Visible as an Asian at the Atlanta Women’s March
I’m writing despite the distress recordings that tell me to stay silent. My identities—I am a child of immigrants who survived colonization and war, a woman of Corean (Korean) heritage who grew up surrounded by white people, and a USer living in the South—tell me to be quiet and not speak up.
In this country, people of Asian heritage are expected to conform, stay quiet, keep our heads down, not show our struggles, keep producing, and not speak up or let others know what we are experiencing.
In attending the Women’s March in Atlanta (Georgia, USA), I was acting on a direction to become more visible. I was inspired by an interview with Mary Pipher about her book, The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture, about how human beings are designed to take action against threats and how starting action with small groups can prove surprisingly effective whereas choosing to do nothing will definitely make us feel worse.
Our local Atlanta RC Community discharged, came together to make signs, and then marched with 66,000 other Georgians—-a great turnout despite the initial two hours of pouring rain. (Apparently the Women’s Marches were the largest inauguration protest in U.S. history. After the last such protest, President Nixon was out of office in eighteen months.)
The crowd was a wonderful mix. It included people of different class backgrounds, People of the Global Majority, GLBTQ people, a lot of young people, and a lot of men. A speech by the much-loved civil rights activist Democratic Representative John Lewis marked the beginning of the march. Atlanta police lined the parade route, and protesters thanked them as they walked by. We RCers networked with many groups and loved the laughter and sense of empowerment.
Now we are on to our next RC Community project—becoming better listeners to the people who chose to vote Republican in the last election. I look forward to more action and more visibility (shake, shake).
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Reprinted from the e-mail discussion list for RC Community members
(Present Time 187, April 2017)