Fly to the Assemblies!: Seattle and the Rise of the Resistance

Fly to the Assemblies!

Seattle and the Rise of the Resistance

Edited by Marcus Harrison Green

Afterword by Mark Baumgarten

Contents

Title Page

Foreword

A Day Not Far

Make America Again

The Rural America That is Part of Me

We Must Aim Higher

I Have No Grace Today

Crashing the Parties

On Fear and Anger and Fighting Back

Why You Voted the Way You Did

Being an Activist Parent Post-Election

A Ten Hour Road Trip to Cross Political Divides

An Authentic Invitation

Finding a Collective Movement in Progressive Seattle

International Workers of Natural Foods Grocery Stores, Unite!

My Time at Standing Rock

On Trolls and Safe Spaces

Pulling Together

The Crackdown on Immigrants and Refugees — What About the Children?

The Journaling of a Movement

The Kids Are Alright, For Now

With Automatic Voter Registration, I Can See Women Like Me in Politics

If We Can Keep It

Traveling Through Trump Country

Getting America's House In Order

Afterword: What Now?

About the Contributors

Also by Edited by Marcus Harrison Green

All essays © 2019 the respective authors. Reprinted with permission

Fly to the Assemblies!: Seattle and the Rise of the Resistance © 2019 by Vertvolta Press

All rights reserved. Aside from established & agreed-upon commerce platforms, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing of the publisher, except by reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for publication in print and electronic form.

Edited by Marcus Harrison Green

Cover art: © Vladimir Verano

Book and cover design: Vladimir Verano, Vertvolta Press

Published in the United States by

Vertvolta Press

Seattle, Washington

vertvoltapress.com

Foreword

That perilous times plague us was a fact underscored for many with the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

For some, it forever shattered the faith they placed in this country and its institutions. For others, it simply reinforced the skepticism ever-present in their hearts about this American experiment.

The ensuing time brought a range of mourning, navel gazing, myth busting, blame assignment, and most profoundly valorous actions of those unwilling to acquiesce to the circumstance their country now faces.

In that vein, this collection of essays is not about the dreariness of what was, but the splendor of what can be in America.

These essays attempt to locate that future, and along the way help readers discover resolve, resilience, and most of all an illuminating hope. It is my wish that the words in this book have the enduring effect historian Howard Zinn’s had on this writer the morning of November 9th, 2016, after something I believed was impossible had transpired:

"TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

Choose hope, always.

Marcus Harrison Green

A Day Not Far

by Marcus Harrison Green

Since November, time has passed at the pace of erosion for the punch-drunk many. Days that have long arrived weighted down by decades of civic impoverishment now begin with additional fatigue brought on by the mental toll of our new political reality.

Months after the election, I still encounter my fellow distressed Americans, seemingly shipwrecked after experiencing the unfathomable. All have some variation of the same stream of questions: How do we mount a resistance to the evil around us? How do we find hope? How do we save this country?

But for me . . . for me, there’s another question that assaults my brain at daybreak every morning, on that is no less agile in its evasion of easy answers: Is this country worth saving?

Daily, I see citizens that share my dark complexion killed on video under questionable circumstances, falling at the hands of those authorized to serve and protect. Fear follows, for my own life and those of my young nephews should they be stopped by law enforcement.

Weekly, I will see a report of some crazed gunman who has senselessly abandoned any attachment to humanity, ripping people from their lives in a mass execution.

Monthly, I witness more of our citizen’s plummet into poverty, falling into destitution, spiraling into a bottomless pit of despair.

Yearly, I view the crisis to our climate go unaddressed.

Of course, our perilous times have not been without their cracks of daylight.

Philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that in a genuine democracy, each citizen would be so consumed with the state of their republic that they would fly to the assemblies, correcting any wrong foisted on the collective good. In the early months of the new administration, our republic saw people fly to the airports, fly to marches, and fly to the streets to defend their fellow citizens.

While those inspiring spurts have been welcome, most days since early November find me waiting for hope to prevail inside. Our present has put a lie to tales of hopes eternal springing.

I continue waiting for our current reality to cease the constant leeching of optimism from my spirit while I cling to every last drop for dear life.

I keep anticipating a restoration of a sane country, a sharp shift away from the absurd.

I fight the urge to throw dirt on the coffin of my belief in this society.

I try to deny that the love my fellow citizens have for this country could be overwhelmed by hatred of the other, and the unbridle interests of the self.

But all that I thought solid has melted into air, all that I thought holy is profaned.

And I know it is readily force fed to us over and over that there were valid reasons to endorse the presidency and platform of the person who now occupies the White House—but I’m rather tempted to say that doing the wrong thing for the right reasons still amounts to the wrong thing, and exempts no one from its consequences.

