[NOTE: For some unknown reason, Blogger is refusing to give me paragraph breaks. Apologies for the cramped composition. / will indicate intended breaks.] On August 29, I was eating my way across the Minnesota State Fair. For those who have never been pressed into the fleshy fun bosom of the "Great Minnesota Get-Together," it's the time when Minnesotans pack on fat in order to survive the long, bone-cracking winter ahead. I was adding an extra layer to my preexisting ampleness by munching on a pork-chop-on-a-stick, shaved ice (cherry flavored), lefse (think potato crepes coated with butter, brown sugar, then rolled), roast corn, and cheese curds (deep fried chunks of artery-clogging cholesterol, often drowned in ketchup), as I made my way through the crush of sweaty humanity towards the Al Franken for Senate booth.
There, a white woman volunteer who appeared only slightly older than I am (I'm soon to be 48), shared a delighted squee with me about a man with a white mother and black father having just become the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. We had finally gone from a nation with presidents who owned black men
to a nation where a black man may very well become President.
I never believed this would happen in my lifetime.
/When I was growing up in Lansing, Michigan, it was the height of the Civil Rights Movement. My mom was of English-Irish heritage. My dad was of Filipino-Irish heritage. So in the America of the 60s, I was a "mixed" child. My white schoolmates and their parents, and even some of my teachers, never let me forget it. Kids told me to "go back where you came from."
(Where? My mother's womb?) I was told that I didn't "look American." (Some of my mom's ancestors came over on the Mayflower. I qualify to be a member of The Daughters of the American Revolution.) I remember when Dr. King was assassinated, and when Detroit was literally ablaze with racial tension.
/Even with the progress America has made in civil rights since then, nobody would have convinced me that, only thirty years later, a man of color would be embraced so enthusiastically as a Presidential candidate. That August 29th, I was so bloody proud of my country and my countrypersons.
/Didn't last.
/At the State Fair's Minnesota DFL booth, I bought a very cool Obama t-shirt,
and I changed into it in a restroom. On my way home, I stood on a highway meridian, waiting for the light to change so I could finish my way across.
and I changed into it in a restroom. On my way home, I stood on a highway meridian, waiting for the light to change so I could finish my way across.
Suddenly, a male voice intoned from a passing car: "F*** Obama."
/The car was gone before I could look. The sentiment didn't startle me. But the public flinging of it from a stranger to a stranger did. If I saw a person wearing a McCain t-shirt, it'd never cross my mind to yell the F word at him. I wouldn't even think "F*** McCain." For all I know, McCain's a decent guy. He makes me think of somebody's grandfather who went through the Vietnam war, and is still cranky about the draft dodgers and Flower Children. So he now wants the votes of the grandchildren of the draft dodgers and Flower children. He means well, but he hasn't transistioned into the 21st century, because he doesn't want to transition into the 21st century. He wants America to be The Lawrence Welk Show, but what he sees is America as Laugh-In. (If you don't get these ancient pop-culture references, just visit your local DVD TV show store. These archaic programs are all available for your viewing pleasure. You'll discover why change is good, and why those retro 70s styles you can get at Target are sick and wrong.)
/I don't agree with McCain's point of view. But I'll defend to the death his right to have it.
/Weell.. maybe not to the death, but at least to the having my life threatened by, for example, some drunken nutjob at a train station.
/That, I thought as I scurried across the highway like a fat raccoon, is the difference between Liberals and Conservatives. A Liberal will try to reason with a person with an opposing point of view. The worst you get from a Liberal is being blathered at, plummeled with statistics, historic facts, and emotional anecdotes, until the person with the opposing viewpoint falls into a stupor, which the Liberal will misinterpret as concession, thus failing to check the person with the opposing viewpoint's pulse and call 911.
/But Conservatives hyperventilate in the presence of opposing viewpoints. There is not to be a discussion. There is to be THEIR and ONLY THEIR point of view. All differences are to be squashed and silenced. Their reasoning seems to be:
1. I don't question why I believe what I'm told
2. others shouldn't question what I believe
3. because then I might think about what I've been told
4. and I might question
5. and I might change my mind
6. therefore, SHUT UP OPPOSING VIEWPOINTS IMMEDIATELY
/I was raised to question, and even to change my mind. My parents considered this to be a good thing.
