This Is Defiance

For more than two years, people have gathered every week day in the Rotunda of the Wisconsin Capitol at noon to sing. Every day, Monday through Friday, for more than two years, they've been there. Singing. For five weeks, the Capitol Police have been randomly arresting an arbitrary number of participants each day. The justification for these arrests are new administrative rules that require gatherings of more than 20 people in the Capitol building to obtain a permit. These new rules ignore that the Wisconsin State Constitution designates the Capitol as a public building. These new administrative rules upend the basic right to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

I went to the Solidarity Sing Along on Monday, August 26, the day that this and this both happened. The Capitol Police reached for new levels of low, and brutality, and they achieved them. Spectacularly. Damon Terrrell is (as I write this, on my lunch break on Wednesday, August 28, with the livestream of today's sing playing in the background) still in the Dane County jail, having neither been charged nor released. The blatant racism on display is breathtaking. The more than 150 arrests in five weeks (and counting) is chilling, and is intended to have a chilling effect on the exercise of speech.

But you know what? It's not working.

The Solidarity Sing Along has swelled in the five weeks since arrests started. What was 25 or 30 people has grown to hundreds.

This is defiance. "Arrest Us And We Multiply," said a homemade t-shirt. The new rules prohibit the holding of signs on sticks or poles or standards; a woman was arrested for carrying a sign in her hand and was told that she, herself, was the standard, and thus in violation of the rules.

Signs declaring "I Am The Standard" have appeared. Signs demanding the release of Damon Terrell. Signs decrying the brutality used against CJ Terrell. Signs demanding Medicaid expansion. On 8/26, signs in support of Planned Parenthood as participants in the Women's Equality Day rally outside the building came in for the sing along. Signs quoting the Wisconsin State Constitution. A homemade t-shirt denouncing ALEC.

This is defiance. We are the standard. Our bodies are the pike on which we will raise our demands, our
bodies are the ground for our voices, and we will raise them up with our fists and we will defy you. You do not govern by fiat, no matter who you are. You do have to listen to us. You will not shut us up with money, you will not shut us up with violence.

We demand the right for everyone to live. We demand the right to petition our government without reprisal. We demand that every person be recognized a person. We demand the right to economic security.

And if you attempt it? We will sing louder. More of us will be the standard. There will be more bodies, there will be more voices. Courage is contagious, and this is as evident in the Solidarity Sing Along as it is in the Fight For 15 strikes, as it is in the Energy Exodus marchers, as it is in fight for reproductive justice, as it is in the antiwar movement in the wake of Chelsea Manning's bravery and incarceration.

This is defiance, and we are the standard.