Sign I saw at the Lincoln memorial where I was doing research.
I dont know how long he stood there but god bless him.
I talked to him.
He said that he likes to stand there every week with a different sign, some of them anti trump, some of them just generally anti conservative stuff.
I asked him how hostile people got, and he said that for the most part, people in this area are liberal and a lot of tourists are too.
I asked him what the most hostile person did, and he said an old man wanted to fight him but his wife stopped him.
Really nice guy.
I thanked him and told him I thought what he was doing was very admirable.
the replies on this post amuse me.
as if any of you’d have to guts to do what this man does every week.
I asked him how long he’d be out there.
He said until his bladder burst.
So go ahead and sit at your keyboards, spouting NRA propaganda and telling yourself that you’re enlightened.
I was in the nation’s capital today and saw people literally thank him.
Murmur to themselves and their tourist groups that he’s right, some rights need to be restricted.
I heard someone murmur, “Amen” behind me.
High five him.
Nod at him.
One girl even stopped and asked him if he had a hashtag or anything he wanted posted to social media, and he said he just wants things to change.
I don’t care if you believe me.
That is what I saw, while I was doing participant observational research for my sociology 332 class.
I saw people below the Lincoln Memorial, between the Vietnam War Veterans Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial nodding at his sign, stopping to read it, take pictures, and thank him.
And I wasn’t even with him that long, I was there for maybe thirty minutes (it was the end of my shift and I was tired, ok, I would’ve stayed longer but I didn’t see him until literally the last ten minutes of my stay…and then I ended up staying over time because I couldn’t resist talking to him).
I then decided to talk to him, because he seemed nice, responding to people’s questions, and when taunted by a conservative woman, who wanted a “hilarious picture to send to her husband,” invited her over for a selfie.
He said that it just bothers him at night, everything wrong with America and the corruption that blinds people to manipulative corporate rhetoric. And that he comes out every week because stuff like the Parkland shooting has been eating him up lately.
So.
He had more compassion in one hand than every single one of you bastards in these replies.
Who wouldn’t know it if it told you its name and slapped you across the fat oily pig snout.
And incidentally, the very people he said he wanted to “get thinking.”
The people, he said, who disagreed might still go home disagreeing, but at least they’ll question themselves at the end of the day.
And that’s why he does it.
Not that any of you will truly appreciate this guy, though.
This is the internet.
Human decency and thoughtfulness is lost to you.
Artisan Scribbles 