Becoming Better People: One Vigil at a Time
The family who vigils together stays together, right? We Whomptons feel that a bit. Samantha and I organize a monthly Black Lives
Matter vigil and many times the full family has joined us on Clayton Road to
stand in solidarity and bring awareness to justice reform. My youngest made her first Black Lives Matter
sign when she was 6 years old and she’s been proudly showing it since.
I want our daughters to grow up ready, able, and willing to
speak out on behalf of others; a first step in that process is to routinely
stand quietly with and on behalf of others.
We’re training, practicing, and reminding ourselves to be better people.
Participating in a vigil is a simple act; people hold signs
that affirm the worth and dignity of every person. We wave at the people as they drive by, try
to make eye contact, recognize the humanity in others, and share a positive message. We vigil in Ladue, which is a predominantly
wealthy and white community, and the community support (as measured by waves,
thumbs-up, and honks) has increased steadily in the past two years. I won’t lie and say that every response is
positive – one individual in particular is incredibly negative and he regularly
stops his car to yell statements like “thug!” or “[fill in the blank
individual] deserved to die!” – but on the whole it has seemed that minds were
changing. Or so it seemed to me, at
least.
And then November 8th happened. Depending on who you ask, you might find out
that November 8th was the day that Americans elected a misogynistic,
xenophobic, racist bigot OR the day Americans chose a business-focused
Washington-outsider who isn’t afraid to tell it like it is OR, you know,
both. I anticipated our vigil on
November 13th to be hateful, as in “filled with hate,” because many
Ladue residents voted for Trump and either expressly or tacitly gave his racist
comments a pass. The community response
was different. The overwhelming positive
support – the honks and waves – from the drivers that day was a welcome
surprise and helped my heart heal a bit.
A different organizing group established a vigil in our
hometown of Creve Coeur and we joined them on the 19th. The other vigil attendees were excited to see
us, and beyond thrilled to see Raina and Lola.
Kids holding signs that say “Hate never wins; love does” is always a
powerful sight. Unfortunately, the first driver response I heard was
“n-----!” which is not a word I ever heard shouted in Ladue. There were plenty of middle fingers shown our
way. Little Lola was confused because
she’d not seen that message before and she thought it was a different way of
waving. We corrected her quickly when
she started waving her middle finger back to a driver. Some folks shouted a variety of pro-Trump
statements at us, although none of our signs made political mention at all, and
others had some aggressive thumbs-down responses. On the flip side, the intersection was LOUD
as people honked their support for justice reform, ending the school-to-prison
pipeline, and showing love not hate.
We’re adding the Creve Coeur vigil to our calendar and
making it a priority to be there every month.
Change has to start somewhere, and amplifying voices in our own community is
a good place to start.
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