Singing resistance in the produce section in Wegmans

Singing resistance in the produce section in Wegmans

At 3pm yesterday, about twenty people began singing in the produce section in the Pittsford Wegmans.  Right before, the group had sung and held signs at the Marshalls and McDonald’s across the street.

At 3pm yesterday, about twenty people began singing in the produce section in the Pittsford Wegmans.  Right before, the group had sung and held signs at the Marshalls and McDonald’s across the street.

onlooker

This onlooker strongly supported the group. He was glad the message is going beyond City Hall, Washington Square Park, and the Liberty Pole and right to Pittsford.

Some of the signs simply said, Resist. Others were more specific, calling upon the Sunday afternoon shoppers — and Wegmans — to speak out against the travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Watch the resistance flash mob singing at Wegmans 

Within a minute of the first song, people began to respond. Some joined the singing. A few were moved to tears.

But exactly what were we seeing and hearing?  To learn more, I turned to one of the event organizers.

America is, and has been, a pluralistic society, and employers need to vocally stand with those who make their business possible. This Muslim ban will have profound negative effects on their Muslim customers and employees, and brown people of all faiths, as we’ve already witnessed. The primary purpose of this flash mob is to pressure businesses to drop Trump products, and to also denounce this Muslim ban.

The secondary purpose is simply to sing songs of freedom. Singing is healing…even more so when we sing with others. Community is also healing. Singing together, and listening to others sing, is a balm in this stressful time.

60s-guy

For this man, the singers reminded him of the 60s when Vietnam War protesters regularly gathered at the Liberty Pole.

IMG_5651

ellaBefore the event, the group gathered at a nearby home to practice.
singers

Practicing before hand (audio)

SEE ALSO

Activism Fair draws largest crowd of its kind in recent memory

In Washington Square Park remembering the first March for Woman’s Lives, April 1989

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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