“You’re Angry. Me too.” – Protest in 2011

Time Magazine announced last week that their famous “Person of the Year” for 2011 would be “The Protestor.” Not any one protestor, but the people behind Tahrir Square, Occupy Wall Street, and the massive, less well-named anti-government, anti-establishment uprisings in Syria, Tunisia, Greece, Mexico, Spain, Russia and countless other countries. You can read the full article, by Kurt Anderson, here. In explaining the choice Anderson declares that in 2011, “…the protester once again became a maker of history” and goes on to tell the stories of protestors across the globe.

Testify: JOT Writers on Creative Resistance: Art as Activism, the JOT from this past summer, is also filled with stories of protest. Anderson explores the political protests that have rocked the world, and the NWA writers in Testify have been part of, and envision, similar ones. Testify pieces recall involvement in demonstrations for mental health services, education, and civil rights, while others pay tribute to the Freedom Riders and other heroes. “Traditional” protest is well represented in Testify. But some pieces, like Sharon F. Warner’s, characterize protest as wearing “my hair nappy and red / because I like it that way.” K. C. Hagans recalls explaining “I’m going to school because that’s where I can make a difference” when he attended school in a near-empty classroom on the fifth anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. Many pay tribute to the power of art and storytelling to transform and protest. Radmila Lunić tells a story of political corruption in a fable about owls, spiders, hornets, hawks and mosquitoes, while Stavroula Harissis urges us, “So lift up your GUNS! Even if they are only PENS.”

We’ve done many pieces on “creative resistance” on the blog this year. And, at a moment when traditional political resistance is being so celebrated, expanded, and examined, we’re taking a moment to revisit some of these pieces and thoughts. Here are four different perspectives from Testify.

 WHAT’S NEXT
Lester Hemingway

you’re angry. me too
attention! the fruit’s rotting
let’s save what we can

ONE WRITER’S LIFE
Sharon F. Warner

I have marched, protested, and demonstrated.
I have written essays, letters to the editor, and poems.
I have participated in performance art, drama, and even comedy
that challenged the status quo.
But I have come to realize lately
that I am sometimes resisting the establishment
when I am just being myself.

My Buddhist altar opposes the notion
that all Americans should be Christians.
My calendar with family pictures challenges the idea
that other people’s images are more beautiful than mine.
The poems I write resist the presumption
that poetry should be either
circumspect, traditional forms (professorial poetry)
or rambling, raging rants
about anarchy and/or sex (slam poetry).

I write what I want,
I write what I think,
I write what I feel,
based on my life and my observations.
People can hear my writings
in places of higher learning,
in houses of worship,
in coffee houses, restaurants, and bars,
at fairs and festivals,
and of course, on the Internet.
I can be anywhere.

I wear my hair nappy and red
because I like it that way.
I also reserve the right
to change my mind about my hairstyle
at any time.
Zora Neale Hurston said,
“I love myself when I am laughing,
then again, when I am looking mean.”
Angry or jubilant,
I look forward to finding new ways
to speak the truth to power
and to creatively resist.

SCATOLOGICALLY SPEAKING
Don Watanabe

one, two, three, fuck the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie,
four, five, six, fuck the political conservatives, centrists, and neoliberals.

if you want to believe more in the substance of real social and political change,
in the world of tomorrow,
seek knowledge, insight, and foresight,
that will encourage you to get into the fight,
to take the world off the vertical and plutocratic planes,
onto the horizontal and common people vein.

if you do this, you will give more meaning to the belief,
that “we shall overcome, some day”!

CREATIVE EXCELLENCE
Baba Tony Brown

I have long been judged by everything visible
to the eyes and denied for being me.

But hold up, I have a voice
and I say no to how you choose to treat me.

I respect myself and will
not allow you to disrespect me.

It’s my creative resistance that lets you think
you got my goat, but my wisdom tells me
that the only way you can get my goat
is for me to tell you where I tied my goat.

And I am not telling you.
My voice speaks for me both verbally and nonverbally.

You see, the wisdom of my ancestors showed me
and told me stories of creative resistance.

You might say that it was a
heritage of resistance passed down
from generation to generation.

From the beginning I knew I came
from great stock made from the maker of everything.

 I was endowed with excellence
made perfect not by man, but by spirit.
That spirit lives in me
and the greatest sin was forgetfulness.
We simply forgot who we were and whose we are.

We have created many things
which wear out, but we still have the capacity
to love, honor, and praise, which is timeless.

My excellence makes no excuses,
it just is and so am I.

And I won’t be denied.

Which ethos of protest is yours? Are you in it to “save what you can,” like Lester ? Do you choose to protest the powers that be, like Don or do you protest through your own existence, like Baba Tony? Or are you somewhere in between, Sharon? A little bit of each? Your own brand? How do you protest, and what does it mean when you do?