When it comes to metaphors about the USA’s multi-hued swirl — with some folks living the American dream, others trying to awake from a national nightmare — the “melting pot” approach doesn’t appeal to me.
I’m partial to the “salad bowl” model.
Instead of dumping ingredients in a blender or boiling them into a homogeneous sauce — eliminating their distinguishable tastes — I like lettuce to be lettuce and onions to be onions. I like the distinct difference between croutons and cucumbers, carrots and cheese.
The bowl is what unites them, along with the red-white-and-blue dressing. They retain their individual characteristics, yet combine to form one unique taste, without hot stoves or food processors.
Here we go again. Prepare for another round of NFL players taking a knee, Donald Trump giving them the finger, owners grimacing in their suites, and commissioner Roger Goodell serving as a punching bag.
Suddenly, the 2020 season is poised to resemble the 2016 season, when Colin Kaepernick and his “Perilous Fight” landed on the cover of Time magazine and Trump later hammered the league, offering advice to owners when players kneel during the national anthem: “Say ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired.”
Kaepernick and other players were peacefully protesting police brutality, but critics said it disrespected the flag and the country. The national anthem became a national obsession. Before then, it was such a big deal that networks neglected to air it; they ran commercials instead, making a point of making a profit.
“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem, or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.” — Donald Trump
“I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for that reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.” — James Baldwin
Some of my fellow Americans have it twisted. They think pointing out the nation’s ills and demanding better is akin to hating America. They rudely invite dissenters to depart if the good ol’ U.S. of A. isn’t good enough.
It’s an age-old attitude that resurged during the Vietnam War era and was emphasized in a 1970 song by country singer Ernest Tubb.
The international agents who collect paychecks for stoking tensions along America’s color line should be worried. The boss could soon deem them superfluous, leading to reduced salaries, furloughs or outright pink slips.
That would be my thinking from afar while contemplating events in the United States: Why am I paying comrades to stir discord when folks like Derek Chauvin, the McMichaels, and three Louisville officers are doing such exemplary work?
Chauvin, the former Minneapolis cop who killed George Floyd on a Monday, was arrested by that Friday, leading the state‘s Department of Public Safety commissioner to note, “this is by far the fastest that we’ve ever charged a police officer.” Earlier that week, the Associated Press said Chauvin had been targeted with false claims on social media that tied him to “political agendas and racist ideologies.”
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