For several years
now, the spouse and I have been contemplating a move to be near one
of our daughters. She lives in a place that’s politically
conservative (though she is not), led by a governor who’s stripped
away workers’ rights to collective bargaining, cut funding to
education from elementary schools to state universities (including
removal of tenure track positions for professors), slashed taxes in
ways that benefit wealthy property owners and corporations, announced
intentions to openly defy laws on emissions from coal plants, says
the EPA should be closed, discriminates against gay couples and
transgender individuals, and is so tough on crime his budget includes
far more for prisons than education.
And the voters there
re-elected him. This speaks volumes about the kinds of people who live there.
This morning I
shopped for groceries at the flagship store of the best grocery chain
in the United States, which prides itself on product selection and
customer service. Its clientele, as always, showed by their
appearances that they’re largely upper middle class or even
wealthy.
I was at the
checkout, chatting with a friendly cashier as usual, when a man
interrupted to ask her where to find an item. He was not like the
other shoppers.
He was probably in
his sixties, black, and cooler than I’ll ever be. This man didn’t
walk; he sauntered. He wore zebra-print trousers, gold boots, a
stylin’ hat, and sunglasses, indoors on a cloudy day. Where
unadorned stubble might appear on a less hip man, he had gold
glitter.
The cashier directed
him to the item then returned to my order. “I’m glad,” I said,
“to live in a place where a man feels both free and safe to present
himself however he decides he wants to be.”
“Me, too,” the
cashier said. “Who am I to say he can’t dress like that? What
right does anybody have to dictate something so personal?”
Such moments give me
pause. Would a state so conservative protect the rights of this man
like they would my privileged white rights? Would business owners and
their employees have no problem with treating him like any other
shopper in a state where the different face discrimination?
Maybe I’ll stay
right where I am and see if I can’t get The Kid to move here.
