All the banner waiving going on at work as well as elsewhere, I taped a small photo clipped from the newspaper of a turbaned Sikh holding a sign bearing a likeness of the flag and the motto, "stars and stripes forever."
The photo was removed by management. My co-workers explain that any picture of an arab could be upsetting to people. And that they might (or did) think it was Bin Laden. As a matter of office policy, it is because discussions of religion and politics are discouraged. Of course, the picture is more political than the flags taped up everywhere only insofar as it represents the inclussion of a group now subjected to prejudice as patriotic citizens. I feel the same impulse to leave today that I did last Thurdsay during the wave of bomb threats. I feel unsafe in proximity to this attitude. What approach does one take to discuss these matters without entering into conflict? Or should we just pay lip service to the demise of bigotry and jump at every opportunity to call it justified and embrace it. We *call 'justice!' but what we call *for is bigotry and hate. The best place to hide something is in plain sight. One might wish the obvious would hide itself that people might see it.
