Protesters took to Aurora Avenue on Tuesday to participate in a walk-out pushing back against Trump administration policies. (David Mendez/The Osprey)
by David Mendez
Among the American flags, costumes, florescent clothing, pink hats and signs, Timothy Beal’s flag jumped out during Tuesday afternoon’s walk-out protest against a score of Trump administration policies.
Beal was waving the flag of Greenland out over the road on Tuesday afternoon, in defiance of President Donald Trump’s insistence that the United States take control of Greenland, a territory of Denmark that Trump has long coveted.
“It seemed applicable,” Beal said when asked by The Osprey. He vehemently opposes Trump, spitefully purchasing flags of every nation or coalition that Trump derides, including the LGBTQ+ Pride flag.
“We’ve never had such a bully at large, willing to sacrifice the entire population of the United States to satisfy his shortcomings,” Beal said, as he held Greenland’s flag aloft. “He literally has no bottom.”
In a text exchange days before the protest, Trump suggested to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store that the U.S. may use violence to take Greenland.
The exchange, provided by Store’s office to the New York Times, showed that Store sought to ease tensions among leaders from across the Atlantic.
“Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America,” Trump wrote.
Timothy Beal waves the flag of Greenland to spite the Trump administration. (David Mendez/The Osprey)
The Nobel Peace Prize isn’t awarded by Norway’s government, but by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a private body. The award is given for “outstanding contributions to peace,” and winners have generally been lauded for promoting peace between nations and fostering democratic rights.
While Trump agitated for the Nobel Peace Prize, communities in Minnesota were galvanized against federal immigration enforcement in the wake of a federal agent shooting and killing a woman.
Martha Foster carries her sign at Tuesday’s protest. (David Mendez/The Osprey)
Renee Good, who was shot and killed as she tried to drive away from immigration agents shouted conflicting orders at her, was the ninth person shot — and at least the second person killed — by ICE agents since September.
Martha Foster, a Richmond Beach resident, cribbed from a Vietnam War-era anti-war slogan for her sign: “fascism is not healthy for children and other living things.”
She began attending demonstrations around that time, raising her voice for multiple causes over the decades, like civil rights and nuclear disarmament.
After all that time, the actions of the second Trump administration have turned her stomach.
“It felt as though we were on the verge of doing a lot of really important things…helping people,” Foster said. “It feels like I’m living in a novel, and I just wish we could come to the end of it and find out that we had a happy ending. But we can’t get there until people push, push, push, push, and make sure that something changes.”
Cheryl Mazurek, a Snohomish resident working in Shoreline, took the afternoon off work to attend the protest. She works in health care, and has been joining protests against Trump’s actions since his first term in 2016.
"I’m not a ‘paid agitator,’ I’m an American who believes in the constitution,” Mazurek said. White House officials, including Trump himself, have repeatedly accused protesters of being “paid agitators and insurrectionists.”
“Right now, our constitution is in tatters, and I fear for all of our freedoms, as well as my children’s,” Mazurek said. She’s a mother to two — a 27-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. Her daughter, she said, is having her rights stripped away (reproductive and abortion rights are being challenged across the country), while she worries that her son may be drafted to fight in a war driven by Trump’s pursuit of resources.
Meanwhile, she’s planning retirement. “If I’m lucky. Unless he screws up our economy and we’re in a depression,” Mazurek said. “So I’m out here as long as I can be…until ICE comes and starts shooting us all down.”
Cheryl Mazurek waves to cars along Aurora Avenue in Shoreline. (David Mendez/The Osprey)