Today, around noon, I stood silently for about an hour and a half in front of the flagpole (with a bronze First Amendment plaque at the base) on the quad on our campus. I held protest signs.

Many passersby do their best to ignore me. My being there must make them feel uncomfortable. You’re welcome. Others will nod, greet me, or tell me they like my pink knit cap.

Some appear to want to engage. They don’t. I’m 6’4″ and weigh in over two hundred fifty pounds. Maybe that makes them hesitate.

The RESIST sign is hard to miss. It can be read from quite a distance away. Good Germans said in the past, believable or not, “We didn’t know.” I’m here now, trying to show people that they should know, they need to know. At the very least I want the image of that sign, with an old white guy standing in silence, holding it, seared into their memories for forty or fifty years from now. And in their nightmares. Because they do know, and they’re doing nothing, and they’ll probably continue to do nothing.

One of today’s conversations, from someone with a bit more brass:

Question: What are you resisting?

Response: Six weeks from now. You’re gonna have a choice.

Question: What’s that choice?

Response: You can either speak out, be silent, flee, or collaborate.

Question: With what?

Response: What’s gonna happen in six weeks?

Question: Uh, the inauguration, is that what you’re talking about?

Response: Yeah, and they told us what they’re gonna do. So, if you’re good with that you get to make choices. If you’re not good with that, you have choices to make.

Question: What did they tell us? What are they gonna do?

Response: Have you ever thought about the logistics of deporting twenty million people?

Question: I don’t know.

Response: Yeah, see, maybe do a little reading, get curious about it.

Question: I don’t know, I just don’t like to get political.

Response: Huh. Yeah.

Question: Have a good day.

Response: You, too.

“…I just don’t like to get political.”

#resist

Previously:

The resistance (December 18, 2016)

Sanewashing on the road to normalcy (November 8, 2024)

Practical Dissent: Protest Signs (November 17, 2024)

Practical Dissent: Just Do It (November 19, 2024)

Practical Dissent: it’s the weather, and a lot more (November 21, 2024)

Practical Dissent: planting seeds (November 26, 2024)

Practical Dissent: One (November 27, 2024)

Practical Dissent: testing, testing… (November 28, 2024)

“…Do not be taken in by small signs of normality…” (December 1, 2024)