It was an amazing event. I shocked I went, I had 100 excuses not to go, but I felt this weird urge to go. I knew there would be people that I could meet up with, but that wasn’t the reason. I knew it would be a sort of comedy/political show, but that wasn’t the reason. The reason was more the people than anything. Jon Stewart, Steven Colbert, Ozzy, Yusaf Islam, the O’Jays, the Mythbuster boys, Kid Rock, Cheryl Crow, The Roots, John Legend and Tony Bennett could have not been there and yet I probably would have gone. The people. Sort of a Field of Dreams event.
So some impressions. The people. I saw no one hassling anyone. People were very close together, yet people just got along. Of course, don’t expect to go to the port-a-potty from the center of the crowd, but still everyone was cool. The average age was probably late 20’s to 30’s, but I saw teenagers to seniors in their 70’s. It was skewed a little to whites over blacks, but there were good representation of blacks there. I saw enough Indians, Muslims, Hispanics to even out the mix of races. And yet we got along. People were polite and respectful of each other.
The attitude. The far right media felt that the signs were mean and hateful. Someone needs to take a sarcasm dosage. These are college kids who live on sarcasm. They were making fun of the Tea Party signs and the screaming idiots who have so much hate. They didn’t hate, they were snarky, but it wasn’t hate. Some I needed a friend to translate into my generation. Some were absolutely funny and others were weird. And some were touching. I communicate with enough 20 and 30 year old people to know what the meaning of the signs were. I don’t agree with some, but they didn’t mean anything bad by them, they were having fun. Only the hardened right wing saw anger and hate, because they think that is what everyone does.
The crowd. It was big. We were at the closer edge of the Air and Space Museum to the stage. We were a long way from the stage. We could see it, but no way could you see people on stage. We had a good view of the second set of Jumbotrons set up before 4th Street. And when the Mythbuster guys started a wave from the front and the back at the same time, I figured we would be in the middle. We were in the front! The wave hit us from the front first and seconds later did it hit us from the back. Cell and data service died for hours as expected with this crowd. My most telling story about the crowds was trying to get away. I had a 6pm flight from Reagan and the event was over at 3:00. I was a few minutes at the end saying good bye and took off to L’Enfant Station on foot, fighting the crowd. The line to the subway was up the stairs, around the pavilion, down the block, under the underpass and then back down the next street about a block or two. The crowd was about 4 deep. And it wasn’t moving. I went to plan B and went to the Smithsonian Blue line. The first entrance was blocked by a cop and was telling people to go that way to another entrance. I was then working on Plan C and D. Plan E was walking as far as I could an hopefully find a cab because cars weren’t moving that much. Plan F was saying screw it and staying over. I was able to get down the stairs at the other entrance and slowly get on a subway. The car was jammed, but people were pretty good spirits, but you could tell they were pooped. I made my flight. Could there have been 215,000? Oh yeah. More? Who knows, I was surrounded by people, as far as I could see.
The message. Stewart’s message at the end was the most sincere thing I’ve heard for years. He was taking a bit of a career risk by doing this. But as I listened to him, I heard something wonderful. 200,000+ people listening. No one was laughing or talking. They were listening to him say these wonderfully sincere words. No script or teleprompters, no messages written on his hand. And they listened.
So what did I take away. First, the reason I came was because something would happen and it did. People did walk away with a little more love in their hearts. We, for that brief moment, were sane. We had a spirit I haven’t felt for a long time. Annabel Park asked me if this was my Woodstock. No, but better than that. To be in a sea of people of all races, ages, religions etc and share that moment is a life changer. And for a brief moment, I was sane. Now we need to learn how to keep it going.
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