What the #Resistance Taught Me
Yes, it could feel performative. But protest during the Trump years provided me with the civic training to undo the damage.
Four years ago, I packed a small bag and prepared to captain a charter bus from my home in Ohio to Washington, D.C., for the Women’s March. I don’t knit and didn’t have one of the pink hats that so many women were wearing that day. I felt the hats acknowledged sexual assault but also somehow made light of it in a way I couldn’t quite articulate at the time. I wasn’t one among the many who made their worried hands busy, knot by knot, trying to symbolize the affront to women’s bodies that Trump’s callous words and actions epitomized.
Along with my portable phone charger I packed vague notions of righteousness. Our country is better than this, I thought. She should have been president. I also shoved in small, personal fears and zipped them away. With my small voice, I’d have to shout over a busload of mobilized women, giving directions about where to meet, how to get to the march, and how they could get back on the bus home. The pull of that very small duty compelled me to stand up that day, be heard over the din, and manage a pocket of the impending chaos.
