COLLEGE NETWORK, LIFE TOPICS

There Is Strength In Solidarity

November 12, 2016 | Posted at 11:09 pm | by Bethany (Follow User)

Photo Credit: Image courtesy of video tweet from Gay Days Los Angeles. There were at least 100,000 on the protest out here shutting down Wilshire on Saturday, November 12)

I have yet to find the words to properly express how I feel about the election. Shocked and betrayed is merely a start.
 

I stayed up in my room, unable to concentrate on anything else as I watched the results come in and the Electoral college numbers stack up. Around 3 a.m., when I finally saw that he had won, I closed my laptop and cried. My other friend was texting me; drunk and sobbing for hours. Fearing her father’s deportation, she told him to begin looking for work outside the U.S.
 

I had gone home from college the day before to vote, and so I barely got 2-3 hours of sleep before I had to get on a train back and go to class, which was the last place I ever wanted to be. My mom hugged me before she went to work, having already heard about the results but displaying incredible strength.
 

“Keep fighting the good fight,” she told me before she left.
 


”
I walked around like a zombie the entire day, dazed and unable to process it even as it was discussed in every class.”


 
I heard there would be a protest in Union Square that night. Two of my best friends were going, and I decided to show up if only for a little bit, since I was incredibly exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Showing up to the protest was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I was surrounded by loving and supporting people, with signs proclaiming love, and women chanting “My body my choice!” while the men yelled “Your body, your choice!” We marched all the way from Union Square to Trump Tower, and suddenly I was rejuvenated again.
 

We stopped traffic for forty blocks. There were thousands of us shouting, “Whose streets? Our streets!” Taxi drivers high-fived us, one man got out of his car to cheer, and several people held hands in front of cars to clear our way, allowing us to go through. Never have I met so many beautiful strangers. I finally felt empowered, not even twenty-four hours after feeling like all power had been effectively denied to me. My friends all texted to cheer me on, there were press everywhere, and my mom wrote to me to say how proud of me she was. My heart was warm and full of love.
 

But it didn’t stop there. The protest was so amazing I am sure it will not be my last one. While there, suddenly women I had barely spoken to were messaging me to ask what they could do and mourn and organize together. The unity present within this country is extraordinary. And it’s extremely shown in the nearly 4 million signatures received for a Change.org petition asking the Electoral College to respect the popular vote (it’s here if you would like to join).
 

”
I have felt so close to all of those coming together, united by our troubles.”


 

campaign
 

I saw how many people were donating to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. The protests continued for four days straight, and my mom went to her first one in Union Square with me today, after taking several pictures to document the occasion. My Dad texted me to ask how I was doing after the results to see if me and my friends were alright. I asked if he had ever protested, and he said at Rutgers he went to a sit-in for apartheid, which as he pointed out, we thankfully no longer have. “You can always make a difference, it just might take longer than you want it to,” he reassured me.
 

I’m very unhappy to see the divide in America, and I hope we can come together to stop the bigotry, the hatred, and the hate crimes. (I live in NYC and unfortunately, several of my friends have already been called racist slurs.) Crazy.
 

But there’s one thing from the election I’m grateful for: finding there is power and strength in unity. One of the things we chanted was, “The people united will never be defeated!” After what I have seen in mere days, I can already tell that this is true. Just look for yourself: