(Disclosure: this article was written as an editorial piece due to the author’s own personal biases in favor of civil rights, affordable healthcare, empathy, and free appropriate public education.)
While mindlessly scrolling social media sourcing stories for the Redwood Voice Community Newscast, a digital flyer for a Crescent City “People’s March” kept popping up in my feed. Apparently, the data-mining chaos goblins of the Metasphere insisted quite strongly that this post specifically would be of interest to me. I found myself annoyed, first and foremost, at the way the almighty Facebook algorithm prioritizes delivery of content. My annoyance, however, was quickly replaced with a sense of amusement that the event infographic attempted to recruit and rally potential participants with the bold declaration of “UNITED WE STAND!”
“…do we, really?” I chuckled to myself. “ …and for what?”
If you buy into national narratives parroted by political pundits through conglomerated media, you’d believe that we are living in extraordinarily divided times.
The way I personally see it, we’ve all been through so many “unprecedented” circumstances in recent times, that at this point, it seems as though dissociative apathy has just sort of blanketed our political climate like a creeping fog on our collective consciousness. Either way, aiming for unity in this era of American sociocultural history seems like a bit of a moonshot.
You mean to tell me I’m supposed to have hope? In this economy?
Suffice it to say, I was a bit skeptical that “The People” were going to unite. Or stand. Let alone march! I had questions…
After encouragement from several directions, I reached out and invited event organizer Lupe Gutierrez down to KFUG to answer those questions.
Lupe says she wants people to understand that we have more in common than our differences. “I mean, who doesn’t want good healthcare?” she asked.
Accompanying Gutierrez was Kevin Hendrick, chair of the Del Norte County Democratic Central Committee.
“Congress is talking about cutting Medicare, right? And MediCal, and Social Security,” Hendrick said. “These are things, regardless of political affiliation, people need.”
Although organizers for the “People’s March” were spurred to action by the outcome of the latest presidential election, they decided that it was more important to focus on what they were standing for, rather than who they were standing against. Healthcare made the shortlist of agreed-upon policy priorities, along with civil rights, immigration and education.
Several volunteers have signed up to speak about these subjects at the Crescent City Cultural Center on Saturday. Doors open at 10:30 a.m., with speeches scheduled to take place at 11 a.m.. At 11:30 a.m. participants in the “march” portion of the day’s itinerary will embark upon the approximately mile-and-a-half trek along the sidewalks of U.S. 101 to the fairgrounds, crossing at Cooper Avenue, before returning to Front Street’s Cultural Center.
Although the local chapter of the Democratic Party is the fiscal sponsor of the event, organizers maintain that the event is intended to be non-partisan.
“I would love to see Republicans join us,” Gutierrez said.
“We’re a unique little red County on a blue Coast in a blue state in a purplish country, so it’s a strange dynamic,” Hendrick added.
I asked Hendrick for his response to criticism that marches like these are largely performative.
“Let me just comment on that,” he responded. “Last year, what I learned is the big value of events like this is bringing the people together, getting people involved in supporting each other, establishing community, solidarity, and relationships and then…a small army moving forward for advocacy.”
“We want to do more things like this,” he went on. “I really think we could get 100 people. It would be wonderful to see more than that.”
To hear the full interview, click here.
To learn more about the People’s March, or to find other participating locations, visit www.peoplesmarch.com/.
