{"id":1246,"date":"2025-06-15T05:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-15T05:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/?p=1246"},"modified":"2025-06-15T05:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-15T05:04:09","slug":"new-york-city-protesters-push-back-with-love-and-defiance-mother-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmgiveawayfinder.com\/?p=1246","title":{"rendered":"New York City Protesters Push Back With Love and Defiance \u2013 Mother Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Demonstrators march down Fifth Avenue during New York’s “No Kings” protest.<\/span>Stefan Jeremiah\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily<\/em>.<\/a><\/div>\n

Many thousands of <\/span>protesters jammed the streets around Manhattan\u2019s Bryant Park on Saturday afternoon, defying the drizzle and chanting \u201cNo ICE! No KKK! No fascist USA!\u201d before spilling into an enormous march down Fifth Avenue. New York City\u2019s \u201cNo Kings\u201d gathering trumpeted one message above all: Solidarity with immigrants, in the form of a fierce rebuke of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. The march unfolded throughout the afternoon with an attitude of joyful defiance in a festival-like atmosphere featuring clowns, singers, drummers, pets, long-time activists, and protest neophytes.<\/p>\n

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Alexis Lazo, a 23-year-old musical theater student and actor, used to be a self-described \u201ccentrist,\u201d but as a child of immigrants himself, he no longer felt as if he could stand on the sidelines. Brandishing a sign that read \u201cNo Kings, No Cults, No Orange Tyrant,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/9G7euDKlGV<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Mother Jones (@MotherJones) June 14, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I met Monica Pierce, a 55-year-old from Texas with Colombian heritage, she was standing alone with a sign that simply said \u201cNO,\u201d surrounded by colorful string lights. \u201cThis means a lot to me,\u201d she said, gazing out on the crowd. \u201cMy mom went through a lot to come here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI just can\u2019t stand by anymore and just kind of like be ignorant. It just wouldn\u2019t be right.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cSeeing this hatred is just devastating,\u201d she replied when I asked her what worried her about America these days. She is married to an immigrant, she said, and her daughter\u2019s boyfriend is also an immigrant. \u201cAmerica is just becoming so divided and hateful and entrenched in their hate,\u201d she said. Her husband, she told me, doesn\u2019t feel safe to turn up to the protests, so she knows that she must.<\/p>\n

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Monica Pierce, a 55-year-old from Texas, said she turned up because her husband, an immigrant, does not feel safe doing so.<\/span>James West\/Mother Jones<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alexis Lazo, a 23-year-old musical theater student and actor, was hanging out on scaffolding on the south side of Bryant Park, taking in his first-ever protest. He used to be a self-described \u201ccentrist,\u201d but as a child of immigrants himself, he no longer felt as if he could stand on the sidelines. Brandishing a sign that read \u201cNo Kings, No Cults, No Orange Tyrant,\u201d he said, \u201cI just can\u2019t stand by anymore and just kind of like be ignorant,\u201d adding, \u201cIt just wouldn\u2019t be right.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep fighting for what is right,\u201d he implored. \u201cPlease: Keep informing yourself\u2014and share love, and not hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Musical theater student Alexis Lazo was taking in his first anti-Trump protest in Manhattan on Saturday.<\/span>James West\/Mother Jones<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Other themes and causes were represented throughout the afternoon. June 14 was also the day early voting began in the city for the mayoral primary, so \u201cDon\u2019t Rank Cuomo!\u201d<\/a> was a frequent chant from those campaigning against former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is a frontrunner in the race for mayor. Their strategy: urge voters to leave him off the city\u2019s ranked-choice voting ballot entirely. Other signs decried the war in Gaza, threats to students, and, of course, Trump himself.<\/p>\n

Kaylyn Gibilterra, a 35-year-old tech worker, used the protest to showcase her insights and fears of Silicon Valley monopolies in the form of four 3D-printed handheld cut-out heads of tech bosses\u2014Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and, inevitably, Elon Musk. \u201cIt feels very much like we\u2019ve gone back to like a feudalist state regime,\u201d she told me. \u201cMy goal is to hold them more accountable and just show that we should talk about the size of these monopolies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kaylyn Gibilterra, a 35-year-old tech worker (center), created four handheld heads of Silicon Valley titans to protest the oligarchic takeover of the government.<\/span>James West\/Mother Jones<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\u201cThere\u2019s a point in fascist states where people lose their right to think, to protest, to stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

For others, the fight was even bigger. Quinn, a struggling 25-year-old artist who splits his time between New York City and his family home in Connecticut, turned up to champion the cause of non-violent protest and how it can change hearts and minds. He came to the city to find work in the arts, he said, but now this battle to save democracy has become his urgent calling. \u201cAs soon as the first person was deported illegally, without due process to a foreign prison, we became fascist,\u201d he said. (Quinn didn\u2019t want to give his last name.) \u201cThere\u2019s a point in fascist states where people lose their right to think, to protest, to stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stood with his mom on a Fifth Avenue stoop, watching the rain-jacket-clad young and old, Black, brown, and white protesters occasionally breaking into chants, or dancing to \u201cWe Are Family\u201d by Sister Sledge booming from speakers. \u201cThere\u2019s literally nothing easier than walking down the street with your peers, you know, chanting for your freedom and the freedom of all people,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why America is great. That\u2019s why America is going to continue to be great, and that\u2019s why we can can win, we can beat fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n

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