I Just Can't

Tomorrow, there is a "Free Speech" rally/thing in Boston, which would normally sound like a good thing, right? but in this case means something like what happened in Charlottesville last weekend. They don't mean what I do by free speech. Nazis. Consider my mind blown.

Which further means that various groups are getting together to counter-protest, and I've been back-and-forthing in my mind all week about going.

The thing is, with all the other marches and rallies I've been to this year (women's, anti-immigration ban, trans rights, science), I've felt like I should go, emphasis on the "felt." I wasn't really able to articulate why, not clearly, even to myself; it just felt in each case like something I wanted to do (even if I didn't want them to be necessary in the first place).

In this case, the emphasis feels different. I feel like maybe I ought to go, or ought to want to go, but ... oh, words are failing me, I hate that. I keep thinking about this, and my thinking doesn't come out any clearer than it did days ago.

It isn't even just that some idiot* could run his car into the crowd**. There's the possibility of violence, and conflict, neither of which I am comfortable with (there's white privilege; I get to decide if I'm comfortable with it). Perhaps it's partly the confusion, the arguments for going (stand up to them) and not going (don't give them the attention they want), even for standing up to them with humor***.
*"Idiot" isn't enough of a word, but I can't come up with one word to encompass that.
**I think Boston is going to be pretty prepared to shut things down. Not saying "it can't happen here," not at all, but still.
***How in the world, in 2017, in the New York Times, is there actually an article headlined "How to Make Fun of Nazis"? How is this reality?

I can't make this coherent. I'm going to put it up as is. Sometimes that's all I can do.

I got an email from the ACLU about tomorrow, and they had this photo at the top.

I put it up on Facebook, and a friend said she had seen one like it in the area, but that it concluded with "WATER IS WET"; I have to get me one of those.