After an extensive cancer operation this summer, sodas just did not taste good. So I got into mineral water and wondered what had taken me so long. Maybe it was because I grew up in a blue-collar household…so it goes.
At any rate this afternoon, my wife (who spent decades in government serving the common good but who now no longer works outside the home) was at Costco picking up some Perrier. There was a middle-aged white man in the water isle with her. As they passed he, a total stranger, peered into her basket and said “Perrier... hmm” in what she took to be a fairly judgmental and dismissive tone.
This incident may well have happened had Hillary Clinton prevailed in the election but I think not. Cowards tend not to strut in defeat. However, with the victory of Donald Trump, the bullies have been set free.
They are free to pop-up anywhere and offer caustic comment on you and your life without knowing a thing about you. And gosh, if you are lucky, they may just throw in some physical intimidation for good measure. They are going to be loud, brash, enraged, misinformed and in your face.
These white men feel they have been discriminated against. Little more than fifty years ago the world, you see, used to be their apple. They may not have lived in Trump Tower penthouses but wherever they called home, they were the absolute rulers of the roost. They did not so much mind elites then, when elites were just better educated and richer white men than themselves. They could imagine that their sons might rise to become elites.
Then came the Civil Rights movement; followed by the Women’s movement that in turn was followed by the LGBT movement. Each of these movements told stories of how mainly white men dished out hearty helpings of injustice up to and including homicidal violence to keep members from exercising freedoms the Constitution promised all Americans. The appalling stories members of these groups told were true and often easily documented. With no reply to make, white men retreated into silence where they collected guns; watched Fox News when it came along; refused to educate themselves even as they saws their industries being threatened. They grew bitter when at long last their good industrial job was outsourced. They, of course, blamed people of a different color, sex, or sexual orientation for their job loss even when, in their heart of hearts, they knew that in all probability a Corporatist-white-man had tossed them under the bus for a few pennies more of profit.
Now as the Age of Trump begins, these white men have begun to believe that they are going to again take absolute governmental and cultural power. So don’t be surprised at the movies when the strident male voice calls out in the dark “Hollywood liberal crap”. Don’t be surprised when the white man cuts in line at the store or cuts you off on the highway. (Oh, and watch out for the highway mug, he probably has his concealed carry permit). Don’t be surprised when your coffee shop latte is scrutinized and you are gifted with a contemptuous sneer.
In sum, I am just grateful that my wife was not a person of color or a hijab clad muslim since such folks are now, not just subject to insult, but are actually being physically attacked.