A few years ago, shortly before the U.S. presidential election of 2016, a friend told me about an incident that happened to him while walking through a suburban shopping center parking lot in Northwest Baltimore. He and his teenage daughter were strolling on a quiet summer evening, enjoying a conversation, when a vehicle suddenly pulled up and the driver yelled something.
My buddy initially thought the motorist was asking for directions and said, “Beg your pardon? I didn’t catch what you said.” But then he noticed the stranger’s angry, contorted face. “Why do you let her dress like that?” he shouted, before using a crude term about the daughter’s rear end in a pair of loose-fitting shorts. “What’s wrong with you?!”
Before my friend could even respond, the driver floored it and the car sped off into the night. But plastered on the motorist’s trunk were an array of bumper stickers indicating his preference in the presidential race (and, no, it wasn’t for a former secretary of state/first lady).
I remember thinking, “Wow, something weird’s going on out there.” Yes, there are always eccentrics, cranks and assorted madmen in our midst, coming from all political camps. But what would possess a man to drive up to a father and daughter to kvetch about the young woman’s shorts? Did the Taliban arrive in Charm City and no one bothered to tell me? Are middle-aged white dudes in jalopies now moonlighting as fashion police?
We live in a culture now where anything goes and people speak, post, text, email with no filters whatsoever. You can blame it on whomever you want or attribute this phenomenon to whatever movement du jour, but this storm’s been brewing for a while.
People tell me all the time about family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors and acquaintances who constantly inform them what’s on their mind, regardless of whether anyone is interested or offended. Have we really become that obtuse or narcissistic to think we have to spout out our views on just about everything?
I know people who no longer associate with family members and old friends because they don’t want to listen to that person’s unsolicited views. Yes, an exchange of ideas is generally healthy, and of course we all should be entitled to our opinions about political and cultural matters. But what do you do when those views are racist, homophobic or downright repugnant? This is serious stuff and it’s tearing up families, friendships and the nation in general.
Recently, my wife took a walk and passed a neighbor. She wished him a good evening and kept walking, but a few footsteps later she heard him suddenly, inexplicably, yell out his advocacy for a particular leading national political figure.
When she expressed her confusion about the random outburst, he responded that he couldn’t fathom how any Jewish person could support the current commander-in-chief. (Mind you, my wife was not wearing a Biden/Harris T-shirt and generally keeps her political opinions to herself, unless asked.)
Her response to this neighbor was, “Not having this conversation with you,” and moved on. Wisely, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of a war of words.
My late mother-in-law, who came here as a young refugee from Nazi Germany, cherished the American democratic system and maintained a strict policy when it came to the ballot box. “I don’t tell anyone who I vote for,” she said. “That’s my right.”
Or as that “Hillbilly Shakespeare,” Hank Williams, once sang, “Why don’t you mind your own business, ‘cause if you mind your business, then you won’t be mindin’ mine.”
Truer words have never been spoken.
Sincerely,
Alan Feiler, Editor-in-Chief
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