The Resistance Needs YOU!
Thinking about the roles all of us can play in a time of resistance
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I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of protest recently, whether it’s the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles, yesterday’s No Kings marches, or other similar events. One anecdote comes to mind that seems worth sharing.
A few weeks ago, my wife, kids, and I joined some families from our school and marched in the Hampshire Pride Parade. (While most places celebrate Pride in June, the Hampshire Pride parade is celebrated in May so that students from Smith College, UMass-Amherst, Amherst College, Hampshire College, and Mount Holyoke College can participate before school ends and they head out of town).
There was a group of maybe three dozen or so of us representing the school. The kids sat in the back of a pickup truck, throwing candy at spectators and holding signs. The parents marched alongside the truck, waving at the crowd.
It was an especially sunny and warm morning, and as we entered the downtown section of Northampton, there was a very kind family handing out bottled water and cans of cold soda to those marching. We were all a bit parched, so this refreshment was a welcome reprieve.
The people distributing beverages owned a small convenience store that we were passing on the parade route, or at least, I think they do by putting two and two together. They weren’t using the free drinks as some kind of promotion. They were literally just doing a nice thing and contributing what they could to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community.
I’ve been thinking about that family lately as we’ve seen anti-ICE protests across the country, especially in Los Angeles. As I’ve been watching not only the protests, but also the militarized response to them, I have some mixed feelings.
I am certainly against the cruel deportations taking place and feel the need and desire to speak out against what’s happening. But I’m also not ready to board a flight to Los Angeles to do that.
To put it simply, I am not an experienced protestor. I weigh 135 pounds and have always been scrawny. If a cop with a body shield and baton started shoving me, I’d fall like a house of cards. I don’t think my skillset or experience is best used on the front lines.
Still, I feel the need to do something. I might not be the one extinguishing a tear gas canister or locking arms to form a human chain against the military, but I can’t just sit on my couch all day either.
The truth is resistance will take all of us using our own unique skillsets to make a difference.
I think back to that family distributing the bottled water. They could’ve been marching in the parade, but that wasn’t their calling. They had access to cases of drinks, large walk-in refrigerators to cool those drinks, and a spot right on the parade route where hundreds of marchers would pass. The best use of their time and energy was supporting parade participants with something helpful.
As I think about the Pride Parade more, the role of marcher was only one job. The role of beverage giver was another. But there was a third role too: spectator.
At various points on the parade route, we recognized different families from our school in the crowd and waved to them. My first reaction was that it was strange they weren’t marching and representing the school. But not everyone can march. Not everyone need march.
A parade without an audience isn’t very effective. Being a witness to the parade is an equally important role to marching in the parade.
A few days after the parade, I saw a parent who wasn’t able to attend the parade in any capacity. This parent commented that they had seen our photo in the newspaper. Unbeknownst to me, local media was also there covering the parade, and our school group, including my kids, were featured in a photo gallery from the event. Being a reporter, a storyteller, and sharing what happened is an important job too.
The bottom line is we all have different talents, skillsets, interests, bandwidth, financial situations, and more that we can contribute to the resistance right now.
A movement needs people that are willing to be on the front lines waving signs, shouting slogans, and making voices heard. But it also needs lawyers, accountants, medics, people to make spreadsheets, writers, musicians, and more. Some of those jobs are very visible, some happen completely out of sight behind the scenes.
We can’t all play the same part, but we can all play some part.
A few months ago, I wrote about lessons on resistance and retreat from The Sound of Music . Today, I want to return to that movie for one last lesson.
Towards the end of the movie, the von Trapp family are trying to escape Austria and seeks refuge in the convent where Maria had trained as a nun. They are offered a safe hiding place by the Mother Superior, but the Nazi soldiers are quick arrive at the convent and demand entry.
The Nazis bang on the locked entrance gate with urgency. A nun eventually approaches the locked gate and unlocks it, but she does so very slowly, very purposefully. She sluggishly saunters down the hallway, despite their barking requests to hurry up. When she gets to the gate, she’s careful to select the right key, then ploddingly inserts it into the lock, and turns.
She may have only bought ten or twenty seconds with this small act of resistance, but it could be the difference between the von Trapps finding a safe hiding spot or being discovered.
Later, that same nun and another sister have removed key engine components from the Nazi’s cars so that the von Trapps can make a safe escape.
We are made to believe in America that we must always comply with police requests, that we must always do whatever an officer asks us to do. We’re also taught to always strive for an “A” grade.
That nun shows that there are ways to technically comply while still being a bit of sand in the gears. She did what she was asked, but she did it at a “C minus” level. Not quite failing, but not exactly striving either.
The parade is here. You can march in it. You can watch it and cheer. You can hand out water. You can report on it and provide context. But you can’t stay home and do nothing.
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Related Reading
Is Retreat a Form of Resistance?
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So true. Many years ago I was very active in gay rights. I marched, I educated via church panels and I wrote letters to the editor. But that was then. I’m almost 80 now with more titanium in my extremities than bone so marching is out. I no longer live in the US any longer but live in a Latin country where gay rights are recognized. The attitude here is live and let live or there would be no Carnival or big celebrations that people here just love. Priorities you think are right?
The bottom line is we all have different talents, skillsets, interests, bandwidth, financial situations, and more that we can contribute to the resistance right now. -- YES!