” In tribute to Carrie Fisher, another woman was decked out in in full Princess Leia garb. There was a much higher percentage of strollers than I would have expected.
I let my guard down then. And when our group was marching at a steady pace – the streets a haven in which we could process our reactions to the sickening transition of power without having to defend our bodies – I truly relaxed. An especially poignant moment was walking under a bridge packed with supporters when the sun was staring to set and a drum-backed chant broke out: “Show me what democracy looks like / This is what democracy looks like!” It felt like we were being welcomed into a reborn city.
Uploading photos to Instagram after the march took on a surreal quality. Someone who expects the worst at a protest never expects that they’ll look back at the pictures that were taken and catch a smile on their face. On the train we exchanged contented looks with a veteran of the 1960s protests. She showed us her sign asked about the Star Wars resistance symbol. We agreed it had been a phenomenal day.
As I started to make photo collages after midnight (it felt as if broadcasting this heavily pink hatted resistance act had to be done before a new day dawned and the pace of an administration opposed to everything we marched for picked up), I saw posts come through about how peaceful the march had been.
But the ‘peace’ of the Women’s Marches – which brought out more than 3 million women and allies and overshadowed inauguration crowds – can’t be viewed uncritically. For Black Lives Matter protesters who were in the resistance before it was a catch phrase, tear gas and police in riot gear were realities. When you are mobilizing in emergency mode after the police killed someone, you can’t afford not to account for worst case scenarios, as they are the more likely case. The true bubble many of of us are living in doesn’t involve shutting out the concerns of red states. Instead many white women risk living in the knitted confines of pussy hats and the effortlessness of wearing cute boots to a march toward Trump Tower. We have to show up, if we’re physically and mentally able, when it’s not cute, when it hasn’t been planned for months and it looks something like this week’s actions: vigils in response to Trump’s concrete plans to build a wall on the U.S./Mexico border and to actively prevent refugees from taking refuge here based on their race and religion.
Most importantly, we must learn not to center ourselves and our own concerns. We must be willing to be led by those who have been in the fight long before we knew there was a fight: women of color who have been sounding the alarms about state violence when it was more convenient for us not to heed them.
As Minnesota activist Ashley Fairbanks wrote on Facebook the day of the Women’s Marches:
“If you are willing to fight and resist, I am willing to walk with you. If you are willing to come into the work with your head down and your ears open and a willingness to learn, I hope you will find open doors.
Please remember that you came late.
Please ask yourself what resistance means to you.
Please understand that our trust may not come easily.
Please remember that this work is about so much more than pussy hats, clever signs and selfies.
Please remember people have died in the fight for not just equity, but the right to breathe. The right just to live. Not just people in the struggle now but the generations that came before us.
Please learn and live the definition of intersectionality.
That’s all I’ve got.”
Andrea Crowley-Hughes is a recent graduate of The New School Media Studies program. She co-edits and writes for The Refresh, works on web design projects and attempts to find hope in terrifying times. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @and_reach.