Images and videos from across the country are still coming through after Saturday’s record-breaking turnout in solidarity for the No Kings protest. Like millions of others, I woke up that morning not quite certain what to expect. Escalations in Los Angeles, a place I called home for over 25 years, weighed heavily on my mind and in my heart. How has our country found itself again at this threshold?
This movement against growing fascism and authoritarianism is anchored in two concurrent realities. One is that there are systems in place that need to be stopped, that need to be dismantled. For many who actively engage in civil disobedience, they describe themselves as being like grains of sand in the gears of a machine. Delay, Diffuse, Dismantle. It is an active force, the front lines, if you will, for any resistance movement. Those closest to the harmful impact should be the leaders of active resistance to inform strategy; however, too often it is unsafe for them to show up in those spaces. So trained allies must step in. We need more sand. If you know yourself to be sand, find a gear of oppression to stop.
But for those of us living further away from a place of direct action, what does resistance look like? For many like me, especially in rural and small towns not directly impacted (yet), our efforts of solidarity are mainly online or during a large mobilizing event, like No Kings. These are energizing and empowering, but they are not enough. For too many, they create a deep longing for something more in places where one can feel very alone. We call these places “red and rural”. Before Trump, they felt like community. Now, they feel guarded, like a neon “Stranger Danger” sign is flashing, telling everyone to avoid authentic connection. Where COVID silently brought separation, present politics has brought deafening division.
The vision for the Summer of Solidarity was born from a human longing for connection. We are losing our humanity to technology, propaganda, hate, and inflated egos grasping for power at all costs. And the only antidote to that loss that I know of is a return to our humanity—a return to ourselves in all our messiness and imperfect glory.
It was raining on Saturday when I set up the 8.5 x 11 sign announcing the Summer of Solidarity, protected from the rain by our brightly decorated pop-up tent for the No Kings event. The sign read, “Joy Is Resistance”. Flags and sunflowers. Flags and sunflowers and smiles. And a cheerful sunflower welcome mat to extend Hoosier Hospitality. My goal was to model an inviting space for conversation. Something probably very unexpected at a protest. As I set the sign down, my friend and co-worker for the day, Michelle Bloom, relayed the horrific news - a targeted “political assassination” in Minnesota took the lives of MN State Representative Melissa Hartman and her husband, Mark, and wounded MN State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. As her words hung in the air, tears filled my eyes. My sign and booth suddenly felt completely out of place. “What am I trying to do?” I thought. “Does it even matter anymore?” It all felt so small and irrelevant. Too naive and, dare I say, “Midwest Nice” out-of-touch. I stopped and took a deep breath, allowing myself to feel the moment of loss, confusion, fear, heartbreak. As my daughter says, “All the feels.”
I turned and looked once again at the sign. “Joy is Resistance.” The words were more of a whisper now. But the reality for me was and is that the only way forward, the only way through this pain, this fear, this division, is by embracing the truth wherever and whenever we find it. And the truth is that Joy is indeed a form of resistance. So I took another deep breath and resolved myself that these actions we were taking, as small as they seemed to be, were a step in the right direction.
Later that afternoon, I received confirmation. It started as a casual conversation with two young men who greeted us as they entered the square. (I really appreciated where we were set up because we were far enough away from the main stage to have conversations, and we were one of the first tables to greet people as they arrived, curious as to what to do or where to go.) I think these young men had plans to perhaps mock the assembly, as their questions about “Why No Kings Day?” or “Was ‘Due Process’ really in the Constitution?” seemed rehearsed. However, as I spoke with one of them more in-depth, the conversation shifted from abstract concepts around policy to the Summer of Solidarity. I told him it was about returning to our humanity through Joy. I then asked him what brought him joy. It was an unexpected question, and he hesitated. Not because he couldn’t answer it, but because he looked at me to see if I really actually cared. I think he was genuinely surprised to see that I did. I invited him to find what brings him true joy and then invite others to share it with him. Oh, and to add a sunflower. That was it.
He and his friend shook our hands. With genuine smiles of appreciation, they headed toward the stage to hear the speakers. If they arrived with questions or doubts or even mockery, I hope that we welcomed them warmly and invited them into the light of belonging and community. I really think this is what matters right now. The opposite of tyranny is community. My prayer is that we all see ourselves as seeds. We must find the fields and, as many a wise person has said, “bloom where we are planted”.
