Overwhelmed? No way. On the contrary, even. This anti-abortion activist is in full celebration and at the height of excitement. Exactly a year ago, the federal decision Roe vs. Wade, guaranteeing the right to abortion throughout the United States, was repealed by the Supreme Court, leaving each state the initiative for its regulation. On June 24, this gentleman and hundreds of other activists gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to celebrate. With undisguised enthusiasm, as you can see.
The card this man is holding above his head reads “Pray to End Abortion,” but the slogan on his T-shirt is much more meaningful and historic. The phrase “pro-life” has been claimed since the early 1970s by anti-abortion activists. At the time, they took care of the image of their demands by giving them a positive message rather than opposition. They cleverly appropriated the word “life”, previously reserved for progressive activists committed against war or the death penalty.
Below his t-shirt, this protester wears chinos, unsurprisingly. Extremely popular in the United States for many decades, to the point of having long been considered the “daddy’s pants” par excellence, the chino has transformed in recent years into a real political symbol. Supremacists began to wear it, paired with a white polo shirt, to go unnoticed and not attract the attention of the authorities. Then the reactors of all kinds ended up following the trend. To the point of having made the wearing of these innocent pants suspicious.
This young girl, on the right, is not wearing chinos but a dress cut from a fabric that is also loaded with meaning. Seersucker, a waffle and summery material from Persia (the term comes from the Persian shir o shekar, which would mean “of milk and sugar”), has always been historically associated with the bourgeois classes of the southern United States. Over the years, in its blue and white striped version, it has even gradually become an object of fetishism among Republicans, to the point that senators devote a day to it every May, the famous Seersucker Thursday.
How, despite everything, grow out of this image? With two anecdotes to come out during a dinner at home, of course. Know that the statue of Lincoln, placed in front of the Memorial, is associated with two beautiful beliefs. The first claims that the face of General Robert Lee, leader of the Confederate armies, is carved into the hair of the statue. The second reports that Lincoln’s hands represent his initials in sign language. Historians don’t believe it, but trust us: that won’t stop your guests from being impressed by your culture.
