Awesome: Woman steps forward to stop protestors from burning American flag Nine Line News Team June 11, 2020 Nine Line News 155 Like many young people across the country, 20-year-old Lysa Cole attended a protest over the weekend against police brutality. The official event Cole attended in Spokane, WA was wrapping up around 5pm when Cole said she began to noticing a shift in the mood that concerned her. “People that hadn’t been there from the very beginning started to come in and you could see that there was just a change getting ready to happen,” Cole said. Several men lit an American flag on fire and threw it into the street. Cole saw the crowd around her watch it burn and remembered a chant from the march: “Silence is violence.” “I was like hmm, something bad is happening and I have it in my power to be able to stop it, so I was like I’m going to do that,” Cole said. Cole’s father is a veteran and her brother is currently active duty, according to The Spokesman-Review. “I was just hurt because people worked hard for that flag,” she said. She added, “With us protesting for Black Lives Matter, we’re not standing up against America, we’re standing up for what America can be.” They men swore at her and said she was taking their property when she took the flag away. “If it was your property, you wouldn’t be destroying it,” Cole responded. Cole said what the flag burners did is why people give protestors a bad name. “If you can differentiate between not all cops are bad and not all white people are racist, why can’t you differentiate between all protesters are not rioters and looters,” Cole said. A few minutes later, the scene repeated itself. The same group of men lit a piece of fabric with American flags printed on it, rather than the flag itself. Once again, a young woman intervened. Simone Richardson had been chatting with her friend Lysa Cole during the first incident. But Cole had already left the protest. Simone Richardson “I got the second flag. and told them ‘Don’t burn it!’,” Richardson, 19, said. “That’s not what this protest is about.” A few minutes later, the man who burned the flag walked up to Richardson and apologized. “We got each other’s different perspectives,” Richardson said. According to Richardson, they respectfully talked it out. “We shook hands and just went the opposite way,” Richardson said. Indeed. When Cole learned about Richardson’s action, and the subsequent apology she said, “It just really confirms that standing up in the face of injustice really makes an impact,” Cole said.”This positive thing was reinforced.” Cole said she hopes her choice to step in can inspire other people to stand up for what’s right. “I don’t want my younger sisters or my future kids to grow up in a world where they have to protest these kinds of things as well as other injustices,” Cole said. “Listen to our generation and give spaces for us to speak.” One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, one nation evermore.
