No Kings? Or No Tyranny?

How do you ask people to stop coping with humor?

How do you fight against fascism when the general populous thinks it’s funny?

The first thing that I noticed at today’s No Kings Protest was the costumes, joy filling me as I am reminded of the flower power movement from the seventies. However, as I drove home, I couldn’t help but feel as if the fight against Fascism has been watered down… almost as if the game that we continue to play is diving into hysterics.

We continue to see disruptors on college campuses: “Jim” being one of them, a far-right radical who stood on the South Oval of The University of Oklahoma screaming about the “dirty filthy lesbians” and how “masturbating turns you gay” earlier this week.

One patron of the scene described a sense of camaraderie as everyone seemed to bond against him, aligned in disagreement against Jim although their values didn’t tend to align outside of classes.

While this is a noble thought, I battle with myself between the thought process behind coping with humor and normalizing profound discrimination for a laugh. Is this what standing up against fascism looks like?

In this particular example, queer and cis people alike stood on the lawn, laughing and socializing as a man spewed hate from a megaphone. There was no citizen’s arrest, no attempt to shut it down (besides the university’s timely maintenance truck and a few hecklers), and a large part of me feels as if this is a continual perpetuation of the cycle that we continue to see.

My question for the people in this article is: What will we tolerate for a laugh?

With a president that was memed into office, a country in disarray, people being kidnapped and killed in the streets, and a government too worried about an egotistical pissing contest to actually work together for the people, I see our general fight as a group of teenagers with water guns against an oppressive systems with knives to our necks.

When I arrived at the No Kings protest, I was highly aggrieved to find that there were sirens going off through the entire the hour we were there. A block away from the crowded group, no one would have known that people were fighting for their rights around the corner.

I couldn’t help but feel as if we were in a radical bubble, the socialist speaker screaming about how being here made you a radical, because the general populous wouldn’t dare to be seen here. And they were right. We were a tiny spot in the middle of bustling downtown OKC, and the world continued to spin around us as if nothing was the matter.

Chants around locking Trump up brought me joy, where Republicans, Democrats, children and the elderly united to rage against the regime that is our current administration.

But is it enough?

What systems are we dismantling? What systems are we blocking? Standing in the rain on a Saturday morning, it hurts to think that these people identify themselves as martyrs.

As we look back at our history, we find that most all of the rights that we have received have been ripped from the hands of authority through violence and vindication, and although this author is anti-violence, I am pro-change.

The unification of the populous is starting to become as issue. As the left fights against the right, what is the true voice of the people?

The consensus is that we’ve lost the plot.

We stand at an empty government building on a weekend morning, but what change comes from that?

Especially when we have places that are tolerable in their hate for minorities. The uptick in Turning Point propaganda is proof of that.

My call to action is this: We may be screaming “No Kings”, but what happens if we start screaming “No Tolerance for Tyranny”? What happens if we live it? Reporting homophobic, racist, or white supremist ideology on social media, shutting down bigots with microphones, and forcibly creating a culture shift through continued education, instead of isolated screaming.

I urge the American people to stop laughing, get somber, and start embodying the culture you want to see. Update yourself on what a citizen’s arrest is. Start creating plans for change. Reach out to those who are under oppression in this country with “No more free speech” as the president so eloquently reminded us. And stop laughing at dog whistles.

Lastly, remember that to be a dissenter, is to be American.