YOU, IN THE CADILLAC!

By 2:00 Monday afternoon, I was already pretty cranky. I had foolishly listened to the yahoo callers on local talk radio using the excuse of Dr. King’s Birthday to vent every imaginable race-baiting epithet and stereotype on the African American community. And, I knew that in another hour, I would spend the rest of the afternoon squirming in the dentist’s chair, being drilled for two new crowns. Now, I had a scant hour left to make a hospital visit at Memorial . . . and I could not find a parking space.

Finally, I eyed a space at the very end of the farthest-away lot. Pulling in, relieved, but still muttering about the long walk ahead, I did a double-take at the late-model Cadillac parked next to my Volvo. The auto was bedecked with at least ten Confederate battle flag bumper stickers. Now, this in itself used to raise my blood pressure, but I guess that I, too, have become accustomed to the sight and to thinking of it as a rather benign statement of racial acrimony masquerading as Southern pride.

But, this particular statement could not be ignored. For, in addition to the flags, the car was decked out with bumper stickers that announced the most crude and vile racial slurs. Example: “If I Knew You’d Cause This Much Trouble, I’d Have Picked the Cotton Myself!” The others, please believe me, were even worse.

My hands clenched in fists of rage. Every shred of my liberal pacifism was challenged by a wrathful desire to take my car key and embed a long, nasty scratch the entire length of the shiny Cadillac. Mercifully, pacifism prevailed.

My wrath did not abate, but I had nowhere to put it. I called out to a couple passers-by, “Can you believe this?” as I pointed to the hateful stickers, but they impassively walked on, with a look that read, “Who IS that nutcase?”

I guess that the only emotion that surmounts my wrath is my indignation. Indignation toward the car’s owner, to be sure. But, even greater indignation toward the chutzpa (incredible gall, for the Yiddishly challenged) of evil people to think that they can get away with parading their hatred before the public eye and yet suffer no dire consequences for being so open with their bigotry. To furtively daub a swastika or racial slur on a wall under the cover of darkness is one thing. But, to brazenly associate it with a name, a face, a license number, bespeaks a sense that “even so, nothing is going to happen to me.” It bespeaks a self-assuredness that no one important will step forth to condemn it, that indeed, the good white Protestant folks who really count will quietly cheer it.

My greatest indignation, though, is reserved for the environment we have created to foster that cocky self-assuredness. Evil people know that they can get away with evil speech and deeds, because no one has the counter-chutzpa to denounce it and because communities like ours breed a critical mass of angry, misanthropic people who enthusiastically endorse it.

The issue is not to outlaw hateful speech; it is to exercise social sanctions, shame, public humiliation and ostracism against those who bear it – the equivalent of sending an errant child to the corner for “time out,” to think about and repent for his misdeed, before he is allowed to resume association with his peers.

The vile message borne by a late-model Cadillac is tragically emblematic of an entire network of encouragement, indifference and quiet acquiescence that makes such public displays tolerable. To the extent that we play into the network, the guilt must be shared.

I was cranky to begin with. And, the serendipity of it being Dr. King’s birthday did not help. What did I do? I took my calling card and wrote on it, “We are watching and we SHALL overcome!” and I placed it under the windshield wiper. What would you have done?