By KYLE ADAMS
Staff Writer
When you go away to college, they tell you that you will change, and that you won’t even realize it. I didn’t believe them. Others say that when you go to college you don’t change; rather, the experience reveals who you actually are. I questioned as to whether I could get any better than I already was. Regardless of whether it is an internal change or some sort of revelation, something happens and that something is what made me feel that I had to take an actual stand, instead of watching our country be torn apart on TV or on social media.
I didn’t realize it until recently, but that change started to happen the first time I stepped foot on the Saint Rose campus. It is a path that I didn’t realize that I was going down, but my world has been completely uprooted. My existence is no longer entirely based in sports and baseball statistics. I’ve begun to care about that nasty word that everyone hates to talk about, “politics.”
But politics is a very broad term because you don’t just decide one day at random that you want to be a liberal or conservative. You start to care about certain issues and develop certain passions about how the world should or shouldn’t work. Then we do what we do best, we classify people into groups and give them a name.
So you can call me a “snowflake” or a “lib-tard,” whatever makes you feel better about someone having an opinion that differs from your own, but I am confident in what I believe and I have no regrets for wanting to take a stand against policies that I believe are inhumane. Believe me, I want to have constructive conversations with everyone, but when people resort to violence and name calling, on both sides, it is understandable as to why people get defensive about their beliefs.
On Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017 I attended the “We Stand United” rally in New York City, outside of the Trump International Hotel. It was a very entertaining trip, as I had some pretty cool interactions along the way. At the train station I met a woman who spoke little English and helped her figure out which track her train was going to be leaving from. I think we got her on the right one.
At the rally, I wore a shirt that reads “I Stand with Standing Rock.” It only figures that I would meet a group of people who actually were on the front lines protesting for clean water at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. They asked me if I had gone to Standing Rock too. Although my college student budget did not allow me to make that journey, they spoke to me as if I was a friend they had known for years and thanked me for helping to spread the word for such an important cause.
It all started out when I asked myself a simple question: “What can I do to honor President Obama and Joe Biden’s legacy?” And then I realized that I was asking the wrong question. The reason to take a stand shouldn’t be because of one or two people. It should be rooted in a deep compassion for everyone who walks on this planet, because we are all neighbors. When we stand up for selfish reasons, we fail. There is no greater power when we stand up for each other. As Mark Ruffalo put it at the rally, “we are people protectors.”
Having a clean and healthy planet for future generations to live on is the number one issue facing us right now; a lot of people just don’t realize it yet.
Fighting for legislation that makes it more difficult for bad or mentally deranged people to get access to firearms is something that is about 230 years overdue.
Communication between agencies like the NSA and FBI and those who do background checks is crucial to progress. I reject the philosophy that the ONLY way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. We have to do our part to stop the bad guy from getting the gun. If we rely on the good guy with the gun, it’s already too late.
Let’s talk about privacy for a second though. If other countries are able to hack into some of the largest organizations in our country, you better believe that our government has the capacity to do the same. Do we really want to be a country with a nothing to hide/nothing to fear mentality? Something tells me that we are already there.
There also seems to be some misconception that because some people don’t like to use that phrase “Radical Islamic Terrorism” that we don’t think it is a significant issue. That is just another way our politicians like to divide us. People hear the word Islam and associate an entire religion with terrorism, when it is less than one percent of that religion. Taking steps to remove terrorist presence digitally would be a huge, nonviolent step forward. We all know the power technology has. Why not create an army of hackers to take down the recruitment tools that ISIS and other groups use around the world?
Education, mass incarceration, healthcare, racial equality, women’ rights, LGBTQ rights, money in politics, prescription drug companies… you all know what I’m going to say by now. I’m one of “those liberals.” So instead of calling each other names, let’s talk towards a common ground and work our way towards solutions.
Enough with my politics, though. The speakers at the rally on Thursday night are the real story. The driving force behind this whole thing was Michael Moore, a filmmaker who transcended documentary filmmaking. If you haven’t seen any of his work, it is highly recommended. I promise that you won’t fall asleep for a second.
Moore may have had the most inspiring speech of the night, at least for those fearful of being discriminated against by the new administration. Moore’s idea… if they come around looking for illegal immigrants, then we are all illegal. If they come around looking for Muslims to be part of a registry, then we are all Muslims. We are all Mexicans, we are all disabled, we are all gay and we are all women.
Moore had one other idea. It is to start a war, a war of comedy. As Twitter has showed us, Trump doesn’t like it too much when you protest him or make fun of him. This is Moore’s plan to take down Trump. The army of comedy is open to anyone who has a sense of humor. Michael Moore’s last piece of advice, “Brush your teeth… yes, very important. And if you have a dog, walk the dog. If you have a cat, stare back at it.” Who’s ready for Moore’s war of comedy?
Then, almost as if they plan these events ahead of time, Moore introduced Alec Baldwin as the next speaker. Before his Trump impersonation routine, Baldwin began with a tribute to the New York Police Department. There is a reason that they are called New York’s finest. As I walked from Grand Central to the Trump Hotel, there were NYPD officers in the middle of intersections directing traffic. If you’ve ever been in New York, you know that job by itself can be life threatening.
As the rally grew nearer, the police presence grew to immense levels. Columbus Circle was probably the safest place in the world on Thursday night and it was as if the officers were just as much a part of the rally as anyone else there. There was no violence; everyone was there for the same reason: to show solidarity.
Reverend Al Sharpton delivered an incredibly emotional and powerful speech. There were countless other speakers ranging from business leaders, political leaders and activists who helped to organize the Women’s March in Washington D.C. Marisa Tomei led the crowd in taking the same oath that the Presidents do.
The speakers wouldn’t have had a purpose, though, without everyone who came to the rally. Central Park West was lined with people for blocks and blocks. The road wasn’t even close to being big enough to hold the size of the crowd. West Drive, which runs through Central Park, was also lined with huge crowds of people listening to the speakers.
When actress Shailene Woodley took the stage, she announced that there were upwards of 25,000 people in attendance. Woodley isn’t just any speaker, though. She was once one of the protesters; she was actually arrested while protesting at Standing Rock. Before jumping to any conclusions, read her story.
Woodley’s message on Thursday night was love. Her message was that although anger may be what drives us to protest, love is what ultimately is the way to win as human beings. She said, “Love is not a word to be forgotten in this movement.”
If there was one theme that I came away with on Thursday night, it was something that echoed Barack Obama’s farewell address. He said that “Change only happens when ordinary people get involved and they get engaged and they come together to demand it. After eight years as your President, I still believe that.” A quote like that doesn’t really mean anything until you actually experience it first-hand.
One person, while we may perceive as important or powerful, is only powerful if the people allow them to be. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t give Donald Trump a chance. Of course we should. But giving the man that half of America voted for a chance doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to be silent.
We rally together because we care about our future as a country, just as much as anyone else. Being silent is not what our founding fathers had in mind and it is irresponsible for anyone to expect silence, on either side.
I firmly believe that it is social change that is needed above all else; something that a President does not have much of an impact in. People’s attitudes towards each other are what needs the most work, above everything else. Social change is something that the people are directly responsible for. The power of the people is how to create that change. Those who hold the power of elected office are important, but why should that mean that the rest of us aren’t capable of being leaders?
The first time I was ever in New York City, I thought it was the coolest place I’d ever seen. Thursday night proved again that New York truly is the greatest place in the world.
