Marching

I’m going to Washington DC next month for the March for the Ocean, June 9. In the weeks before I go, I’ll be writing here about marching, and about why march for the ocean.  On my return, I’ll tell some stories about my experience.  The ocean is rising, and so are we!

Trump has been good for my workout plans – I have been marching like crazy ever since he was elected.  I joined 500,000 of my closest friends in Oakland for the Women’s March the day before his inauguration.  A few months later I walked down Market Street in San Francisco with thousands of folks in white coats, for the Science March.  In March I walked a couple miles in Monterey with many high school students in the March for Our Lives, protesting gun violence.

On June 9 I will “March for the Ocean” in Washington DC.  Folks in at least 40 cities will have other ocean marches, kayak parades, beach cleanups, flotillas, bay swims and other events. 

Why go to all these marches, why march?  Because I need to do something in the face of Trump’s horrors and evil.  Because during and after each march I have been hugely inspired simply by being with so many other like-minded and like-hearted folks.  Maybe we get some media attention and raise the public’s awareness of an issue, be it women, science, violence, ocean.  To “demonstrate” my opposition. 

It’s a little selfish, or self-indulgent, these Saturdays on the streets.  I get a rush from being with all these folks, go home and brag a little about it, and then I go back to feeling helpless in the face of this evil regime. 

But it’s something.  And just by talking about it (“I’m going to the Ocean March in DC!) and writing about it, I am maybe raising some awareness.  Marches are visual, they are all about numbers and speakers and signs.  I will be visual too, wear my new March for the Ocean T-shirt, post pictures on Facebook.   I will also wear my minister’s stole, with ocean creatures on it, to signal and signify that I am part of a religious community that supports ocean conservation. 

What should my sign read?  I saw one at the Science March that said “Love Your Anemone.”  Suggestions welcome.

I wrote some church colleagues in DC that I was coming, asking if anyone in their congregations was going, organizing a group etc.  No one had heard of the Ocean March.  They did say that the same weekend is the DC Pride Parade.  Talk about double booking!  But when I looked at the website for each event, I see that they coordinated timing: Ocean March 8AM-3PM, Pride 4:30-7:30PM, different neighborhood.  How considerate.  I could bring my rainbow stole also.  I will certainly find some of my liberal church friends at the Pride Parade.

Got me thinking about the difference between marches and parades.  Marches seem more about protest, parades about celebration.  Pride parades certainly began as protests, and were first called Gay Liberation Marches, when they began in 1970 in NYC, Chicago and LA on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots in NYC in 1969.  Gradually they became more celebratory than political, Pride rather than Liberation, especially in accepting cities.  The San Francisco Pride Parade feels like Mardi Gras. 

Perhaps a difference between march and parade is the difference between a public demonstration AGAINST something and FOR something.  I’ve marched against wars many times in many cities, against our wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq. 

But this generation of marches, the Trump era marches, are FOR something, March for Science, March for Our Lives, March for the Ocean.  God knows we have much to protest against.  Maybe it’s just marketing, to be FOR something is more appealing.  But in the same way that conservation psychology teaches us that “hope stories” are much more effective in changing people’s environmental attitudes and behavior than are “doom and gloom stories,” so it may be that marching FOR something, indeed parading FOR something is more effective in both inspiring and motivating people. 

We hope.  The March for Our Lives wasn’t just the march, they also organized lots of voter registration.  The March for the Ocean is part of Capitol Hill Ocean Week, CHOW, a week of ocean conferences and lobbying visits to legislators that the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation has organized for 20 years.  I went once years ago and we visited our senators and encouraged them to vote for ocean friendly legislation.   They didn’t seem any more aware of ocean issues then than my religious colleagues were last week.  Still work to do.

But this year CHOW will be more than just lectures and banquets and awards for best ocean volunteer.   An impressive alliance of ocean organizations has organized this powerful and celebratory March.  Next week I’ll write more about the organizers and the issues.

At minimum, marching FOR something means you are trying to “walk the talk,” “put your body on the line,” all those good old protest phrases.  The Ocean March has added a few new ones: “The ocean is rising and so are we.”  “Get in motion, march for the ocean.”  “It’s not too late to turn the tide.”  Let’s hope.

Copyright © 2017 Deborah Streeter