America Doesn't Have an Immigrant Problem, It has a White Supremacy Problem

We can no longer afford to avoid the conversations our society most needs to have

Hello friends,

There is a one-way street in front of my house. Yesterday, as I was on my way to the gym, I noticed a driver a block ahead who was about to turn into oncoming traffic. Shortly after that spot, the road goes into a turn that would be a blind corner for him. He hadn't yet begun to accelerate, so I felt I had to do something.

I changed from the right lane to the left, pulled up to within a hundred yards, stopped, and started flashing my lights. The driver completed his turn and found himself coming head-on at my vehicle. I could see him screaming through the windshield. He was giving me the finger.

I rolled down my window to scream, “Wrong way! Wrong way!” I was also waving frantically. This joker was going to get somebody killed. But the driver was so incensed, he pulled onto the sidewalk to get around me.

A beat later he seemed to figure out what was happening. I watched in my rear view mirror as he pulled off the road at the next intersection.

It wouldn't be the last time that day I met somebody going the wrong way.

Lately, I've been wearing shirts that are designed to provoke conversation. I help coach my daughter's soccer team, and I don't feel it's appropriate to show up there with campaign gear. However, I have a T-shirt with the slogan, “I read banned books,” which I think is okay.

You can't seriously tell me that I can't encourage young people to read.

The shirt I had on that morning had the word “Karma” in large block letters. Karma is an important philosophical concept. It contains the idea that there are consequences if you indulge in acts that cause pain and suffering to others. Another way to think of Karma is as a form of cosmic accountability.

We need more accountability.

I've been burning off my election anxiety by going to the gym. I've been going 5-6 days a week, and I'm back to within 10 pounds of my highest ever bench press. It's useful to carry a lot of muscle around. It helps you avoid conflict and changes the way people treat you, without question.

So, there I was, hanging out in the gym in my blue shirt with the word Karma across my chest. I was doing an inclined dumbbell chest press with a 60 pound weight in each hand. There was another guy in the gym. He was a fit, older guy wearing a red hat. I did a double take when I saw the red hat, but it featured some kind of tractor logo on the center.

After I'd been working out for a moment, I noticed the guy had dropped his keys. “Hey are these yours?”

“Thanks,” the guy said. “I'd be looking for those later.”

There was an awkward silence. After a moment, the man said, “Your shirt says Karma. For a minute there I thought it said Kamala.”

“I do that on purpose,” I replied. “I have two daughters and my wife is an immigrant, so I'm definitely a Kamala supporter.”

The man was walking to the drinking fountain. As he paused to take a drink he smirked and said, “Legal immigrant?”

I'm to the point where I feel a wave of disappointment when people ask me that. How is it that our media and our public schools have so failed to convey that such a question is appallingly racist?

Since then, I've learned how to answer that question. I say, “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you here legally?”

“But I'm w...”

“Were you going to say, 'But, I'm white.”

Silence.

“So do you recognize you were only asking that question based on race?”

But I hadn't figured out that response yet, so I simply replied, “That's irrelevant. She’s a human being. Don’t all lives matter?”

The man looked a little shaken, but he decided to double down and make it worse. “Well, she probably doesn’t like illegal immigrants either since she took the time to do it the right way. Right?”

I was more prepared to answer this question.

“When people start to harass my wife, do you think they stop to verify whether or not she's here legally? Of course they don't. People have been messing with my daughters since they were knee high. We're a Spanish speaking family. I've had people stomp up to my kids and say, 'This is America, we speak English!’”

The man recoiled as if struck. “Here?” he said.

“Yes, you recognize how racist a community is when you have an immigrant wife. The hate has to end. It has to end. All we ever get in the media is hate directed at immigrants. Here's something you haven't considered: all of South America is Roman Catholic. That means all the people in need of help who are supposedly massing at our border are Christians. Why won't American churches speak out on their behalf? Aren't they always warning about a war on Christianity? Why won't they help their fellow Christians?”

The man again shook his head in what might have been pained disbelief, or it might have been denial.

“I've gone and talked to the local priests about this. They've told me they can't do anything.” By then I'd switched to a standing reverse fly. I was getting worked up both physically and emotionally.

“I was with the search party that found the murdered girl two years ago,” I said. “Our community has serious problems. You might think you're insulated from them but you’re not. The hate has to end, and we have to start talking about it.”

The man had recovered himself by then, “But, we don't have many black people around here.”

“But we have immigrants from all over the world, and there is a large Native American population that has to face terrible discrimination. It's worth noting that from their perspective, you're the one who is here illegally.”

He winced at that. He seemed to deflate in anguish as if he'd just realized he'd been fighting on the wrong side of the war. I saw him struggling with it though. He was hearing a bunch of arguments he'd never been exposed to before, and I could sense he was inclined to reject them.

It’s stunning the extent to which the media fails to present the whole argument. You can leave people reeling just by stating a few basic and easily verifiable facts.

“Last year a boy spit in my daughter's face in Spanish class, the school didn't do anything about it. People harass my wife regularly. They harass my kids. That's why I burn off my extra energy at the gym. When I'm around, the racist cowards don't harass my family.”

I put down my weights and went to stand in front of the man. “America doesn't have an immigrant problem, America has a white supremacy problem. Anyone who refuses to recognize that is on the side of hate. Hate has to lose.”

The conversation ended there. A short while later, the guy finished his workout and left without a nod.

I realized I'd gotten kind of worked up. I think I might have scared the man.

It bothers me that I can't remain calm when I'm talking about threats against my wife and kids. In one way, I expect that response is understandable. But I also don't like it when I become frustrated and angry to the point of tears in public. It's something I have to work on. Then again, our whole society is something we have to work on.

If you don’t want to see me angry, then don’t mess with my wife and kids.

That conversation in the gym left me with a lingering sense of discomfort. At first I felt embarrassed, but as I left the gym, I began to wonder if that feeling is exactly what our society needs. When you perceive injustice, you have to pick a side. If you do nothing, you end up supporting injustice by default.

I recalled the morning episode of the guy going the wrong way down the one-way street. When I went to signal that he was wrong, he became enraged. He screamed at me. He made vulgar hand gestures. None of that changed the fact that he was wrong. After he had a moment to cool down, he course corrected.

In enduring that, I might have saved that man’s life.

Enduring his anger had been uncomfortable. But it wasn't as uncomfortable as coming back home to discover there'd been a head-on collision in front of my house. What if I'd done nothing and it had been my wife in the oncoming lane?

We have to embrace these uncomfortable moments and give people the opportunity to course correct. We can't stand by and do nothing as people go the wrong way down a one-way street.

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