Saturday 21 January 2017

Before the March


Why I am going on the anti-Trump women's March today?
I watched aghast at the nightmare of Trumps inauguration. I know it seems irrelevant to many here but  I feel deeply affected and wonder why. For many in this country, anything that happens in the US is not interesting or surprising, many here can't be bothered with American stuff. Hmm but  that angry primeval self righteous  all-American energy trump has harnessed is only a small part of what is there; Somehow that has swept him to power. It is  deeply hurtful to  the many wonderful people in US, incinceivable where he has got,
My time living in NYC many years ago transformed me, taking me out of this small country;  making me realise how small minded, bigoted and class ridden this country was. For many who had not travelled, England was still the centre of the universe.  They say moving away from your parents is a rite of passage but then so is living outside your culture and country. Maybe it was the quality of the work that took me there (yes! I like to think so), maybe being English privileged male helped  but undoubtedly being in NYC, living in downtown performance scene where straight white males were practically non existent, being in love, mixing with an African American crowd, being taken seriously as an artist.
I remember one day in I think 1991 walking past the then newly built Trump Tower in midtown NY and thinking 'How tacky how garish' (oh lawdy, it offended ma delicate Inglish soul!)How inconceivable that that man, could become president.
And now he is president
That is why I am shocked and hurt by what is happening in the US.
That is why I will go to Grosvenor Square and join the march

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