Here is your dispatch from “No Kings” Ground Zero, my beloved hometown of Los Angeles, where 30,000 protestors showed up in a glorious display of anger, pride, diversity and compassion Saturday, as similar marches took flight across Southern California, nationwide and abroad.
Aztec dancers blessed our boisterous downtown parade, their brilliant feather headdresses fluttering in the sun, their missives clear about why we’d gathered.
“F*CK I.C.E.” read a dancer’s vest. “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” a group chanted. Trump “will not intimidate us!” a speaker roared. “We will not kneel to kings in this country!”
Most of the day was peaceful. Flags of every country flew as all ages, all colors, all shapes and sizes united. We were watching out for each other, apologizing if we jostled a stranger, offering water, snacks or sunscreen if needed.
One friend even described a poster he noticed as sweet and gentle, if still offering a sharp retort to Trump’s vicious lie about Haitian immigrants eating animals: “Proud Daughter of Immigrants // We’re petting the dogs, we’re petting the cats.”
Toward the day’s end, some isolated violence did break out, although calm appeared to have taken hold after curfew began.
But hours earlier, several Third Act SoCal members had shown up to express our First Amendment rights and I had the privilege of joining the morning’s kick-off speakers (video here).
Over the past weeks, I have noticed with anguish that climate change has been absent from the array of concerns addressed at similar events. So, I asked local “No Kings” organizers if I could talk about it.
Gathered at City Hall, only a few miles from Altadena where 30 people were killed and thousands of homes burned, I reminded the crowd that scientists have said the catastrophic fires were worsened by climate change.
I believe climate change is as grave and imminent a threat as the Trump administration’s assault on our Constitution, and we see few recent protests about it, certainly nothing compared to Saturday’s nationwide defiance–even as terrifying climate warnings continue and Trump takes a chainsaw to our environmental protections.
I implored rally attendees to talk about climate change, which far too few of us are doing. Of course, it’s all connected: Climate change and pollution commonly harm marginalized and immigrant communities first and worst.
I’m guessing I was speaking to about 5,000 people from the bed of our parked 50501 truck, my hands shaking like the leaves of a quaking aspen tree. Never done anything quite like that. But I also said something that some have scoffed at or downplayed: Drive less and avoid gas-powered cars.
Besides contributing to our climate crisis, Big Oil bankrolled Trump. I repeated it: Big Oil bankrolled Trump and his cronies. And every time we pump, we fund Trump. It’s an inconvenient truth, but just as we were taking collective action at the rally, we can have a tremendous collective impact by skipping the pump. We can help to de-fund Trump, we can fight climate change, together.
We must not look the other way. I read a similar sentiment as I sat down to write this blog. Dylan Hernandez, a Los Angeles Times sports columnist, has excoriated the L.A. Dodgers for remaining silent during our recent immigration sweeps, even while other local sports clubs have spoken out and even though more than 40% of the Dodger fan base is Latino.
The Dodgers “can’t even be bothered to offer the shaken community any words of comfort,” Hernandez wrote. “How ungrateful. How disrespectful. How cowardly.”
Likewise, Dodger owners have remained stone cold silent, refusing to respond to pleas that they stop shilling for Big Oil. Team owners have a long-standing sponsorship deal with indicted oil giant Phillips 66. You see the evidence at every game–it’s that orange-and-blue 76 gas station logo crowning Dodger Stadium’s scoreboards. Phillips 66 owns 76 and nearly 30,000 people have signed a petition against this greenwashing. I wrote the open letter with co-founders of our campaign, Dodger Fans Against Fossil Fuels.
Criticizing a beloved, World Series-winning team–especially with the stadium now set as a 2028 Olympics venue–is also inconvenient. I danced with the scrum on downtown’s Grand Avenue after last year’s championship parade.
But Hernandez writes that the Dodgers are asking a significant portion of their team’s fans to look the other way when the immigration raids “affect many of them directly.”
Again, climate change and pollution disproportionately affect immigrant populations and the direct affects are palpable. Temps hit a record 103 degrees when the first pitch went out at Chavez Ravine last season. A heat stroke warning flashed across those scoreboards. Athletes around the world have reported similar challenges.
Please don’t look the other way, even when the truths we must face are painfully inconvenient. At the very least, talk about climate change.
Dubin is Third Act SoCal’s communications lead
