Mid-Columbia residents attend women’s march in nation’s capital

Scott Butner of Richland found the thousands of posters with amusing or enraging messages and protesters in pink hats irresistible during the massive Women’s March on Washington.

Butner has been a photography enthusiast since he got his first camera at age 9. In the 51 years since, he has used it to capture images that he finds striking. And Saturday’s colorful, impassioned crowd on the National Mall was a target-rich environment.

“It’s a level of creativity that is hard to ignore,” Butner said.

Adorned in the event-popular “kitty hat,” Butner meandered through the waves of people, recording the unending tide of homemade posters.

He is disturbed by what he perceives as the growing anti-intellectualism in the United States and hopes that through science, change might come.

The retired climate scientist is concerned that President Donald Trump may be “capable of understanding science only when translated into how it can benefit him.

“I think the president needs to understand science,” Butner said.

He spotted another sign, saying “Trump is the symptom, capitalism is the disease,” and focused his camera on it.

“That’s exactly what is happening,” he said, “and that is also the exact reason everyone here is marching.”

Saturday’s marches around the country prove that progressive movements are gaining traction, Butner said, but he cautioned that they need to be inclusive.

“We (progressive liberals who have voted for only liberal candidates) have to clean up our own act,” he said. “We’ve dismissed a lot of people.”

For Ofelia Bredt, 50, a chemist from Richland, the reason to travel across the country for the Women’s March was simple protest.

“Trump’s announcement of his candidacy immediately struck me as offensive,” Bredt said. “He chose to describe immigrants as rapists and killers, even before he ran for office, and people don’t need to be described as ‘evildoers’ so that everyone else can be successful.”

Bredt’s daughter, Arial, sharing her mother’s sense of dire concern, came across the details of the Women’s March on Washington just hours after Trump won the presidency. She encouraged her mother to attend.

Arial Bredt, 22, also recruited her aunt, Lucia Rivas, 60, and boyfriend, Ian Lavelle, 21, to buy plane tickets too.

“We’re very pleased with the decision,” said Bredt, who felt “a resounding sense of inclusion” as the crowd on the National Mall continued to grow, spilling out into other streets almost all the way to the White House.

For Mica Powers, 33, a legal secretary from Seattle, her photos of the march can add to the record of protest demanding that Trump “take substantive steps to be a kinder and more inclusive president.

“I am excited to see youngsters holding up signs where the message on it is so simple: we should love each other,” Powers said.

This story was originally published January 21, 2017 at 8:56 PM with the headline "Mid-Columbia residents attend women’s march in nation’s capital."