January 21, 2017 — The Day We Marched
January 21, 2017 — The Day We Marched
On the seventh anniversary of the Women’s March, I honor what was real
There will come a time when there will be discussions of reparations for those who were casualties of the Great Information War.
Rupert Murdoch will have to write another Big Fat Check, and it will never be enough.
US traitors who sold us out to the Kremlin will be forever disgraced, new words will be invented to scale up to their level of treason.
And for the women, who were denied opportunities for themselves and their daughters — denied the celebration of the First Woman President — the world will know what happened in the Stolen Election of 2016.
For those of us who were there — who knew that something had gone terribly wrong in America — sorrow will be replaced by solidarity. I have made some mighty fine allies. I have met people from around the world who have propped me up and given me peace, who bear witness to my pain and carry me when I am weak.
Everything that was ever any good you pay for, and the Women’s March was good. It was great, it was one of the best days ever.
And fuck the Russians, because they destroyed that, too. Their shitty infiltration scarred what was a beautiful organic uprising.
As the New York Times reported:
Linda Sarsour awoke on Jan. 23, 2017, logged onto the internet, and felt sick.
The weekend before, she had stood in Washington at the head of the Women’s March, a mobilization against President Donald J. Trump that surpassed all expectations. Crowds had begun forming before dawn, and by the time she climbed up onto the stage, they extended farther than the eye could see.
More than four million people around the United States had taken part, experts later estimated.
But then something shifted, seemingly overnight. What she saw on Twitter that Monday was a torrent of focused grievance that targeted her…
More than 4,000 miles away, organizations linked to the Russian government had assigned teams to the Women’s March. At desks in bland offices in St. Petersburg, using models derived from advertising and public relations, copywriters were testing out social media messages critical of the Women’s March movement, adopting the personas of fictional Americans.
They posted as Black women critical of white feminism, conservative women who felt excluded, and men who mocked participants as hairy-legged whiners…
Over the 18 months that followed, Russia’s troll factories and its military intelligence service put a sustained effort into discrediting the movement…One hundred and fifty-two different Russian accounts produced material about Ms. Sarsour…
Many people know the story about how the Women’s March movement fractured, leaving lasting scars on the American left…
We were denied the lasting glory of our historic day — it, too, was tainted by the lie factory, and we were too ready to believe the worst about women — always ready to shoot our own.
And yet, in my heart, I will always celebrate that beautiful day. They can’t take it away from me because I was there. I went there to document it as a member of the free press, because I knew the joykillers would try to steal it, that it would be misreported on Fox as something sinister instead of beautiful.
It was a day of love and dignity. A day where men joined us and celebrated with us. There was so much joy.
I had no means to get to Washington DC, but I knew I had to be there.
I have written about my journey in my Resistance diary, ‘It’s Komprocated’.
I knew we’d been had when the trolls slept in on November 9, 2016.
They made the mistake of being silent.
I knew a fraud had been perpetuated on the American people.
And when I held my daughter in my arms the morning after the election — this strong young feminist was crying — I told her I would make it right. We’d get Trump out and expose him for the criminal he was. I consoled my son, whose teacher — a Muslim American — wept in class that day, knowing what was to come under Trump.
I didn’t know then it would take four years to get him out, but I got to work. I typed and tweeted like a gunslinger with words. I never slept. The executive job I was offered the day before the election — so the sea of men who interviewed me could check the box they’d hired a woman — was no longer necessary. The day after the election, when we were supposed to negotiate salary, the call never came. No box needed to be checked. The patriarchy was safe. I did get a call from my manager who handled my development deals that I should shift focus to series about self-made millionaire men. I think a threw up.
And on my lowest day after the election, the day I realized I hadn’t smiled since November 8, I met a friend on Twitter who invited me to the Women’s March in Washington DC.
On a Gofundme supported by my favorite punk bands, I got enough money to put a camera crew together and make it to Washington. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world were there, and we marched peacefully and joyfully.
It was a lovefest. It was healing. We were each other’s witnesses.
I strung together a few soundbites from that day. I have them all memorized by heart.
Among the women I met that weekend in Washington, was an immigrant from Bosnia. She shared an important lesson with me on why love must always win:
I often wonder if Mary Parker from Ann Arbor, Michigan, is still with us. She was 100-years old, and she could no longer walk, but she, too, had to be there. She was in a wheelchair, and I met her at the base of the Washington Monument. She was born three years before women could vote. She told me to work harder. I promised her I would.
I have carried the words of a Swedish woman I interviewed at the Women’s March. Here, again, is what she said:
Protect Democracy.
Endure the difficulties, and the labor of democracy.
Shortcuts do not work for the people… it only works for the strongest.
You must always get in touch with the weakest person.
From there is where you walk, and from where you work.
And here is Mary Parker’s advice from her ten decades on earth:
It’s been seven years, and I have kept my promise to Mary Parker.
Join me as we protect democracy and endure the labor of democracy, while lifting up the weakest, and together, marching straight ahead.
Join my in reclaiming that day, and reclaiming our truth.
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For the first few years of the war, I fought back with my words on my Maewestside Tumblr blog, much to the amusement of my children. Here’s a post I wrote while I was still in DC, on 1.23.2017. My jaw just dropped when I read the title! I don’t remember using the title Bette Dangerous on that post but I guess that’s just the cosmic flow. Truly, wow! Here it is:
Bette Dangerous: And Other Women Who March… by heidi siegmund cuda, aka Maewestside
Below photos, from top left — me at the March, handing out flowers to police officers; a sign someone put on Ben Franklin reading ‘This Is Not Normal, a perfect encapsulation of events; a beautiful Abraham Lincoln sentiment and lovely hat; I added the strawberry to be demure, but another great sentiment; Ms. Parker with her daughter; and a gent who gave me so much hope.
Begin each day with a grateful heart.