My apprehension traversing through Virginia Beach, knowing its reputation of wealth and whiteness, increased a million fold with the overwhelming presence of both u.s.ofa. flags and “god bless america” signs, not to mention the large pickup trucks zooming up and down Main Street with their back windows no longer clear but replaced with flags, if not huge flags somehow springing up from the bed of the truck.
Houses and business not only have large flags looming over every piece of real estate, but little one foot tall ones dot the borders of sidewalks and driveways. The bathroom I entered at the little café whose window sported a coffee mug only, actually had u.s.ofa. flags hand towels.
But I’m ready to visit the ocean again. I park my truck a half block away from a sparkling white sand beach and a young white boy approaches me quickly, breathlessly pointing to my “Protect Mother Earth: end ALL wars” with “against humans, against our environment, against all life” painted on the side of my truck.
“Global warming is just a liberal conspiracy!” he announces. Wow, I’m not stunned but horrified, as it will be him and his generation that will struggle to survive.
“So you think it’s just a contrived conspiracy on the part of liberal people?” I ask as he nods vigorously.
“So why would the liberals want to make up such a disastrous thing?” I raise the question really wanting to know what this young person thinks.
“Why to keep businesses from making money!” he retorts.
“And which businesses could that be?”
“Why republican businesses of course!” he states unequivocally.
Oh.
“Not the businesses that are destroying the environment or that are making money off selling weapons and training young men how to kill their own people, or exploiting unrenewable resources? How about the ones killing all the bees or fish in the ocean….”
He’s left when I hit the selling weapons, refusing to talk about those businesses, not answering when I asked him which of these businesses is his father into.
