WASHINGTON — Less than a week after Donald Trump lost the election, MAGA supporters converged on the fence separating the White House from Black Lives Matter Plaza, and tore down sections of a sacred memorial.
Photo by photo, images of people of color killed by police brutality were shredded, tossed to the ground, or dumped into the garbage.
It was a painful prelude to the “Million MAGA March,” an opening act a day before the protest of several thousand marching through the capital.
But as supporters of the president prepare to gather again in nearby Freedom Plaza this weekend, two guardians of Black Lives Matter Plaza have emerged, intent on ensuring the vandalism of Nov. 13 and 14 does not repeat once more.
Nadine Seiler came from Waldorf, Maryland and Karen Irwin came from Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan. Seiler is Black, Irwin is white, and through the fears and fractures that often manifest on the historic intersection of H and 16th Streets, they have become inseparable friends.
“We are both here, 24/7, because this is something we both see as a sacred space,” Seiler said. “Karen is my fellow guardian, and we are here until it is time for this fence to go, and the images are to be moved to a museum.”
Irwin said she was compelled to come to Washington after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She saw an online live stream of a vocal protester disrupting the silent mourning on the court plaza, and told her friends “I think I’m supposed to go to D.C., because I’m loud, I can stand up against this.”
More than a month after Irwin moved full-time to Washington, the Black Lives Matter Plaza vandalism took place. Both Seiler and Irwin described how they protected what they could, concentrating on the focal point of the fence along Lafayette Square.
“But the middle stayed preserved because that was important to me,” Seiler said. “To make sure that the messages that we wanted the world to see, of the injustice that we experience as Black people, that that stayed. And the faces of the dead stayed, so people could see the victims of the injustice.”
Both say they are prepared for this weekend’s events, and for Irwin, the question of when exactly to leave has a simple answer.
“People would say, ‘so, when are you leaving? The election already happened. When are you coming home?’ And I would say, ‘whenever Nadine tells me it’s time to go.’”
