Stronger Together!

So I’m sitting at a bar enjoying a beer the other day, watching a replay NBA game on NBA TV, when I overhear the guy to my left utter, “Make America great again.” Of course, I try to ignore him in favor of my beer but can’t help myself as he continues a conversation with another guy to his left. (A subtle irony here is that both guys were to ‘my left’) Anyhow, I chime in to ask what he means. A little while before he must have overheard me tell the bartender of my my day substitute teaching, because he turns to me and says “the worst thing that ever happened to public schools is when they took god out of the classroom.” I didn’t say anything to that but switched the subject back and to asked about making America great again. “Damn Muslims.” he spouts. “A bunch of terrorists.”

Well, to that I ask both guys, now looking at me with their gray-hair-framed, white 70-year-old faces, “why it is that the recent New York/New Jersey bomber had no safe haven with other American Muslims living in his neighborhood? And why did he have to find refuge on a cement stoop in front of a liquor store instead?” I continue, “Doesn’t it seem like, if American Muslims are all terrorists they would have gladly opened their doors to hide him?”

“How old are you, boy?” The other guy asks me, like an accusation. “Fifty-one,” I reply. “Hrrmph,” they grunt in unison. “We’re in our seventies, son and we fought in the war, the Vietnam war.” “I very much thank you for your service, both of you,“ I say sincerely. “Thank you for fighting for the freedom we all enjoy.” They’re silent to that until the guy to the left of the guy next to me tells me he was a teacher for forty-five years. “That’s great,” I say, “so you know where I’m coming from.” His face turns a darker shade of red and accuses me, “Stop interrupting! You people are always interrupting!” Then he throws in an unrelated, “Have you ever been to the wall?”

“You mean the wall in D.C. where all the fallen veterans names are written?” I ask. “Yes, of course. As well as the memorial near Spearfish, South Dakota.” The guy next to me blurts again, “We fought in the war!” “Thank you,” I say again and continue. “Thousands of people have died fighting for this country and the freedoms we enjoy.” Getting back on point I add, “Don’t you think American Muslims love this country because of the freedom to practice their religion in a free country?”

“Quit interrupting!” The guy next to me says. “Damn! You don’t listen do you?” I look at their faces which are now furious with deeper redness, their southern accents becoming more pronounced with every word. So I say, “This is a good conversation we’re having. Because we’re in America we can have these types of conversations.” “Hrrmph,” is the response I get so I push forth. “You might be surprised if you walked into a classroom today.” I say this assuming the former teacher has long been retired. “More often than not my classes are at least fifty-percent black and Hispanic.” The guy next to me, the one who was not a teacher, utters these words and nods his head toward NBA TV: “I’ve got black friends; if they were here right now they’d call them niggers, plain as day!”

“Wow, really?” I inform him that I once lived as a white boy for my sixth, seventh and eighth grade years on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the late 1970’s, so I don’t appreciate his ugly words. “I got more than a small taste of what it’s like to live as a minority among good people who have every right to be angry with white people, as much right as black Americans do. That experience gives me a unique perspective and helps me see we are all just people, all of us including you guys, who want to be happy on this earth, in this life.” “Hrrmph,” I hear again.

The guy next to me starts wiggling uncomfortably in his chair, as if ants have suddenly made themselves known beneath his britches. I get back on track, asking, “If all Muslims are terrorists, then why aren’t there more ISIS attacks all around America?” Adding that, in fact, none of the few attacks by Muslims here were made by actual ISIS members, but lone-wolf sympathizers with mental problems.

“God, you just can’t stop interrupting, can you!” the guy next to me says, squirming even more now. So I say, “Do you think American Muslims would join ISIS and kill Americans if ISIS were to actually find their way here? That’s like saying if the KKK started attacking and killing ethnic groups in America, that white Americans would suddenly join the KKK in the killing.” It’s flabbergasting, but the guy next to me says, “I’d consider it.”

I’m speechless for a moment until I’m able to form the question, “You say you fought for this country in the war — what freedoms were you fighting for, exactly? Freedom for white Americans only? The reason people move here from all over the world is BECAUSE of the freedoms Americans have, the freedoms you fought for, freedoms they don’t often have in the countries from which they come. They love America just as much as you do, as I do, and might even appreciate the freedoms more because of where they’ve been.” Adding flame to the fire, “You don’t want to make America great again, you want to make America WHITE again, which it never really was in the first place!”

“You’re a crazy asshole,” I’m told. “We can never be friends!” With that, the two guys retreat out the side exit of the bar. Just before the door closes behind them I yell, “You’re right, we can’t!”

And the following day I wrote this:

The Star-Mangled Yammer

Oh hey, can you see

By the conned surly right

How so loudly they rail

At the black man’s twice winning

Whose rude swipes cause deep scars

To a fearless plight

Of the progress we’ve notched

They’re incessantly reaming

And with Fox News’ shrill scare

Of terror looming everywhere

Makes spoof of the truth

That our flag is still there

Oh hey, does that star-mangled

Yammer yet crave

The land of one creed

And the rest to the grave