Anonymously written
When my son Sam,* (click here) who was then 14, asked me to take him to the Mother of All Rallies on the Mall in September 2017, I said no. The pro-Trump event was billed as a demonstration to preserve “traditional American culture,” and white supremacists were expected to show up in force. Not only was this not how I wanted to spend a Saturday—like almost everyone I knew, I’d been devastated by the 2016 election results—but I had serious concerns about safety. At Charlottesville’s Unite the Right rally only a month earlier, a neo-Nazi had killed counterprotester Heather Heyer. I couldn’t shake off the shock of her violent murder, or of watching men with tiki torches shout racist slogans across the University of Virginia grounds. Police there were unable to protect citizens; I couldn’t reasonably expect this gathering in DC to be any different...
