Why Do I Protest?
Why am I so bitter? Why do I protest?
You dismiss my protest for a more just and equitable society with the demeaning question, “Why are you so bitter?” You tell me to “sit down and STFU.” By your dismissal of my protest and your command that I stop, you put yourself above the US Constitution. You tell me I have no right to free speech, nor to a just and equitable society. You tell me that you do not accept that I am part of “We the People,” that I have not right to “the Blessings of Liberty.”
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Why do I protest, you imperiously demand? How dare I protest you, Trump-defending, flag-waving, Bible-thumpers, marching in ARMED protest in defense of your right to mass-people killing guns (not in defense of children slaughtered in schools with those guns) ask? I protest because people like you voted for a proven criminal, credibly accused by 20+ women of sexual harassment, assault, and even child rape. Because people like you still support a man who rips babies from their mother’s arms and locks them in cages. Because you give full-throated approval of a man who has lied to Americans SIXTEEN THOUSAND TOW HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO TIMES in the 1,095 days since he was installed in office. Because people like you defend his betrayal of our Constitution with his unfettered criminality. Because people like you normalize his blatant, morally repugnant thuggary.
Why do I protest?
I protest because I AM AN AMERICAN! Exactly how do you think America was founded? How do you think we got public eduction? Have you ever heard of the Boston Tea Party? The American Revolution? The Abolitionists? Rosa Parks? The Freedom Ride? The Civil Rights Movement? The Equal Housing Amendment? The Voting Rights Act? How the devil do you think we formed this country at all?
I protest because this is a nation founded on people seeing a problem, speaking out, standing up, and demanding change. This is a nation founded on protest.
You say it’s just the way things are? You see problems, just shrug and say nothing can change?
I protest because this is America. We DO NOT have to suffer in silence and accept the political fallacy that nothing can change.
We’re Americans. WE ARE CHANGE.
