Kudos, Navy Jack! Well put, sir.
I have watched, with no small degree of mounting disquiet, the insidious ascendance of these so-called “Alt-right” gangs since the election of President Trump. Beneath the thin veneer of seeking to protect “white” (whatever that means!) children, they are simply crude racialists, boors and ignoramases.
My son and I had the great misfortune of running afoul of some of these “Alt-right” thugs in March this year.
We had stopped by a local Dairy Queen for a blizzard after church. Apon entering the establishment, I spied a trio of burly young men in Trump hats at a corner table. I didn’t think anything of it, except to note that one of them was wearing a “Pepe the Frog” (a racist comic book character) tee-shirt, and another was clad in a “Bill Clinton Is A Rapist” garment. NOT what you hope to see in a family restaurant! The third wore a blue plaid shirt so I payed him little heed.
To cut a long story short, these ruffians rapidly took an unwelcome interest in me and my son, nudging each other, looking at us, and whispering among themselves. (I should point out that my son is African American, we adopted him from Eritrea through our church).
We ignored them, of course, but that only emboldened these miscreants to begin making hooting noises and laughing! At first I refused to believe my ears I was so appalled and furiously tried to get the attention of a member of staff.
Unfortunately it was a busy restaurant so I was forced to confront these chuckleheads directly.
I turned to them, showing my best death stare. “Do you ‘gentlemen’ (I put a sarcastic emphasis here) have a problem?”
“Yeah!” agreed the one in the ‘Pepe the Frog” shirt, “We don’t want your kind in here! Take your son back home to Iraq, we hate race-traitors like you, this is Trump country now!”
I was ready to call the cops immediately, but my son – who had endured this tirade with the silent dignity we’ve tried so hard to inculcate in him – suddenly spoke up.
“Sir,” he said, his voice clear and firm, “I believe you were addressing me, though I confess I am not fluent in vulgarian. You appear to be suffering from some logical fallacies, to wit:
“Firstly, “my kind”, as you so lewdly put it, is American. I *am* home, by the grace of God and the Constitution. Furthermore, my father is an elder in our church, not some sort of ‘traitor’.
“And finally, this is not ‘Trump country’. Not now, not ever. This is the United States of America, and while our First Amendment permits even cretins such as yourself freedom of speech, the Second Amendment also permits me to shoot you in the eye should you continue to commit racism. Now, begone!”
At some point during this, the entire Dairy Queen had fallen quiet, everyone listening to my son speak. Suddenly the restaurant erupted in wild applause. The racists went beetroot red (as red as their Trump hats, heh) and dashed out!
Then the manager came over and told us the next time we wanted a blizzard, it was on the house. I was fighting back tears of pride.
And my son, who humbled those bigots with eloquence? He’s only 12 years old and an honors student. Needless to say, we never saw those ‘Alt-right’ lummoxes again.
