Last week, my dad and I made a last minute trip to Washington D.C. I don’t know if you heard, but a lot of other people made that trip too. Despite what the media is telling you about how few people stood on the mall as our president took the oath of office, there were plenty of people there. A few were there to protest the state of our country, but most visited our capital to celebrate the change that’s coming.
I knew that since I attended this inauguration instead of watching on TV, I had to write about it, but I didn’t really know what to say. No one’s particularly interested in how the event unfolded because everyone already watched it. I found one thing that truly interested me though. Finding an entrance to the mall was a challenge, and once we found one, we had to wait in a line about a quarter mile long. The sidewalk was wide, so the line was about six or seven people across, and we were all in a hurry to get through security. No one pushed or shoved, though. There were religious demonstrators next to us on the street, and the only people who spoke to them did so in a polite and civil manner. No one around me seemed frustrated or angry with the wait, they were all just happy and excited that they were there. I suppose we all had something in common, so maybe that automatically made us all a little friendlier, I don’t know. I do know that the crowd was unusually pleasant.
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About halfway through the ceremony, though, we saw a small group of protesters holding signs and blocking our view of the screens. They were escorted to the side of the mall on three separate occasions, and each time they left yelling. When we left the mall and started back to the Metro station, we encountered a fairly large group of people who marched through the street chanting and holding signs. They yelled, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” and, “Trump and Pence are illegitimate; Trump and Pence are fake.” As I walked down the sidewalk, one man yelled at me that, “He wants to grab your vagina.” Many of the protesters were civil and not rude. I even had a friend who attended, and when she couldn’t get around the protesters, one of them told her where to go to get around them. I know that all of the protesters were not rude and crass, and I know that all of the Trump supporters there were not kind and polite, but based on my personal experience, that’s definitely how it seemed.
The interesting thing to me is that those who protested claim to be protesting because they want peace and love to overwhelm our country. They and the media also claim that the ones wearing “Make America Great Again” hats are the ones who treat others poorly. I don’t know about you, but I don’t find being told that anyone (president or otherwise) wants to “grab my vagina” very peaceful or loving. I kept walking when he said that, and I’m honestly not that bothered by it because I have pretty thick skin, but that doesn’t make it okay. I wasn’t all that offended, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not an offensive comment. If nothing else, it’s one of the last things I’d expect from someone trying to preach love and kindness.
These are not experiences that should reflect on a politician or political party. Politics has overtaken our country, and I don’t intend for this to be a political article. What I want to question, though, is why we make assumptions about groups of people based on the media and personal experience. Some media may tell you that protesters are all violent or that those who attended the inauguration are all bigoted, rude jerks. Some personal experience may lead you to assume that all protesters are kind and loving or that they will all make vulgar comments towards pedestrians. I could easily take my experience and make major generalizations about those who support or oppose the results of our nation’s democracy. It would be so easy for me to take that one comment to heart and apply it to every protester. I could take my pleasant experience with the others in line and apply that to every conservative or Republican in America. I’m choosing not to do that. My experience is different from every other experience on Inauguration Day. I encourage you to take your experiences and the experiences of others, whether on that day or another, and look at them with an open mind and wide perspective. If we all strive to do this, our perceptions of each other will certainly improve.
