#fightinjusticetogether

[oneelleofablog]

Peace Rally

Saturday, I attended my first peace rally. It was held by an organization called Fighting Injustice Together in an effort to raise awareness of the confederate monument located in front of a cemetery in downtown Greenville. I didn’t know much about the group, or the monument, but my friend asked if I would go with her, and fifteen minutes later we were writing “Love Your Neighbor” on poster boards and walking to the cemetery from the Publix parking lot. When we arrived, it was clear two opposing parties were at the site, and a police officer promptly asked me which side I was on. I said “ the peaceful side”, to which he replied, “both are peaceful, ma’am”. It was already obvious how uneducated I was in this matter, so I dejectedly replied, “the side to move the statue”. He directed me to the group of people who were not in front of the statue, but across the street from it. I thought that was a little strange, but when I looked at the other crowd, I understood. A group of confederate protesters had camped out the night before in front of the monument, in an attempt to disrupt and distract the rally. Due to the large number of violent threats FIT had received, the police did not want the two groups in the same vicinity, so they directed the rally to the other side of the street. Due to some sort of city ordinance, after four hours the police would rotate each group to the opposite side, giving the rally group a chance to be in front of the monument and conduct their gathering as intended. So, we show up, join the crowd across the street from the monument, and try to figure out our place in this vague, more-than-slightly uncomfortable situation. The group is chanting, “Who lost the war?” “You did!” and “Who’s gonna lose this one?” “You are!”. That felt weird, because I thought this was a peace rally to bring awareness to a monument needing to be moved, not to reiterate who won the war. After a few minutes of timidly holding our signs just at chest-level while those around us were chanting, someone took the megaphone and explained that we were soon going to be walking across the street to conduct the rally at the base of the monument. This was when I learned of the city ordinance that allowed the other party to be where they were for four hours, but then required them to move so we could have our turn. This law enforced game of musical chairs was to take place at 2:30PM, but at 2:25PM, a new chant began: “Greenville Police, do your job!”. Now, to be fair, only a few people engaged in this chant, as it was very clear that the Greenville Police were in fact doing their job, and doing it very well. Regardless of how loud it was, it was still uncomfortable to once again be in the midst of a group of people chanting words I didn’t fully agree with. The protesters – confederate flags and all - had officially moved to the street, which had been blocked off, and we crossed and congregated at the base of the monument. It was at this point that I began to see just how messy these types of things are. The FIT founder took the megaphone and explained the purpose of the event. He then explained that other groups were also represented at the rally, which may or may not have the same reasons for being there. He allowed those groups to speak, and it was clear some were there to demand the statue be completely removed, destroyed, and a monument to the confederate victims be erected in its place, while FIT was there to demand the statue be removed from the public downtown area and moved to the privately owned confederate museum in Greenville. These were two very different motivations - one to demolish the monument completely, and one to relocate it to private property where taxpayer dollars are not being spent to maintain this piece of controversial history. While people on the same side were there for different reasons, the other messy part about all of this was the protesting taking place across the street. That was already made clear by the fact that the rally group had to wait four hours to stand in the place they originally wanted while the protestors chanted and insulted them from that spot until they had to move, but when the rally finally started, the protestors continued to chant and yell at the rally goers in an attempt to distract the crowd – and it was working really well on a few people. The FIT founder kept trying to bring everyone back to the point of the rally, which was not to engage in a shouting match with the protestors, but they were relentless. Hearing their words and hearing some of the rally members respond to them was the most uncomfortable part of the experience. I heard coarse, bigoted, arrogant, and hateful language coming from the protestors. Unfortunately, I heard some pretty hateful words in response from the rally end too. The protesters also had big trucks with confederate flags and passengers with extended middle fingers hanging out of the windows riding up and down the street that divided the two groups. It was hateful and ignorant, and I could feel my blood boiling at the injustice of it all. It was in the uncomfortable moment of hearing such horrible words and phrases being yelled at an entire group of people trying to do something peaceful and informative that I realized how difficult it is to stand up for what you believe is right, in public. I am not justifying violence or hatred in any way, but I cannot imagine the amount of restraint and focus people who are being attacked while trying to stand up for what they believe is right must exercise. I know people do it, I just think it is very difficult. Hearing what the confederate protesters were yelling at the rally goers, it made sense to me that people get, loud, emotional, even violent. It also made sense why the police had separated the two groups. Again, this is not condoning or excusing violence and hatred. If anything, this is emphasizing how respectable and incredible the peaceful and loving are in the face of their enemies. Peace and love are truly the more difficult qualities to portray in these moments. I was at this thing on a whim, not extremely invested, and even I felt offended, disgusted, and angry at the words being shouted at me. After a few more people spoke, FIT started calling random people from the crowd to speak into the megaphone why they were there. I was one of those randomly selected, and forced, people. Once again I felt extremely uncomfortable, but I leaned into the moment, pressed the TALK button, and said, “I’m here because my friend invited me, and I’m glad I came. I believe all life has value, regardless of skin color, and I don’t believe this monument honors that.” I have no idea if what I said made sense, if it was inspiring, or if it was the politically correct thing to do, but people clapped and I’m taking that as a success. We stayed for a bit longer, than decided to leave since the people with the megaphone at this point truly were random rally attenders, not any organization’s designated speakers. Walking away, my friend and I immediately started talking about all that we just experienced. It was frustrating, convoluted, inspiring, discouraging, encouraging, and very uncomfortable. After talking for a while, my friend said something that stayed in my mind. She said, “These types of things leave you with two choices – to either not get involved at all, or to get involved and be willing to risk being misunderstood because of the nuanced types of people and beliefs around you.” As soon as she said those words, I realized exactly why the entire experience was so uncomfortable (other than the blatant hate from the protesters) – I was scared to be misunderstood. I didn’t want to be mistaken as angry, anti-government, blindly progressive, hatefully close-minded, uneducated, or even passive (by not saying anything to those protestors). I was afraid of being mixed up in the nuance of humanity, and that should never be a reason for abandoning my own. I have a word for myself for the entire year, and this year it is BRAVE. Going to the peace rally was a brave thing for me to do. Accepting the risk of being misunderstood for a cause greater than my comfort was brave for me. Even writing this post about something that could be misconstrued into a million incorrect interpretations is a brave step for me. I want to go to more peace rallies. I want to see that monument moved so my tax dollars are not being used for its preservation. But more than the monument being moved, I want to stop the bigotry, ignorance, and blind hatred that I saw at that rally. The fate of a symbol should never justify hating and devaluing a fellow human being. No disagreement should make excuse for bigotry and ignorance. We are not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good. Evil isn’t brave, it’s cowardly. Goodness is brave. Love is brave. Peace is brave. And being brave is what I intend to do.