Thousands March, But Conan O'Brian and Spiderman Week Get the Spotlight
By G. Melesaine // Photo by Elizabeth Gonzalez
My voice feels like it's deciding to take a break, and my body is sore from yesterday. I turn on the morning news to see if there is any sign of the great event that took place. No signs from the media, but Conan O'Brian is in town and the New York mayor has proclaimed that this week will be an official Spiderman Week. Then a quick minute before the news hour is over, they show a young camera man being beat with a baton by a police officer and a man who was playing his drums quickly running to scoop a woman nearby to safety before she is mobbed by a storm of police officers in riot gear. I almost thought for a minute that this was probably another country, but it wasn't, it was Los Angeles.
On May 1 st , thousands of people marched for justice, for equality, for their right to no longer be called an illegal human being in America. Across the country thousands of people participated in the marches. In San Jose, California, on the corner of Story and King, thousands of people gathered -- daughters grandmothers, sons, aunts, gay, straight, African-Americans, Mexicans, Asians, Cubans everyone who is suppose to define what an American was there. Like last year we all waited for the march to begin while listening to motivating speeches from random speakers. The crowd looked smaller than last year. The feeling was different, not bad but more or less a feeling that was "lets do what we came here to do."
This year's May 1st felt different, I know it didn't feel the same as last year. When the march ended at City Hall, I wondered if that was the end. If, after we all got home, went to sleep, awoke the next day would the march have any affect for things to change? It felt the same. The news reports made it clear to me what their priorities were, and I felt like the march went unnoticed. At the end of the news hour, a small video clip of a young man who was showing his rubber bullet wound reminded me of something. He was shot by police during the Los Angeles march, which ended in a tremendous amount of police force. He said, "This is psychological war to make us feel like we don't exist." No matter how little air time they give to the marches, rallies, and immigration rights, the people still exist. The numbers prove that.
The tactic of the media keeping it as the lowest priority is part of that psychological war, they want to make it seem like the march isn't important, so the people would think that marching doesn't matter. But by not showing the march means that it is the highest priority in America. This country and its government hates to look at itself in the mirror, because the reality is ugly and unjust. People die trying to just get a glimpse of the American Dream. Conan O'Brien and Spiderman is a quick faŤade to make America seem lovely.