I try to resuscitate my sense of hope by remembering the spirit of those who came before me, the DNA coursing through my veins belonging to former slaves and natives who survived the inhumane horrors of a savage institution, and a merciless genocide committed in the name of a righteous destiny.

Yet even today I see the horrific ramifications from both American atrocities still lingering for a people who, yes, survive, but still find trouble fully living in our society.

Fully living in our society, free from oppression, free from persecution . . . free from fear.

It never dawned on me before that many of us were taking those entitled freedoms for granted, thinking them ours by default. But now we question the fragility of those freedoms for ourselves—facing an imminent danger of their disintegration.

In those first days of the administration I saw images of young men and women—legal residents of this country—being handcuffed at airports, their social media being reviewed by law enforcement who then interrogate them on their views of President Trump.

Americans, descended from Iran, Iraq and Somalia cried: Not here! Not here! Never did I ever believe this could happen in this country!

And yes, I know even today the resistance grows against these grave injustices. But even now that opposition is met by the persistence of those who believe their actions just and those who support them.

As Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the president, said in those early days of the presidency: Things are just getting started.

I am reminded of a conversation I had with two young children—a young girl and young boy—who are tutored be me and my mother every week.

Both are American, but also Muslim, and of Somali descent.

Months ago they asked us, Why, why does the new president hate us. We’re scared of what will happen to our family.

I kept thinking, God, even here, even now. . . . This moment will not allow the children their innocence.

Our instinct was to wrap them up in our arms and flee, and as we fled, gathering up my LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, sweeping up my cousins belonging to communities of color, and evacuating this country never to return.

I didn’t want them to endure what I almost am certain they will. Treatment as abnormal citizens, hated for simply existing, the targets of a channeled, misplaced rage of those fearful of an evolving world.

I was tempted to say, The hell with it, to look at the marches taking place in America’s liberal strongholds, and shout, Unless we have the same numbers in Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, and Kansas—which we didn’t even during the unsuccessful protests of the Iraq war—what good will it truly do?

It was interesting then that I found resolve to press forward in the unlikeliest place: from a person who saw greatness where I saw horror, in a vision of a future containing echoes of primitive times.

I interviewed this man who identified as a patriot and fervent supporter of Donald Trump; who was able to perform enough moral contortions to see divine intervention in a man deemed a serial liar, narcissist, and sexual predator.

Any person can be used as a vessel for good, he told me. It can come from the most unlikeliest of people. America will be pro-life. I don’t have to fear my guns being taken away, they’ll be God in the schools, and terrorists won’t attack us anymore.

He added: "Do you really think all of this is due to one man . . . happening because of one man? No . . . and that’s your problem, today was borne out of many todays of the past, out of a ceaseless commitment.

"This is happening because of a commitment to an idea of who we are, the same who we are is what we believe this country should be. And we’ve believed that through countless defeats, myriad ridicule, and a world we thought had turned against us."

"Even now, he said, even now, you rush to march; you resort to demanding anyone but Trump instead of someone forged from your unyielding beliefs, values and principles. How fragile those things become when you return to power.

"Your problem is you don’t know who you are. Once you get power, then what? What is this world you truly want? Where is the affirmation of that world you seek? Hope and Change is one thing," he said. "That’s easy to convey but often fleeting. Precision and execution is quite another, harder, but ultimately more durable.

Our day has arrived, he said, "and we do not intend to relinquish it.

Spit on us, curse us, call us what you will, we’re not afraid to be who are and do what we feel is right for this world. Our time is now. I never doubted this day would come.

While there was much he vomited forth that I found repugnant, some of his words echoed truth.

Because it is true that our current president is just a man and this is just one moment in our epoch. And all men and all moments, no matter how gruesome, come to their end. That isn’t to trivialize what is anticipated to be a difficult time for many, induced by this presidency.

But it steers me clearly towards our future, asking just who is it that will emerge once this time is over—because all those forces that seemingly culminated in the rise of this president have been alive and well before him, and will be alive and well long after.

And as much as we want to avert our eyes to the wrecking ball currently ravaging our society, this moment is the most important of our lives, because it is the one we know we have. It is the one that has finally awakened so many from an apathetic slumber.

This is a moment to be seized, a time for collective reflection on who we’ve been as country and a society, to finally ask who we are now, and who exactly it is we wish to be.

This moment is one in which we can finally examine the truth, closely inspect our stated desire to remain aware of the persecution of all of America’s kin. Now is the time to ask if our admonishments of equity for all, and radical love towards all will stand even after this oppressive Executive Branch falls.

People say now is the time to find hope, to find vision, and to establish a new doctrine for American society. I don’t doubt that it is just that, but I know those things will never properly materialize without us first finding our collective character.

Because, to paraphrase Heraclitus, it is character that is our destiny. It is character that leads to truth. It is truth