Political – Sara Sidewinder

(Some personal backstory and preparation first so if you scroll down to the pics, I won’t judge 😂)

I had never really done anything like this before, the closet thing I’ve ever done to a protest was actually when me and other class mates in high school got upset that we were told we weren’t allowed to have American flags on our clothes and persons during one year when some students were allowed to have and hang Mexican flags up in the areas they were eating during lunch when there was actually mini racial riots at our school in which a lot of Mexican students and black students were unfortunately clashing. I really didn’t understand nuances at the time but I did greatly dislike hypocrisy and things I felt were unfair, ban all or none was what I thought was fair. And I had similar issues for religious beliefs, I had a teacher that treated me awfully because I wore stuff that she thought was satanic even though it just symbolized the elements, spirit, and masculine and feminine energy. I never had hard set beliefs and considered myself agnostic but loved symbols and unfortunately felt pushed away from most of the Christian churches I went to for asking too many/uncomfortable questions and not quite agreeing with some things. So, I often wore a pentacle and when told not to have an American flag, helped plan a protest.

But I lost my fire slowly after high school due to depression caused by undiagnosed illnesses and a lot of me feeling super misunderstood and not understanding why I struggled with so many things physically and mentally. Then I had a few people really close to me that had pretty differing views and I started to speak my own opinions less and less.

But within the last year and especially recently, my spark has returned.

I went to the march and rally in Torrence, California. It’s was over an hour drive away but Liz and I chose to go to that rally for a few reasons- It started early so I felt safest. Due to my temperature dysregulation I needed cooler weather and it was gonna be hotter in the IE. And the mini march “Slay the Oligarchy” started at “Sunnydale” High School, where some of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was filmed and that was my FAVORITE show as a preteen and Buffy was my idol.

We made some fandom inspired signs and ended up putting a generic —No Kings 🚫👑— on the back of them.

Liz made these and Sage was a GREAT helper!!

We actually promoted her to quality control inspector

Drive was a bit long and my air conditioner is broken so with the windows down it was also noisy haha

Because of my illnesses, I currently can’t stand up for long depending on the circumstances so I often utilize my rickety old wheelchair.

We got there early and met up at the park and got a flyer that had our route and some chants that we practiced a bit.

The best chant ended up being “We don’t want no soddin’ kings- We won’t kiss your bloody rings”

The organizer of this march was super nice and checked on everyone often

The walk/roll there was about 2 miles and not super accessible, but unfortunately that how public sidewalks are a lot of the times. Lots of uneven pavement or overgrown hedges and bushes that make the journey treacherous. Luckily for me, I’m ambulatory (can walk) so for those moments, I can just stumble up and walk a bit and then sit back down (I am starting to get stronger and trying to walk more so I have hope that can better).

Short one, but there were some points when TONs of cars were honking and that was kind of fun

As we got closer to City Hall the main path was all grass so we had to adapt a bit. And Liz was able to film because of the kindness of a stranger pushing my wheelchair for us!!

Liz is a great chanter lol

We finally made it to the right block and there were way more people than I expected. We said our goodbyes to the nice stranger that Liz accidentally caught on a funny hand POV clip

I was SO grateful haha

Accidental water bottle POV