It’s not my goal to be political. And that is not what this blog is about, or what I intend it to be. But with me now embarking on the goal of a blog post every day for the remainder of this third quarter, at times it is likely I will need to delve into topics I would leave for the electronic pens of those more so inclined.
Today, a Facebook post was shared on my feed in which an older white gentleman berated a woman for wearing a Puerto Rican shirt. He appeared to be drunk, and the video was taken in what appeared to be a suburban park picnic area. The woman, apparently of Puerto Rican descent, had rented the picnic bench area for a get together. This older gentlemen told her she should not be wearing a Puerto Rican flag, and that she should she be wearing clothing depicting her allegiance to the United States.
The man was belligerent and aggressive. Despite his manner, a nearby policeman did nothing to intercede. It took a fellow family member of the Puerto Rican woman to drive the man away. Eventually, the woman was able to give a police report, which seems a docile end to what could have been a very aggravated situation. At no point, was the man arrested, at least not on the video posted.
As I watched this man, who appears to be no different than I, other than being a few years older, it struck me again, as it has so often over recent years, how so much more often, people are willing to throw away intrinsic human values in the name of nationalism and tribalism. This trend has of course only become more exacerbated by the presidency of Donald J. Trump, who appeals directly to these sentiments as a support base for his administration.
Was this angry white man a Christian? I don’t know that, but would it be shocking to discover he was? I think not. Was I to presume he was, than I am seeing a man viciously denigrating another human being in direct opposition to the “turn the other cheek” ideal Jesus Christ espoused. If this is a man of God, how does he balance the charitable and loving attributes of his faith versus his clear rejection of those unlike him?
While his religion may be at question, he is clearly American. He lives in a country which espouses freedoms for all, including speech. The Bill of Rights, especially the First Amendment, for all that it has been glorified well beyond the original intentions of the nation’s founders, clearly supports the concepts of freedoms and rights for all of its citizens. The principles imbued within the text of the Constitution are held as inviolate by every American patriot I have heard. And this man is clearly a patriot. But he throws it away for what, a sense of racial or national superiority?
Moving this all into the absurd is, of course, that Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory. It is even in the midst of considering whether to apply for official statehood. All members of its natural born population are citizens of this country, as much as someone born in New York or Montana. This is akin to getting upset at someone who is wearing a Texas flag on their clothes, or sporting a California bear on their baseball cap.
On the same day I see this Facebook post, I also listened for a stretch to Ben McIntyre’s Rogue Heroes, which tells the story of the founding of the British Special Air Services (S.A.S.) unit during World War II. While that is neither here nor there, what was relevant was that I had just listened to a sidebar story in which McIntyre speaks of a British citizen who served for the Axis forces during the war. A natural borne Brit, his value to the fascists was to pose as a fellow prisoner of war to listen on and learn about Allied plans from captured British soldiers. In the lead up to the war, this man was a member of the British arm of the Fascist Party. It boggles my mind that there existed a time in which someone could openly be a member of such an organization and not feel the stigma which would come from it. I know from another McIntyre work that there were similar organizations for Communism, itself not exactly a scion for human rights and civil liberties. In this time, in the thirties before the rise of Hitler, one could express their belief in oppressive ideologies without seeming consequence on any social level.
I see this man today, getting in the face of a fellow U.S. citizen who isn’t quite the same shade of white that he is and isn’t wearing the hallowed red, white and blue, and I see someone who is similarly unafraid to display his racism, though he may hide it under the guise of patriotism. And so I think, are we in the thirties again? Is there a major war coming? Will sanity prevail before it comes to it?
At this point, I have to think the long term outcome is, frighteningly, still very much up in the air.