I am extremely proud of the people who organized the demonstration in Gunnison in honor of George Floyd and the thousands of other black men and women who are unjustly killed by police in our country. I was overwhelmed by the show of solidarity, the energy, and the sheer number of people who came out. I have helped put on some demonstrations in Gunnison, I have attended many more, but this event was the most powerful and emotional thing I've ever witnessed in this town. I'm not ashamed to say I cried. Photographers for our newspapers cried. The organizers and speakers cried a little bit too. It was unspeakably moving. It affected me even more deeply than standing on stage with the diversity of supporters behind Joe Salazar's bid for Attorney General in 2018. I want to extend my thanks to our Gunnison police, who were, from what I could see, very respectful, did not interfere, and helped direct traffic for our safety when we were all standing in the middle on an intersection of two highways. So thank you.
The demonstration was a great success, and now we all need to harness that energy and use it. Become more engaged politically so we can make these changes our society so desperately needs. We elect representatives who are supposed to speak for us. That's hard when they do not reflect our diversity, or don't care about our issues. Become involved in the dominant parties at a small and local level and the primaries. Primaries are vital. For better or worse (mostly worse) these two parties are the ones who are going to field a candidate in a general election. If we don't speak up and demand that those candidates care about us, and if we aren't involved in choosing leaders of a diverse cast, we'll end up with more sociopathic narcissists like the Darth Drumpf and his horde of allies.
Keep the energy up!
In solidarity,
Edward
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