No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here in Talk Radio

Went to the rally at the statehouse in Columbus with Ramona and Zack last night. We got there at about 6:30. I finished coloring in the bubble letters on my sign while we were marching, those lines on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.“

It was a lot of walking and chanting over police sirens and looking at other people’s signs. The most frequent thing people kept repeating was, “no hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here,” and when people started marching: “whose streets? our streets!”

I was right up in there, on the sidewalk right behind the people who blocked High street, across from the Subway where Becca and I ate last week. While the police cars kept pulling up, I thought this was referring to the president at the time, but in retrospect people were totally expressing distrust in the police: “who do you protect? who do you serve?”

Zack wanted us to get out as soon as he saw police putting on masks. I thought the police might mask up in case someone in the crowd tried to mace them first, but then not actually try to spray anyone themselves. So I wasn’t frightened or in a hurry to push past people on our way out. Zack hurried me along when I didn’t barge through the crowd.

We watched the protest for a little while after, from about a block away with this one strange girl who wanted to chat with us about chemtrails. As we were leaving I heard the crowd chanting, “we’ll be back,” and learned on Facebook later that could have been when everyone still on the street got sprayed by police.

My legs are sore from all the walking but overall exciting experience. Zack probably made the right call encouraging us to leave but there is a big part of me that would have liked to stay and see the chaos unfold. I don’t even know if I agree with blocking the street or not, but it’s not like I could have stopped hundreds of other people from doing so if I decided I disagreed, so I might have liked to stay close to the action anyway.

Revision for added photos… I didn’t take them, they are from /r/Columbus.

Last updated January 31, 2017