I have never felt so simultaneously in tune and at odds with the locals of Philipstown than when I stood out on the corner of Whistling Willies and Main St this past Friday with kids I had grown up with. Some had been ahead of me in school, some behind, but we all had had the same reaction when we heard a man had parked outside WW with a Trump flag attached to his truck: “We can’t let people think this is what Cold Spring stands for” (and, maybe more honestly, “Fuck that”). The intersection of Whistling Willies and Main St. is in a lot of ways the center of Cold Spring; it is what people drive through when they are just passing through our small town, and it’s where people start their drive down Main St. when coming from Beacon, Fishkill or Garrison. To have this symbol of hate and racism at the center of our small, already white town seemed like accepting defeat. It started as two of us, as we waited for a couple others to show up, and right away a man brought us waters from the gas station across the street. From then on it was a linear upwards trajectory; the more people who showed up to protest, the more people drove by and dropped things off for us. Popsicles, waters, ice teas, gatorades- one self proclaimed registered Republican dropped off a full pizza pie and thanked us because “Trump is a disgrace to the party”. We got honks and cheers, “thank you”s and “Trump is a racist”s, but along with this positive feedback, there was (of course) the negative. Middle fingers and head shakes, “assholes” and “liberal pricks”, and lots of “Trump 2020”s. It felt weird seeing adults flip off 16-23 year olds protesting racism, but unfortunately in this climate, it was not surprising.
While we were there, the man whose truck and flag it was, pulled out several things from the bed of his truck, to do some light yard work(?). He paced in front of us with a huge shovel at one point (of course not wearing a mask and probably less than 6 feet), he then pulled out a rake, then both, then took out drumsticks and walked behind us banging on the railing of Whistling Willies. The whole time we were there we did not approach him or go over to his chair or truck. He wouldn’t listen to us when we asked him to stay 6 feet away and wear a mask.
One interaction that sticks in my mind involved a man with an “All Life Matters” (followed by a thank you to the NYPD) sign who decided to stand at the corner a couple feet away from where we were gathered. At one point a car had stopped in front of us and a Black woman had gotten out to show us her “Trump Sandwich” shirt. She thanked us and said Black Lives Matter gesturing to the man’s sign and we all agreed. That is when he stepped in along with his wife and they started to argue with the woman. She said all lives had always mattered and now it was time to focus on Black lives. It got heated and “fuck you”s were thrown around and then she got back into the car. This was when the man and his wife said “This is exactly what we expect from you! Look at yourself!”
The racism had slipped. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. It was so outright. It wasn’t hiding, wasn’t disguising itself as something else. It was something that had gotten out in the heat of the moment, and couldn't be taken back.
I couldn’t go protest the next day due to work, but that’s when I heard about the worst response the group had gotten up to that point. A man had looked at one of their Black Lives Matter signs and said “never have and never will”.
These issues seem so big and outside your community until you stop and listen. Like twitter user Ahmed Ali said, “It's a privilege to learn about racism instead of experiencing it your whole life.” It’s a privilege to be so ignorant to the hate in your community- it means you’ve never had to be on the other side of it.
Once you confront the racism in your small town it starts pouring out with seemingly more momentum than before. Or maybe it was always like that, and this was just the first time you paid attention.