The Fog Lifted in Chicago Yesterday

The Fog Lifted in Chicago Yesterday
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For nearly a week, a meteorological metaphor for how many Americans have been feeling has shrouded Chicago in fog. For those of us who are still waking up at 3 am and hoping the election was a bad dream, the fog echoes the condition of our brains-working, but slowly, in a miasma of disgust, disappointment, and denial.

As a number of commentators have pointed out, black and many brown Americans have borne this condition for a long time. Not only do their lives matter, but their lives, even for those who have escaped daily violence and poverty, continue to be impacted by racist polices and practices, micro and macro aggressions which seem nearly invisible to their fellow citizens (being followed in a store, denied mortgages, pulled over by the police, threatened with deportation, disbelieved even when facts such as the Department of Justice’s recent report on racist police practices in Chicago are published).

But whether this fogged condition is new or ancient, for a few hours yesterday, the fog lifted from the skies and from our hearts and minds. For women of my age group, sexism is not new either. We came of age during the Age of Aquarius, and we saw many restrictions change, but as folks in my profession (folklorist) know, changing policy and laws is one thing, changing practice and belief is another. We learned to pretend we couldn’t type so we didn’t get assigned to menial tasks. Like the brilliant women in the movie, “Hidden Figures” , (go see it this week!) we watched as men claimed ownership of our work, credit for our efforts, and even told us what we could and couldn’t wear. We snuck to Planned Parenthood because they were the only place we could get contraception since most doctors at the time were men and would have told us “just don’t have sex.”

I was more fortunate than many women because my dad was an early feminist. He told us we could do anything we put our minds to-and he took over many household chores so that my mother could go back to school and get her PhD while he continued to work as a full time chemist and administrator. Yesterday I saw his descendants, men who showed up for the women’s’ march and chanted, “her body, her choice.” Men who acted as support personnel and volunteer marshals but never once tried to take over the decision making process even in the midst of an intense and overwhelming experience. And yes, even the Chicago police practiced respect and restraint-and while a comment on the Chicago Women’s March Chicago Women's March Facebook page pointed out that this was respect and restraint for women of privilege, it was also respect for peaceful action.

250,000 of us showed up and marched, sang, chanted, and rallied in peace. I ended up serving as a marshal for a march (I still don’t know how it evolved- one minute I was telling people the march was canceled, the next minute we were marching) and all I saw both from the marchers and from onlookers was love. Yes, we are angry and we expressed that anger in signs, in chants, in pussy hats. But the overwhelming emotion was love and respect and it was amazing.

This morning, the fog is back- the pundits will move on looking for the false Trumpian rage, the disrespect of women and people of color, the “if it bleeds it leads” clickbait. But those of us who marched/rallied yesterday around the world (and for our sisters and brothers who were cheering us on) we have a little ray of sunshine to warm us as we continue to resist, as we organize, and as we rally for women and for our allies.

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