The sidewalks, clubs and art
galleries in Chinatown are usually crowded on 1st Friday so World Can't
Wait-Hawai`i put out a call for a march through the district to demand an
end to the war on women. But this 1st Friday it rained!
When organizers got to the spot where the march was to begin the sidewalks
and galleries were largely deserted. Leafleters huddled
beneath a gallery awning and began passing out the palm
cards and leaflets from Stop Patriarchy,loudly announced that
International Women's Day was the following day, and invited people to join a
march beginning at 8. At the beginning it seemed the evening
was doomed to failure but things quickly turned around once people began
reading the signs and palm cards.
Almost the first person who took a palm
card was a woman from Mongolia who enthusiastically said:
"International Women's Day is really big in my country!"
Another said: "I saw that International Women's Day was tomorrow on
Google!" A woman from Tagikistan related how it was celebrated in
her country. A tourist couple from Melbourne, Australia held signs.
A Russian woman was eager to talk about events in the Ukraine.
A man rushed up to the
World Can't Wait-Hawai`i spokesperson saying "you would have loved the
show on Olelo on "One Billion
Rising." Then he looked at her and realized she'd
narrated the show! ["Voices of Resistance" - an
hour-long show on community television is produced by World Can't
Wait-Hawai`i']. He went on to tell her that he had been moved to tears by
the show, had watched it several times, and urged his friends who were with him
to watch it as well.
A well-dressed older woman shared
that she "can't believe we're still fighting for abortion rights" and
then went on to share her outrage that the women's movement had largely backed
off of "being radical."
Coming out in the rain had gotten a
whole lot better. Most people took palm cards and thanked us. One
couple initially by saying "I don't want one" and then quickly walked
back to ask for one saying "I'm going to give this to my
granddaughter."
At 8pm things were
definitely looking up and an organizer turned on her bullhorn and called
on people to pick up signs and and begin marching. More than a dozen
people headed through the district chanting and holding up signs for
people in restaurants, galleries and clubs to see: A few people
along the short route took signs and joined up.
As the march went past popular clubs, young people standing
outside snapped pictures. A few raised fists.
While the march wasn't as big as we had hoped, and we didn't reach as many people as we had hoped, when the march ended spirits were high. Pictures of signs and banners were taken to send to an International Women's Day march in Gaza. Marchers seemed reluctant to leave and instead took cover and continued conversations, It was hard to believe that only a short time before organizers had considered cancelling the march.
