[Peace-discuss] chilly reception on Florida Avenue

[John W.]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 2:56 PM, Karen Medina <kmedina at uiuc.edu> wrote:

John Wason wrote:
> >   as we turned right from Lincoln onto Florida and
> >   entered the "Champaign domain", our reception got
> >   decidedly chilly.  Lots of glares and very little
> >   applause.  It was really quite remarkable, like
> >   driving from bright sunlight into a driving rain.
>
> We have a few theories on the difference between Lincoln and Florida
> Avenues.
>
> Yours is one.
> Mort suggested that the people on Lincoln are those who walk from their
> homes
> on the very liberal "state streets" [Pennsylvania Ave, Washington,
> Michigan, ...
> aka the "faculty slums"]
>
> As a person from Champaign myself, I think the above situation is
> compounded
> by a few things:
> 1) Those on Florida are sitting in the sun longer, so maybe their brains
> are a bit
> too warm by the time the floats come by.
> 2) People also come from farther away than Champaign. I recognized several
> people that I know are from small towns nearby. So Champaign residents are
> not to take the entire blame.
>
> A great many people on Florida were indeed quiet, but I also noticed that
> some
> of the quiet ones were people who I know are for our cause. It was a long
> parade, we were number 60, the sun was warm, there were many things
> demanding attention, and there is the crowd effect -- if the people next to
> you
> are quiet, you are also quiet -- if the people next to you are cheering,
> you at
> least think about cheering.
>
> Even with all this, our reception on Florida was not what could be
> described as
> cold. I counted at most 5 individuals that were outwardly negative to us.
> Many
> people were applauding us. This is by far the warmest reception I could
> have
> dreamt of. It was all beautiful. Lincoln Avenue was the most beautiful.
>
> -karen medina


I would add one more corollary.  By now a great many people are thoroughly
sick of the war(s) and of the Bush administration.  Back on July 4, 2001
9/11 hadn't even happened yet, and the Bush administration had not yet
demonstrated just how venal it actually was.  So we Greens were perceived as
pretty radical at that time.
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