Notes from the Radical Center

Early this morning, I happened to catch an article saying that Donald Trump would be in Aurora, CO, my hometown. I already had strong feelings about the former president, none of them good, but when he decided to use my city as a political prop, it became personal.

I love Aurora. I have lived here for fifteen years. It is full of beautiful cottonwoods and beautiful people and beautiful foxes. Aurora is among the most diverse cities in the United States, and I feel the value of that diversity. Aurora is the only place that I have lived where people passing by call me brother. Aurora is a big place, and each part is beautiful in its own way. I never want to leave.

I live near Colfax, and sometimes I play guitar just a block away from the building where surveillance video showed serious looking men carrying serious looking guns, where the residents of the building faced a legitimately scary situation. After the issue came to light, raised to the national stage by our own elected officials, I had relatives calling me to ask me if I was okay, perhaps because they had seen that video on repeat for the 100th time on their favorite news channel. Those officials have since walked it back, but it seems to be a narrative that the former president couldn’t resist and he has seized on it.

The former president’s rhetoric only hurts us. Aurora has long struggled with a bad reputation among the other Metro Area suburbs, most of it undeserved. Aurora has its share of problems. If that makes it a war zone, then most of the U.S. is a war zone. Colfax itself is a storied street, and not all the stories good, but I have only found warmth there. People do face crime here, and gratefully it has trended down for quite some time. But it is clear that Trump does not care about Aurora beyond what it might mean for him politically.

I’ve been stewing over this for quite some time, and it seemed like a lucky break that he would be in town. I found an aspen branch I had laying around for some long-forgotten reason and some posterboard and some markers. Still a little high from the marker fumes, I decided to take the A-Line and hoof it from the station, which I later found out was a lucky break, due to all the traffic. The RTD officer who checked my ticket gave me a fist bump and said, “I know where you are going with that sign, and hell yeah.”

When I arrived, there was already a very long line. At first they told me I must leave the property because protest signs are not allowed. I asked them where is the protest in my sign, and I was able to stay. I didn’t see any other protesters so I just got in line, holding my sign.

I already had gotten a few disgruntled looks and was feeling a tad out of place but a man who got in line right after me looked at my sign and said, “Aurora is a beautiful place to live, I live here too.” I found out his name is Nyan and he lives not far from me, he is my brother. His father embraced me and asked me how my journey was. One by one, the people around me talked to me, many of them from Colorado too. One woman told me about how she was born during the flood of 1965 and saved by her father’s heroism. Another told me about how she and her husband came from Mexico and worked hard and found many rewards, she was grateful to be a part of the dream she had made real in America.

For the next four hours that we were in line, I held up my sign and talked with anyone who wished to talk with me. I talked to several people from news outlets and I told them why I was there and how I felt about Aurora, my experience here and my thoughts on Trump’s words about my city. If you google me in a week you might find a quote or two. Whenever I would stray behind due to these conversations, the people I was originally with would wave me back up. There was one man in particular who looked for me and always noticed when I had fallen behind. They called me Aurora and said I was part of their line family.

One woman passed by and saw my sign and said, “Aurora was a shithole even before the immigrants came.” I don’t really have words to say back to that kind of thing, but Nyan said, “Don’t listen to her,” and I got fistbumps all around. They lifted me up.

Although the line seemed to stretch for more than a mile, we were among the lucky ones who were able to go inside. But they told me I couldn’t bring my sign in there because my aspen branch could be used as a weapon. Well, eight year old me would agree, but I understood. I didn’t want to leave it outside, and I felt that my message had been heard, so I walked back along the mile-long line of hopeful attendees, holding my sign.

Now that I was alone, my sign and I received a lot more open hostility. One woman filmed me and asked me if I had a reservation, she had a reservation and she felt upset about not getting inside, perhaps blaming me even though I didn’t take anyone’s place. She asked me about my politics and insulted me and Governor Polis, and I had to eventually stop talking to her. Another woman asked me if I was in the gang, Tren de Arugua. One man said that I should move into the building where the video was taken. I responded that I play guitar about a block from there, and he said that I should still move in. And I also got smiles and people telling me that they like my sign. One man wanted to have his picture taken with me.

As I left the rally, I saw the rest of the protesters, and held up my sign in solidarity. They were banging drums and I’m not a big fan of loud noises or yelling, so I felt grateful that my solo protest took a different shape, mostly out of luck. My sign didn’t say everything I wanted to say to the former president, but it said enough, exactly the message I wanted to offer.

I didn’t see Trump, and I was okay with that, but there is a chance he saw me. As I was walking back to the A-Line, an intersection was blocked off. I was informed that his motorcade was about to pass. There were very few people there and I tried to hold up my sign like I really meant it as they passed, I hope he saw it and got the message.

A few people asked me how political I am. I like to think I’m political but not polarized, I think those two things get confused. I love our country and I’m interested in civics and I have convictions that I try to balance. Someone in my line family said it best, “I feel like there is common ground on just about every issue.” That’s how I feel too. Most people want basically the same things, they just don’t always agree on how to get there.

There’s an idea floating around out there that being in the center politically means that you don’t have conviction. I’d like to pour a thousand gallons of cold water on that idea. Maybe you don’t even have to identify with being in the center just to meet people there. When you find yourself in the center on some issue, my experience suggests that speaking up goes better than expected. Maybe we are the silent majority that should just become the majority.

There is some baggage surrounding the word radical but I’d like to reclaim it. A radical is merely someone who goes in a different direction, with conviction. When most of the political discourse is far to the left or the right, going toward the center is a radical choice, whether it be for the sake of dialog or because that is where you stand. When everyone around you is responding with hostility, responding with kindness and respect is a radical choice.

It is hard to hold bad feelings about someone while standing next to them for four hours on a beautiful Colorado morning, because you see their humanity, and most of the time that is all it takes. It was my very first Trump rally and I’ll be thinking about it for quite some time. I’m grateful to my line family, I hope they enjoyed their day. They made a huge difference in mine.