Dorothy Ann Walker carries a plastic baggy in her purse.
It’s filled with safety pins, and you can have one.
You can wear it on your sweater or your lapel or pin it to your stocking cap as a symbol of safety to those who might be feeling fearful and marginalized by the new political order.
Or you can shake your head and mutter SJW (social justice warrior) or snowflake or any of the dismissive terms tossed at those who feel dismayed, disheartened and otherwise terrified by the results of the 2016 presidential election. (Although the woman with the safety pins would urge you to talk to her. “It’s also an opportunity for people to listen, to try and have a conversation.â€)
Walker wears her safety pin nearly every day.
“It’s not a movement,†she says. “You don’t have to pay dues. It’s just something you as an individual can do, so people who need us know who we are.â€
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And it’s not an original idea.
Wearing pins as a symbol began in Great Britain last year. After the Brexit vote, people who were worried about discrimination against immigrants and minorities and the LGBT community began to adorn themselves with the small piece of metal usually used for hemming pants or replacing lost buttons, to show they were allies.
“They thought if people were wearing these safety pins, that if a person were being harassed, they could come to them,†Walker explained.
(Think of the McGruff signs in picture windows or the pink ally triangles outside office cubicles.)
Walker is a retired attorney. She spent the first years of her career as a social worker and the last years as a public defender, fighting for equal justice for people who didn’t have a lot of resources.
“I was kind of born this way,†she says. “It’s never been OK for me to have people of less status be treated as lesser people.â€
Walker supported Hillary Clinton for president.
And after the election, she was commiserating with friends -- a group of socially conscious women who have met monthly for the past 30 years. (They call themselves the Moon Women, which, as names go, is about as good as it gets.)
“We’re supporters of women’s rights and feminist issues,†Walker said, “but also children and people who are disadvantaged in our society.â€
The safety pins appealed to them as a group -- one of them even sent safety pins with her Christmas cards -- and to Walker in particular.
Wearing a safety pin was such a simple thing, as much a reminder to herself of her commitment to justice as a show of solidarity to others. (And truthfully, Walker has three baggies of pins in her purse -- small, medium or large, take your pick.)
A subtle symbol, she calls it.
It’s hard to know its reach; no one has approached her on the street, looking for protection, although she has been asked about her fashion accessory and distributed a few pins from her stash.
And when she shared the pin’s meaning with a business owner from Southeast Asia, the woman told the story of her daughter being bullied after the election and told to go back to Mexico.
The daughter was “more than able†to stand up for herself, but Walker has read the stories of fearful students here and across the country, and the reports of spiking hate crime numbers nationally in late November.
“You can’t have the leader of the country denigrate women and minorities and people with disabilities and not have that filter down,†Walker says.
She doesn’t mind if people snidely call her a Social Justice Warrior. (“That’s a new T-shirt I can wear.â€)
Walker will be on the streets in Lincoln Saturday in sisterly support of the Women’s March in D.C. She’ll be carrying a sign and passing out safety pins.
“We not trying to be antagonistic,†she says. “We’re trying to be inclusive and supportive and let people know that we welcome them and want them all to be part of the fabric of our society.â€
And you, too, can show your support for an inclusive society, Walker says.
No matter who you voted for in November.
“You don’t have to do anything but wear a safety pin and have a reasonable heart.â€