Within the Sea of Solidarity
A new anonymous ISF LGBTQ+ member shares a No Kings 2 debrief
To start, please allow us to heartily congratulate the attendees of the Bay Area No Kings 2 protest. The numbers we are hearing in the news are remarkable, and laudable, and anyone who made it out to march should give themselves a heartfelt clap on the back on our behalf and on behalf of all who felt too unsafe or who otherwise couldn’t make it.
This is written on behalf of LGBTQIA+ working group of ISF, representing one such community whose very existence has been deemed terroristic by the regime. Many in that community have been feeling the aforementioned unsafety acutely of late. To those who helped make that show of numbers on the 18th of October, whether by showing up in the streets, or by watching someone’s pets or children so they could go, or covering someone’s work shift, or looking the other way when someone called in sick, you all helped make the world a little safer for these people. Thank you.
Please hear this paraphrased interview from one such person who was on the ground with you at No Kings 2:
Interviewer: What was the first protest you attended?
Anonymous: The first time I protested was the “We Are the 99%” rally in the Castro in 2011, but this year, it was the first No Kings in June.
Interviewer: What inspired you to get in the streets?
Anonymous: There were a number of events leading up to it, like the FCC pressuring Jimmy Kimmel off the air, and corporations immediately capitulating to that. There were the deployments of the National Guard, and ICE escalating its violence in Chicago and Portland. It made me feel like we need to have a show of unity.
Interviewer: From the perspective of someone in the LGBTQ+ community, how did it feel out there?
Anonymous: It felt good, and a little terrifying. I brought P100 masks and prepared for everything that could go wrong. I also brought medicine and a first aid kit. There’s a lot of anxiety not limited to the LGBTQ+ community about the detentions happening right now, and concerns that we could be put into conversion camps.
But it felt good to be among people supporting the same cause. There was also uncertainty about how the government would react, but that feeling of being there for everyone else and them being there for me stuck with me.
Interviewer: What do you feel are the biggest barriers to attending a protest of this scale and of smaller scales?
Anonymous: It’s the biggest issue with any single day of protest, really, and that’s scheduling. There were lots of people who wanted to be there but couldn’t. Also lots who showed up late and barely ended up being a part of it. The fact we got 7-8 million people in that limited time frame is astounding. There’s a feeling that people who couldn’t come to this one can come to the next one. No Kings is very much in alignment with the political ideas of the people in this community. I imagine if I were in Tennessee or Florida, that feeling would be different. (Interviewer note: As someone with parents who protested in a relatively remote Floridian county, I’ve heard the atmosphere was subdued, but mostly positive. Even the drivers going by seemed mostly supportive. Only one passerby gave them the bird.)
Other barriers, I would say, are mainly education. I can only imagine how it’ll evolve now, with them putting Prager U in schools, rewriting social studies curricula to recontextualize slavery as good for the enslaved? We need to get back to teaching the truth as soon as possible.
Interviewer: Were there any signs, caricatures or performances that stuck with you after leaving?
Anonymous: I can recall two in particular. One person had a dog with a vest that read, “I bite fascists.” Another was following the chants with a piccolo with improvised notes.
Interviewer: What is your opinion right now of how our political leadership is handling the moment we are in?
Anonymous: This is kind of a wait-and-see moment in our city, with the chatter saying we’re about to see a troop mobilization here. If this were Portland, I’d have a lot more to say regarding the National Guard deployment, for example. I don’t agree with Gavin Newsom on a lot of points, but the efforts to prevent masking and trying to disable the anonymized kidnapping to some degree are helpful. As for his recent bill signatures and vetoes regarding transgender healthcare, time will tell. [See Indivisible SF’s call script for Governor Newsom regarding these bills. Note that there is no longer any need to call since the bills have now been either signed or vetoed and there is no further action for the governor to take.]
I would push back to some degree on the politicians telling us “not to take the bait.” Although it’s important to avoid becoming part of their propaganda, we need to be loud in a way that a lot of national Democratic leadership is not willing to be.
As for the Republicans, it’s the same crap as ever, with them toeing the party line. They seem to be voting for whatever the “king” wants.
Interviewer: To conclude, is there anything you would like to say to the people who were on the ground with you?
Anonymous: Let’s keep showing people that we aren’t afraid.
Thank you for hearing and standing in solidarity with the people of our community! Please check out our Call-to-Action below
CTA for No Kings 2 Debrief
No Kings 2 was a fantastically well attended show of unity in opposition to Trump’s deadly power grabs, policies, and ineptitude. The action that we propose now for those that got this far is to remember that No Kings 2 is only the beginning of what a democratic restoration requires of us. For those readers who know someone energized and made hopeful by the numbers in the streets, ask them to come with you to our general meeting on October 26th. Come and say thanks to the organizers who helped make the phone calls and set up a route for us to march!
Going forward with the intent of using all tools at our disposal, it would be prudent to remember that the eager capitulation (or active participation) of US corporations to the fascist elements of this regime led in large part to emboldening them to make the overreaches they have. People of a mind to attend a large-scale protest like No Kings likely are aware of the concept of “voting with your dollars,” and perhaps you have participated in numerous boycotts in the decades leading up to this one. But it should be clear that the unity and momentum of No Kings is one hell of an opportunity to make such boycotts more forceful and harder to ignore.
Remember how Jimmy Kimmel was forced off the air by the FCC… and then within a week was forced right back on by a people’s boycott of Disney? That boycott was a viral event that materialized out of thin air, which is a difficult event to replicate while relying upon the whims of social media, but now you get to network with the people who marched with you or for you mere days ago, and discover your power together.
Check out this list of companies that have known affiliations with ICE’s current activities. You may have committed yourself to moral boycotts on your own before, but individual actions are weak. Organize with the people in your communities and neighborhood pods. Together, we can knock ICE’s legs out from under them.
Resources:
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/second-no-kings-day-protests-likely