A First Micro-Protest

I've started doing the types of small things I hope will add up.

I’ve tried to be mindful about the actions I take in the world.

I hope I’ve moved past my habit of clumsy, knee-jerk reactions that let me vent my anger about injustice, consequences be damned.¹ I’m don’t think those efforts were at all effective in raising support for social change.

I’m not even sure they made me feel good.

So, I’ve pulled way back in the years since then.

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Today, I was moved to speak. Aloud. In semi-public.

Sitting in the waiting room of the car dealership this morning, the news on the television caught my interest. I generally avoid television news. There is simply not enough time for nuance in that format, and it tends to distort reality by exploiting extremes.

As I tried to ignore whatever flames they were trying to fan, a sensational story about trans minors came on. I managed to keep my cool until I started to hear the misinformation about trans minors getting surgeries to affirm their gender.

This doesn’t happen.

I think minors can have breast surgery (which might count) but the way they spun the story implied legions of children having body parts removed, influenced by peers and enabling parents.

This isn’t happening.

I resisted my first impulse to stand and address the five people in the waiting room, calling out the misinformation. But I paused for a moment to think.

And I got myself out of earshot of the toxic messages in a dignified manner.

I got up and walked out.

As Emily P. Freeman relates in How to Walk Into A Room,² walking out of a room in solidarity with those being harmed may not transform the situation in that room… but it might support those who have been harmed, those who are protecting and empowering themselves by leaving.

I didn’t want to take any other action in that space.

The people waiting with me were not responsible for playing that news program. They weren’t sitting there for the purpose of supporting the lies. Yes, they were listening. Yes, some of them believed the untruths. Yes, some of them might have voted for political leaders who frightened them into support using this exact rhetoric.

But nobody in the room voiced agreement nor support. So I did not feel called to start the conversation there.

Yet, as I walked out, I realized what I wanted to do.

I raised my concern with people I felt could do something about the situation.

I went into the office where the very nice people who were handling the paperwork for my car’s maintenance. One of the two looked like they might be very sympathetic to my opinion. One of them looked like they might be less sympathetic to my opinion. But I did not know their hearts nor their stories. I had not had a conversation with them about these or any other issues. They were at work.

So I focused my comments on the work situation.

I asked them if I could wait for the shuttle driver someplace other than the waiting room.

I explained, calmly, that the news station was broadcasting information that I knew from my area of expertise to be untrue.

I became specific.

I let them know that the news was saying that trans minors were having surgeries to affirm their gender. And I said, “Doctors don’t do that.”

I left the office without further drama.

Nothing may come of it. They probably won’t stop broadcasting sensationalized news stories in the waiting room. They might not be able to. They might not have the authority to change the station or the power to stand up to the car dealership owners should they resist a suggested change.

But here’s what I hope might happen:

• Good outcome: they mention my grievance to someone who can bring appropriate change to the situation.

• Better outcome: they do the above and find themselves more curious about the reality around gender affirming medicine.

• Best outcome: they choose on a personal level to open conversations with people in their lives that chip away people’s belief that the mainstream media even knows what it is talking about with regard to this and related issues.

Even if none of those things happen, I’m fine.

So that was my test balloon.

I would say the resistance has begun, but the resistance started way before any of us were born. We can see people who have been resisting for years… and join them.

We can look for models of resistance in the recent past. The queer, womanist, feminist, and Black liberation movements (and those like them) are ongoing and did not start that long ago in the larger scheme of things.

As a rambling contemplative, I point to contemplative resistors such as Howard Thurman and everyone else whose connection to Spirit—especially embedded in community and in concert with others—has moved them to effective actions both big and small.

What might be a fitting micro-protest for you?

What might be one small thing you are moved to do when the opportunity presents itself?

Whatever you do—even if you make the legitimate choice that doing nothing makes the most sense—may God give you strength, wisdom, and the assurance that you do not have to act alone. Because you are not alone.

Be well!

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Thanks for being here

Please share your thoughts in the comments or you can send them to me at hello@joncarllewis.com. Other ways to connect with me are at “Let’s Connect!”

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1. My rants and arguments on social media erupted with the murder of George Floyd.

2. I loved How to Walk into a Room: The Art of Knowing When to Stay and When to Walk Away. The audiobook is read by Emily P. Freeman in her gentle, healing voice. Early into the recording, I realized that the book was going to be more about walking out of rooms than the title suggested. I earn a percentage when you purchase the book from this link at Bookshop.org.