Waking up mad as hell after yesterday, I didn’t want the actions of that white dude to have the final say. I wasn’t initially going to attend a march on Saturday, but being angry as hell, I put on my clerical, my #BlackLivesMatter shirt, picked up my sign, and went out the door. I stood near the steps of the San Mateo County History Museum watching people enter the event. I saw a lot of pink pussy hats. I saw one safety pin on someone’s jacket. I saw a lot of signs that said “Women’s Rights are Human Rights” and I felt that there was so much lacking in the signs and conversations when coming to the multitude of identities that constantly face oppression and are under serious threat in a Trump presidency. When a singer came to the microphone and said that he was selling his CD before breaking out into song, I was done. I instead went into self-care mode, choosing to honor what would have been my father’s 72nd birthday by going home and eating a birthday cake.

I’m not going to lie. I am struggling to see the smiling and primarily white faces from today’s #WomensMarch filling my social media. I consistently saw pictures with festive atmospheres with pink pussy hats, creative signs, and a large collection of people gathered to protest now-President Donald Trump. Like, freaking huge, y’all. Where did you all come from? I cannot help but wonder where was this physical outpouring of people at the extrajudicial killing of black and brown people? The murders of so many Trans People in the United States? Where was this flood of people and support when indigenous populations at Standing Rock are (still) fighting to protect their land from corporate oil? Where was this outcry from all over the country (and the world) in the primaries, when Trump mocked reporter Serge Kovaleski (who has arthrogryposis), when Trump kicked out Jorge Ramos (a Mexican-American journalist with Univision) from a press conference, when Trump won the Republican nomination for president, when the Trump tapes revealed the sanctity of white pussy…..?

I don’t know if there will again be another mass gathering of people from all over the world. I’m going to make a gross assumption: the days ahead will not be festive. Within our social locations, we will all have to ask ourselves some hard questions in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. I know that I have to look in the mirror and ask if I have done enough, because I know there are times where I have fallen short. I know there will be times where I will fall short in the coming days, weeks, months, years ahead, but I am invested in the work. If I’ve seen anything from Friday evening to return home and put an ice pack on my face, I was surrounded by a community of beloveds. Beloveds I can trust and will invest in this work together. I am anxious for the days ahead, but I also believe that we are the resurrected body of Christ to work with one another to bring about the kin-dom.

Y’all, I am a person of hope as a follower of Jesus. I believe in both death and resurrection. But I am also a realist; there is a lot of hard work that is to come after today. I know that as an Asian-American cishet woman, I still have a hell of a lot of work to do if I am going to be in this work of justice and liberation. That work does not on happen on the backs of others. I know that I will fuck up on the road ahead doing the work of justice and liberation. I’m going to make a gross assumption and say you will, too. After today, will you be invested in the hard work, where you will (un)intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, where you will (un)intentionally offend someone? Where we will have to find a way to stumble along on this path but not on the backs of others?