March 11 2016
90
For me, protesting and marching has always been an interest of mine but I'm never really had the time or been persuaded to pursue a protest. In terms of protest energy levels, compared to what I've seen with videos on YouTube, this march was much more mild in nature, obviously, but what I learned is that it was a great springboard for future marching for myself. I've always followed politics, even since a younger ages and I've been fascinated with fighting for a better country for all of us but this was my first experience towards actually doing something about it instead of being a keyboard warrior sharing articles on social media.
The first hour composed of me walking around tables, seeing what message everyone had to offer. The great thing is that everyone that was tabling was a student. They weren't paid to be there, there weren't forced to be there, but they chose to be there to represent an idea and stance on a social topic. It was great seeing Fresno State students stand up behind a social movement for something more than voting to have a Starbucks at state or wanting free Wi-Fi. Some issues were
more important than others in my opinion, but many different social issues were represented. I talked with a few of the people and looked around at what the tabling had to offer. The tabling portion was all very mild and organic with a relaxed but important vibe to the session. It was great to see younger people actually care about something outside of their immediate reality.
The Raging Grannies were hilarious. They had coherent messages, with coherent songs that were actually catchy. It was great seeing an older generation of people take a stance on women's rights when the Grannies have probably been doing for decades now. In one aspect of it, I felt proud that older people still supported the same issues that are being fought for today but at the same time, I felt really sad that the grannies were still fighting. Even in one of their songs they tell people to more or less start fighting for equal rights so they can retire. It was a call to action to motivate people to actually care about politics and social issues but sadly, I feel like it fell on deaf ears with people just laughing the message off. Now, that's my assumption of course, maybe the message got through to some people but to me at the time, it seemed like people just laughed with it and didn't give it serious thought. The type of thought their message deserved.
The Raging Grannies also were very lively, sang with energy and included lots of political humor in to their songs which I thought was great. It was kind of like seeing Flight of The Concords but older, and talking about social issues. It was a real sight to see these ladies still putting up the fight. I do hope that they can retire one day and my generation actually gets off their damn phone to do something about real change. The show showed me that the grannies really deserve to retire and my generation deserves to grant them that right. Even though the singing was comical, I did also feel a sense of urgency behind their music which was really great.
The march itself was something else. I can't really explain it but I will try to as best as I can. So some context, obviously the march was on campus and that lended itself to be light or lighter in nature, but the ideas expressed in the march were definitely apparent and real. The march was a mix of many social and political issues but what excited me the most about the march was that fellow students, people my age and younger were actually doing something about their views and not just sitting around complaining. I'm guilty myself for doing that at times, complaining about how things are corrupt and not really finding a way to make it better, but at least with this march, I felt like it was an opportunity to start something really important in my life. The start to attend more marches, more protests, to phone bank for political candidates, to become PHYSICALLY involved in the change I want to happen. It's easy to go online and complain or share articles but the real change is on the ground. In the future I hope to have more time with me being done with school to make a real change.
The march itself was a nice walk around the campus but everyone had a voice in their march. My goal during the march was to attract watchers of our march or everyday students and verbally address each person to grab their attention to our many causes. Calling out to people on hoverboards, pointing them out by what they were wearing, whatever it took to draw their eyes to our signs that was my goal of the march. I think providing an outlook to free speech and giving students this opportunity to march by persuading them with extra credit was a genius idea but to me, it really changed how I will interact with future political issues. My goal is I just hope I don't get arrested by doing it.
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