/I've even known a very nice Conservative. A friend named Tamara, from Indianapolis, jokingly called herself "The Evil Arch Conservative." She was anything but evil. She was a generous, kind person, and helped me a great deal when my mother died suddenly. She drove the huge van that brought my belongings and me to Minneapolis; I couldn't have moved without her help. In politics, we agreed to disagree, and even found areas where we did agree (i.e. Bill Clinton was lying, cheating scum). I knew very well that people from vastly difference backgrounds and views could find common humanity and get along.
/But the world is chock full of dunderheads who didn't get enough attention as children, so I wrote off the obscenity tossed from the car window as an aberration.
/Wrong. Oh my, boys and girls, it was just the beginning.
/As listeners to my Marketplace commentaries already know, I currently work at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport. It's a fascinating place to be. By pure coincedence, the company I work for has the licence to sell official RNC merchandise. I thought my being a Feminist DFLer selling RNC stuff was hilarious, so I had no problem stocking the store with RNC t-shirts, jackets, mugs, pens, hats, shot glasses, and red plush elephants. OK, I'd rather be selling Democratic merchandise, but the upside was Republican money would be fueling my paycheck.
/The week before the convention, the airport was given a makeover, like a tired middle-aged person who's going on a date for the first time in years. The walls were given a lick of fresh paint. New, shiny trash bins replaced old ones. Tiles were replaced; carpets were cleaned within an inch of their lives. The golf pro shop displayed Life is Good t-shirts printed with American flags. The FOX News shop, of all places, put out "I'm Allergic to Republicans/Democrats" tees, as well as Obama's books. Huge red banners with white lettering were hung from the concourse ceiling, welcoming the delegates and the media, and were plastered to the floor. TSA workers went from white shirts to new blue shirts that made them all look like the police.
/I enjoyed observing all this, until Saturday, August 30. I came into the airport wearing my new Obama shirt. Airport workers I knew who were from Ethiopia and Somalia greeted me with, "Obama!" and big grins, and I grinned back. Then I heard a deep male voice, textured with Southern hostility. "F*** Obama."
/I stopped and turned. A white man with a crew cut -- a hair style I haven't seen in years-- glared over his shoulder at me as he passed. His expression wasn't one of I do not agree with your choice of presidential candidate, thank you very much. His expression said, If Ah had a length ah rope.......
/I've lived anything but a sheltered life. But lord howdy, I haven't seen an expression like that since the Vietnam war ended.
/A tad shaken, I headed back for work. I hadn't gone a hundred yards when, from another direction, but with a similar accent, lobbed like a grenade, came, "F*** that Obama."
/The Irish in me swiveled around to face a beefy white man in a striped polo shirt and a badge on an RNC lanyard, squinting his piggy blue eyes at me and grinning like he was hankering to find a length of rope his own self. He was a good foot taller than I am (but then, everyone's a good foot taller than I am), and the way he was standing in place indicated that he wanted me to know that it was he who had spoken.
/Now, a lot of people, black and white, came up from the South to work in Lansing's auto factories. So I can drawl a Southern accent if I've the motivation. And I was motivated.
/"Honey," I said, "he's a hundred times the man you'll ever be. And just for the record, even if he did go for men, you'd never get to f*** him. 'Cause he's a class act."
/I stalked away before I said anything more. I was in my civilian clothes, so I was well within my rights to get into someone's face if he got into mine. But that was the thing: Why were they getting in my face? Why this need to not only voice their disagreement, but to do so obscenely? It's one thing to cowardly shout the F word from your car and drive away. But to say such a thing to a person you don't know, in a public place as this busy airport main concourse, and to want the person you abused to see hatred in your face --oh yes, it was hatred-- , that is an act of intimidation. It's an attempt to cause fear in another person. In this case, to make a complete stranger fear you.
/There is nothing I loathe more than somone who wants to silence using fear.
/This made me consider: Was this an example of the kind of people who'd be buying RNC merchandise? Surely not. Surely this was just some stray trailer trash, coming into the cities to take advanatge of the bars which would be open till 4 AM during the run of the convention. The actual RNC delegates had to be civilized.
/The atmosphere of the airport was being tainted in a way I didn't like. It was just starting.
/COMING SOON: Invasion of the RNC, Part Two: How to Spot a Republican
