Jocelyn Hamlar is a Columbus Dispatch Editorial Board community advisor.
Persistent themes in conversations, debates, and arguments I’ve had with various friends and acquaintances have been “Why can’t we all just get along?, Why is the country so divided? Can’t we agree on some things?”
In my estimation of crowd size and diversity of participation from photographs of Saturday’s marches, I think we can safely say there is one topic on which many of us agree — NO KINGS!
What we agree on
While our current administration may not want to admit this, people of every age, color, ethnicity, and religion really do love the United States of America.
No matter how we arrived, we have stayed in this country and fought, with many giving their lives, to protect the ideal of individual freedom.
Those who were here before any of us have fought to retain their culture, albeit that fight has lasted incredibly longer than it should have.
In a democratic system, we all have an opportunity to be heard, and the victories we’ve enjoyed from the Civil Rights Movement, diversity efforts (yeah, I said it), are no small achievements, and have led to a strong United States that some in the world envy, and others in our White House are trying to destroy.
What unites us
We were seen and heard across the entire United States on June 14.
Some estimates I read counted millions of people hitting the streets to cast their foot vote for democracy. I looked at photos of Black, brown, white, Asian, abled, other abled, male, female, and likely other gendered people saying no to autocracy and yes to democracy.
Those millions stepped out to save our country. I think we can agree the “divisiveness” is a false premise and we have proved as a nation that the majority of us want to take our country back and deliver the promises in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And we have a way to do that.
The answer is at the ballot box.
Let’s all step up, get engaged locally, statewide and nationally to do what we can to put people back in office who want democracy as much as the millions of people who marched yesterday.
Jocelyn Hamlar is retired from a 40-year career in advertising and brand management. She later became certified and worked as a counselor treating substance use disorders. She is a Columbus Dispatch Editorial Board community advisor.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Trump hates it but Americans are very much united. No King protests proof. | Opinion
Reporting by Jocelyn Hamlar / The Columbus Dispatch
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