‘This is what democracy looks like’

First tennis, then outrage.

After watching a recording of the Australian Open final Sunday morning, a welcome respite from the national news, we turned our phones back on and saw a protest against Trump’s executive orders on immigration was scheduled to take place at Kansas City International Airport in less than an hour. Within a few minutes we were making signs and getting the kids loaded up for the drive out to Terminal C.

There was no real question of whether we should attend. On Friday night, I’d posted an angry Facebook screed about the travel ban, and on Saturday I exchanged messages with a friend who had just learned that her Iranian-born / German-passport-holding boyfriend would likely not be able to join her to visit her immediate family in the States. They were super bummed, but also the first to point out how much worse the situation was for all the refugees and others whose lives had been upended in an instant.

As another friend of mine wrote on Friday, “This is why I wept on election night, not because a candidate I supported lost, but because I listened and understood what the policies of the candidate that won meant for this country.” For native Kansans, there’s a special horror in seeing our own former Secretary Kris Kobach behind Trump’s immigration policy. Kobach’s methods of trying to prove/prevent voter fraud were thrown out at the federal level, and he was unable to prove even a single case of voter fraud taking place in Kansas, where he is now widely regarded as a xenophobe and a disgrace.

On the radio this morning, I heard someone saying how “at a humanitarian level, (the travel ban is) an abomination.” I figured it must be some partisan public radio commentator. But no, it was former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden. Later, I read a thread from an American civil servant in Iraq explain how the executive order is not only heartless, but makes us dramatically less safe. Even the Koch brothers and NASCAR stars are against it. The world has truly turned upside-down.

There are many more stories than I care to link to here. Ever since Steve Bannon said that “the media should shut its mouth,” a statement that by logic extends to every one of us who reads or watches the news, I haven’t been able to read enough. But if one isn’t careful, the head-spinning cycle of news-reading outrage never stops. So being able to show up on a decent Sunday afternoon and express our opposition with a bunch of fellow Kansas City residents felt like a nice alternative to sitting around and feeling helpless.

The protesters at KCI included students, older people, students and quite a few families. It was a diverse group, certainly a much larger crowd than the expected 500-600 people. Most of us were there because we thought it was the right thing to do. For others in the crowd — a family wearing headscarves, for example, whose children of different ages were walking around taking pictures with their phones or smiling — I imagine it’s much less abstract.

Most of the signs at the airport protest looked like they were written in a hurry. Many of them were disarmingly personal. “I am a Muslim who loves Kansas City.” “I am the son of two peaceful immigrants.” “I am a person, not an alien.” These signs reminded me that the people being maligned by our government and fellow citizens are not distant phantoms, but our very neighbors here in this city. As I scanned the signs, I found myself making eye contact with the people holding them, exchanging nods or glances as if to say “I see you; thank you for seeing me.”

Our 4-year-old daughter brought a picture of the Statue of Liberty that she had drawn at our encouragement. On the drive to the airport, she explained to her brother that the statue means that “people from all over the world are welcome in Kansas City.” Her localization of Lady Liberty was charming, if a bit childlike. And yet that same sentiment echoed in the first chants we heard at the protest:

No ban! No wall! Kansas City welcomes all!

I thought the event was a good showing by the people of Kansas City. It was peaceful, made up of people of all ages, with an atmosphere where it felt like anyone would be welcome. As mayor Sly James later told the crowd, “You’re doing it the right way.” Although there were predictably a lot of anti-Trump signs, it’s also not hard to imagine disillusioned Trump voters eventually deciding they don’t like what’s happening and would like to speak out as well.

I also liked that the protest was held outside Terminal C, the airport’s unimpressive international wing. Gathering in that liminal space, which all of us have traveled through at some point, made the event feel refreshingly ordinary, like we were all just standing around waiting for our arrivals or departures and looking out for each other’s freedom of movement in the process. I later learned that similar (and significantly larger) protests took place at airports across the country, a symbolic but meaningful connection to our fellow citizens.

Standing behind the airport barricades, it was hard not to think of what it would be like to be stuck in a generic airport lobby or waiting room without a valid ticket, unable to visit friends or family, being asked strange questions, our personal documents confiscated or rendered suddenly valueless. If we don’t want to go through that ourselves, it stands to reason that we should limit that experience to as few civilians as possible, reserving such methods only for specific security threats.

Other nations are paying close attention to what we are doing. It’s naive to think that their governments and citizens will not treat us accordingly. Our ability to travel, study and work outside our borders is not a given. If we throw respect, diplomacy, due process, good faith and common sense out the window, the opportunities my generation has enjoyed to go virtually anywhere in the world will likely not extend to the next, even in nations with which we’ve traditionally enjoyed friendly and peaceful relations.

Do we really believe that a blanket ban on hundreds of millions of people will actually make us safer in the long run? Do we really want to take actions that will limit the ability of ourselves and our children to travel freely and safely to other countries? If we do believe these things are important, is a hurried, unilateral executive order the right way to go about addressing them? If you supported Trump for perceived tax/financial benefits, at what point does the infringement of others’ human rights make it no longer worth it?

I expect that in the coming weeks there will be additional attempts to divide us as a nation, whether it’s by gender, religion, class, race, sexual orientation, political party, urban/rural residence, you name it. We should not let that happen, especially not by unvetted actors in government, hostile strangers on the internet, or via labels and libels hurled at one another.

My plea to anyone reading this: Talk to each other. Read newspapers, blog posts or magazine articles from different sources, cities, countries. Make up your own minds. Reject the violent and oversimplistic “punch a fascist” / “hang a journalist” extremes. Exchange ideas as respectfully as possible, establishing your own talking points rather than parroting those so helpfully provided for us on TV or social media. Interact in real life whenever possible. Stay positive. Go to protests, or stage your own.

As another civil servant from the Bush era argued today in The Atlantic, this is a “clarifying moment” in our country’s history. Neutrality at a time like this is not an option, and the stances we take — or don’t take — will continue to define us as for years to come.

Either you stand up for your principles and for what you know is decent behavior, or you go down, if not now, then years from now, as a coward or opportunist. Your reputation will never recover, nor should it.

The author was addressing conservative thinkers, experts and politicians in that statement, but he very well could have been talking about us.

Our taking part in a protest yesterday was a tiny thing, but you’re going to see more and more like it. Maybe next time I’ll see you there.

(protest photos by Jennifer Wetzel)