Dear Mr. President,
On October 5, 2009, I witnessed my mother, a 55 year old grandmother be assaulted by your Secret Service right in front of your house. It was so frightening for me, and what your protectors did in your name destroyed any faith that I had left in your willingness to listen to your citizens to end the violence being committed by our country.
My mother, Joy First, is the most peaceful, loving person that I have ever met. She has always had a completely selfless altruism that has led her to take care of others, even when it puts her own personal comfort and safety in jeopardy. As a mother and grandmother, she has always given up much for her children and grandchildren, in an effort to see us not suffer. In the past several years, my mother, Joy has extended this mothering and altruism to all of the children of the world. She has put her comfort and safety on the line countless times in an effort to stop the killing of the world’s children and grandchildren. On October 5th, my mother, Joy, went to your front door to plead with you to stop bombing and shooting of innocent children in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
My mother, Joy, was joined by a group of almost 2 dozen other peaceful civil resisters who were asking you to end the senseless killing in the Middle East. Instead of engaging in civil dialogue with these resisters, someone from the house where you live with your family sent out around two dozen armed secret service agents to assault these peaceful people. So, as I was watching what I believed to be a demonstration of our American democracy, I saw the scene descend into what frighteningly became much more like a scene from an Orwellian novel than from the America I had learned about in Social Studies. And then all of the sudden, people were being dragged, and then, there was my mother, being bounced around like a ping pong ball and being pushed violently by members of your Secret Service.
I ran over to where my mother, Joy, was finally pushed on the ground, and she was sobbing as she was being helped up by her friend. Her friend was so angry that he began to yell that the Secret Service was pushing people’s mothers; they were pushing grandmothers. And I felt the anger swell up inside of me as I saw my mother crying, and I looked at the large, strong men who had been violently pushing my 55 year old mother to the point of tears. Resisters and their supporters wisely moved to a park across the street to process what had happened and decide what to do next. And in the park, I comforted my mother, as I sat next to her in shock.
I don’t mean to make this personal, but you have made this personal to me when your Secret Service attacked my mother, and you have made it personal to the families of the world when you have killed their relatives. How would you feel if your daughters Sasha or Malia witnessed their mother Michelle being assaulted by armed guards? How do you think your daughters would feel? What would it do to Michelle? What would the world say? Well then, please imagine how I felt and how my father felt when he heard when happened right in front of your house where your family lives.
Mr. President, I voted for you in November because I believed in you. I believed that you would put an end to the policies and unjust wars of the Bush administration. Since you have been in office for the past 9 months, I have listened to the excuses that people have made for your continuation of the wars, and I have felt torn between feeling sympathy for your situation and a childish expectation that you will rise to the occasion to protect the children of the world from harm. But on that day, Mr. President, you stole my youthful naiveté and innocence. I left Washington without faith in my government or in my president. It was instead replaced with fear. I am lucky that I have seen such strength and resolve in my mother and her community of peaceful resisters. So I have faith that this senseless killing will stop, but I know that it will not be by your hand.
Jennifer First