[Vision2020] Protestor a self-described 'radical feminist'

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (March 3, 2015) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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Sidewalk Series: Protestor a self-described 'radical feminist'
Moscow woman and her family have long history of standing up for her beliefs
Shannon Quinn, Daily News staff writer
Perhaps the youngest activist to picket the war in Vietnam, Keely Emerine-Mix was about 5 or 6 years old when - due to the lack of a babysitter - she attended her first rally in Tucson, Ariz., with her parents.
"They said I didn't have to protest, but when my father explained to me what the war was over, I picked up a sign," she said.
And picking up that sign is not something she's grown out of - at least not when she believes it's necessary.
Most recently, Emerine-Mix has been spending time in front of the Eastside Marketplace, where, since Feb. 12, she's protested the showings of the film "50 Shades of Grey."
Although she was ordered off the premises by police during the official Friday night opening, she moved to the public sidewalk for the following eight showings in order to avoid arrest and still impart her message.
"I had no problem going to jail, my husband had no problem with me going to jail. In my heart I knew that would be an acceptable act of civil disobedience," she said. "But would it accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, which was bearing witness against this movie?"
Self-identified as a Christian and a radical feminist, Emerine-Mix said she doesn't believe it's right that the film, which she called intolerable, should be able to share its message without counter.
This is a violation of love, a violation of sex, a violation of romance. It's a violation of basic decency that enforces powerful men over weak women. I'm trying to provide the counter narrative but I'm also trying to be faithful to God by bearing witness that this thing is that bad," she said. "When God asks, 'when this revolting mass of cellophane came to your town what did you do?' I will be able to say I did my best to stand up and bear witness."
Bearing witness is something that comes easily to her.
"I was raised in an activist family," she said. "I came to age in the '70s but even in the '60s my parents were boycotting grapes and lettuce and Gallo wines in an effort to help the farmworkers."
Emerine-Mix said meeting Cesar Chavez, an activist and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, was a defining moment in her life.
"It was at that moment I knew I would do something to help poor people, and probably something to help Spanish-speaking poor people," she said.
She said helping others was a way of life in her family.
"My parents were civil rights workers and ... I just assumed everybody spent their Christmases picketing or got one toy for Christmas but raised money to buy a lot of other things for other kids," Emerine-Mix said.
But in her early teens, Emerine-Mix said, she realized that was not how others lived and she began to wish for a more normal life. The longing lasted only about six months until she realized how strongly she felt about injustice.
"I had such a passion for things that were unjust and unjust largely because of white privilege, and I came to see, white male privilege, all of it completely unearned," she said.
Since that time, she said, she has sought to stand up for what she believes is right, much like her father, one of the greatest influences on her life.
"My father was a newspaperman and very liberal," she said, adding he lost more than one job due to refusing to write something he believed was wrong.
"He was told to write a story once in Tucson that Apartheid in South Africa was beneficial to Tucson businesses. He refused to write that and lost his job. We lived economically on the edge but I knew there were things that would never happen to us because we were a white family with a mom and a dad and a college-educated father. We had a degree of social privilege and protection that we had not earned," she said.
Emerine-Mix said she saw in her father a man who did everything he could to make his unearned white male privilege work for other people and to take stands that actually cost him.
"I saw in my dad the kind of person I wanted to be and I saw in my grandfather the kind of person I could only hope to be. Both are gone now, but I think they're proud," she said.
In protesting "50 Shades of Grey," Ermine-Mix said she was not only showing her disdain for the film, but the patriarchal message it contains.
"Patriarchy properly defined is not men hating women. It's any male who exercises unjust control over anybody - male or female - who he deems to be less than him," she said.
Although many may not understand her passionate disdain for the film, Emerine-Mix said she is not concerned.
"I'm well aware that people might think I'm nuts," she said. "I couldn't care less. I would rather be foolish for a good cause than wise and found to be silent."
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Keely Emerine-Mix has been protesting against the book and movie “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

http://www.tomandrodna.com/Photos/Moscow/Keely_Mix_Protesting_030315.jpg

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares"
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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