My First Protest: BrickxBrick

I attended my first protest on Oct 23rd 2016 called BrickXBrick: We Are a Group of Women building a wall against Trump’s misogynistic comments. This protest was led by several different women whom all agreed that Donald Trump’s comments towards women was wrong. I was nervous about going because I always viewed protests as violent and seeing no change. Throughout television I have seen protesters whom were arrested and physically abused and I expected the worst. However, my friend who invited me to the protest told me this group of women have been protesting from St. Louis to Philadelphia and they knew New York would not be bad because most New Yorkers are liberal and felt Trump’s comments were awful. 

My friend and I walked to Columbus Circle to find the rest of the women in jumpsuits that had Trumps comments pinned to it. Mine was decorated in the words “Disgusting Animal” and “If Ivanka was my daughter I’d date her too.” I felt empowered by wearing the jumpsuit because I was a part of a political movement that was anti-trump and I was doing something about it instead of complaining. I met other women that mentioned this was their first time in a protest too and felt Trump’s comments were “ridiculous”. Everyone was excited and was answering questions from other people looking at us and taking pictures. We were told by the organizer that we had to hold hands in a line-like a wall- and be silent for an hour because our silence meant something deeper than just standing side by side. We stood in front of the Trump Tower to make our anti-trump stance important.

A group of people made a circle around us and took pictures while someone else yelled “Trump being a nominee is your fault.”  But we all remained silent and some of us whispered encouraging words to each other to keep up the fight. The people around us encouraged us to keep going and gave us a round of applause the longer we stood there in silence. No one could tell people what we were doing and why but BrickxBrick had people there in yellow vest that handed out flyers and explained to people what we were doing and why. I wanted to tell people how excited I was and what this protest could mean for the future president of the United States. 

Some of you may now know that Donald Trump is the elected President of the United States. He was sworn in on January and he is required to serve four years. I feel nervous because I do not know what is going to happen. I do not know what any of his policies are because his ignorant and hurtful comments have been the priority of his campaign. However, I still believe going to the protest worked. I participated in something that I believed in and It is something I will encourage others to do. I will continue to protest in things that I believe in because everyone’s voice is needed to make change.