My daughter’s first protest started off with a fight.
We were standing in a crowd of vegans on the lawn before Queen’s Park, watching right-wing broadcasting bully Ezra Levant cross-examine a man dressed up like a chicken.
Lyla asked what he was doing. I told her that he was belittling him, because Levant doesn’t believe climate change is being caused by humans.
“That’s like calling a blue car yellow,” she responded. “How can he not believe in climate change?”
She picked up her placard — a green car she designed, with sunflowers for headlights — and marched over to ask him why.
Backfire? For sure. Now Lyla knows that there are people out there who--quelle horreur!--hold different opinions, knowledge that is all but certain to trigger a trauma. (Wearing a chicken suit to a climate change protest--I'm not sure if that's a micro or a macro aggression. Whatever it is, it's damn funny!)I let her go. I haven’t decided if this was a good parenting decision or a bad one. In fact, part of me wondered if bringing Lyla to the Jobs, Justice and Climate march would backfire as well...
Update: Chicken man sighted at 2:25 of this video:
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