A Fighting Spirit

The other day I was in a large group of people, and someone started talking to all of us about a recent experience she’d had. This woman had been driving and saw someone protesting for Palestine at a major intersection. So she pulled over and started talking to the solo protester. The protester was a woman as well, and she had apparently been screaming at people to honk for Gaza, according to the story. The screaming was not getting much of a response, or not much of a positive response at least. So the two started talking. The protester explained that she was from Palestine, and her heart had been torn apart for months on end over this genocide, which has included the murder of many people she once knew. The woman who pulled over wanted to help, but she thought the screaming wasn’t accomplishing much. So she asked the protester if they could meditate together, and they did. As the woman telling us this story said it, “the energy shifted completely” after the meditation. Afterwards they both protested more calmly out there, and people began to respond differently. She said it was a truly beautiful experience.

The rest of that day I walked around feeling not quite right. Something felt off internally. From the moment she finished her story I thought I had a vague sense of why it rubbed me the wrong way, but it wasn’t until the powerful wave of student protest we’re seeing this week that I really understood just how far off the mark this well-intended story, and more importantly the actions of this well-intentioned person, were.