When we walked out into the field at Grant Park, Chicagoans and their neighbors of all kinds surrounded us – young and old; Black, Latine, white, Asian, Native, and Middle Eastern; straight, gay, lesbian, bi; cis and trans; and on and on. They carried signs, dressed in costumes, held their children’s hands. We listened to speakers, cheered and booed, sang along to the music. We waited and waited to get out onto the street and march because of the massive number of people there. Since my wife was feeling under the weather, we eventually decided to leave before joining the march, but as we walked back to our car, we ran into the march route anyway and walked along with everyone else for several blocks. When she got tired, we stopped by the side of the street and looked back at the crowds of people streaming past us – thousands and thousands of people.

This No Kings protest was, of course, a protest against Donald Trump and his administration. It was against ICE’s horrific attacks on our communities and our neighbors. It was against the unilateral executive branch budget cuts that are depriving all of us of the services we deserve. It was against escalating support for fossil fuels and the elimination of support for green energy. 

People around the country and world protested as well. Estimates say that 7 million people participated in the US, the greatest single day of protest in the nation’s history. 

These protests have been held up for criticism from both the right and the left. Predictably, those on the right base their criticisms on false and inflated claims. “There is no king here.” “The protesters are paid.” “Democratic politicians do the exact same things.” “ICE is just enforcing our laws.” 

But on the left, some have raised the concern that this single day of protest may divert people from engaging in more sustained forms of action. Others have brought forward the valid criticism that some organizers have been tone-deaf in discouraging pro-Palestine activism. Still others have pegged these protests as being the domain of white liberals who dislike Trump without wanting substantial change. 

I believe we must consider and address these left-facing criticisms. And I still feel that these large-scale protests can be meaningful as part of a suite of actions. They are a gateway to activism for people who are just getting involved. They allow people to connect with organizations with whom they can continue to act. They help participants connect with one another and give momentum to their activism. 

We must be very careful that we don’t allow these kinds of protests to blunt efforts for real change, including advocacy for Palestine. We must push for all of us involved in this movement to push our work further – engaging in mutual aid, protesting in more risky and forceful ways, and building the will for a general strike. 

Our relationships must ground all of these efforts. We should be building relationships in our activism, and building our current relationships toward action. We are here for each other. That is a fact written in our biology and society. And it must be our aspiration.

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