Today's Dissenters: Warren, MI

The President's 100 Day Rally—The Whole Story

(Now, you can listen or read. Enjoy!)

Behind the podium of black, a screen read, 100 Days of Greatness.

Thousands cheered.
When the 47th president of the United States spoke, they cheered.
When he proclaimed, “Nothing will stop me,” they cheered.
When judges were called communists, they cheered.
And when a video displayed sons and fathers imprisoned, they cheered.

100 days of greatness, or so the screen read.

Newscast after newscast featured vignettes of an enthusiastic crowd of 3,000 at Macomb Community College in Warren, MI. Article after article recorded their numbers, their signs, and their approval. Reporter after reporter captured them.

It’s a pity they didn’t roll the cameras before they stepped inside.

If they had, they would have caught a crowd of over 3,000 protesting.
If they had, they would have seen dozens of American flags hung upside down.
If they had, they would have heard thousands chant, “Lock him up!”
If they had, they could have told the whole story. . . but most didn't.

So we will.

Tuesday, April 29 at 4:00 p.m., a crowd gathered. Not to welcome the president or to celebrate his first 100 days, but to dissent.

Dressed in black, they held cardboard signs. “100 days of chaos and loss,” they read. In shouts, they cried for equity and justice.

On a white poster board, one woman wrote, “Democracy dies when we stay silent.” This was one of thousands of homemade signs, banners, and flags. Another, a black umbrella turned billboard, read, “Liberty once lost never regained.”

As one protestor shared, per M Live, one of the few outlets to cover the protest, “One hundred days, we can’t afford to be silent anymore. People have to stand up,”

My perspective of April 29 in Warren, MI is biased, I admit. However, it is no more biased than the dozens of national media outlets who chose to cover the crowd of 3,000 gathered within the college, yet neglected to mention the crowd equal in size that protested at its doorstep. A story was told, but not the story.

Silence is compliance, or so the saying goes. Whenever media edits a story, leaving the clips of those who stood in dissent laying on the proverbial cutting room floor, they are complicit.

Complicit in the lie that this is normal.
Complicit in recording a half-told history.
Complicit in maintaining a false narrative necessary to keep the masses content.

Complicit.

The people of Warren were not complicit yesterday. And neither are we when we share their story.

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May Day is tomorrow and carries on through the weekend. My team and I have logged about 950 locations.

Find one:

LIST of protests.
MAP of protests.

Expect my weekly list of protests, meetings, trainings, and mutual aid events TOMORROW. Subscribe so you don’t mis it.

Friday, expect our next story of hope—The Dissenters: Viva Las Vegas.

To share your city’s story of dissent, go to my website. You can write a tip, call in a story, or send audio of a protest.