Something Shiny!

The day John got laid off, we left campus in shock and in search of lunch. All I wanted was a quiet-ish place where we could gather our thoughts and come up with a plan. We decided on the cafe across the street from the History building. As we approached the corner, I saw a woman with a baby on her hip approaching the same corner from a different point. Her mother followed behind with a stroller. The young woman looked blissfully happy, her face gleaming in the sun. I couldn’t help but feel a little better just looking at her. She seemed so happy and nice. (Insert foreshadowing here.) We got to the corner at nearly the same time and waited to cross the street. Almost immediately, she crammed a flier into my hands (not an easy task, since I was carrying an armload of library books). I muttered “thanks” without even looking at it. She offered one to John and he declined. Suddenly she was talking very quickly. “Do you have a church?” I answered that we did not, and turned away. “Oh yeah? Don’t believe in God, huh? Don’t think he’s real? Well he is, you know. God’s real and he’s beautiful. You should come to our church and learn about the truth.” John’s jaws clenched. She continued. “Some people just go to church on Sundays, you know, like it’s a chance to play dress up. They don’t really believe. At our church, we believe. We know that Jesus is real and that other people are going to hell. That’s why I wear this shirt.” And she turned around to show the back of her shirt, which read “Islam is of the Devil.” At that point, I knew exactly what church she was referring to. They’ve been front-page news here in Gainesville for quite awhile now. Church members send their children to school wearing those shirts. The schools, in turn, send the children back home if they refuse to change shirts, just as they do if a kid shows up to school wearing a racist shirt, an inflammatory shirt, a shirt that encourages fighting or drug use, and (presumably) a shirt that has a naked lady on it. The ACLU is now filing suit against the schools for not allowing students to wear the “Islam is of the Devil” shirts. And I… I don’t know. I’m a big believer in freedom of speech, and I understand that speech is protected (naturally there are limits) even if it makes us angry. I don’t mind saying that those shirts make me uncomfortable. I didn’t bother taking on that woman at the corner that day, who radiated happiness and intolerance all at the same time. I don’t know what I would have said, even. We ignored her and crossed the street, headed for our quiet lunch. I thought about ritualistically burning her flier. I wound up recycling it. It seemed more peaceful.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Gainesville, Musings, NaBloPoMo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.