Nevada Man

Mieka Strawhorn

I think I know why they voted for Donald Trump. White people are finally getting called out on their shit and they don’t like it. In the good old days, you know, when American was great, white people had the privilege of saying whatever casually racist or sexist thought that came to their minds with no repercussions. But now there is a thing called facebook. Also a thing called twitter. Also a thing called progress. What was once said behind closed doors, behind backs and behind sheets (and I don’t mean the sexy kind) is now being espoused in the public arena. An example: On facebook, an asshole makes a “harmless comment” about a rape victim’s sexual history in Nevada and a person in Michigan, maybe a victim of sexual assault themselves, calls them out on it. Before, that man in Nevada made those types of comments all the time. Maybe he was rewarded with positive feedback from his co-workers. Maybe his wife gritted her teeth and let it slide. But that was when America was great and a white man’s right was to say whatever the hell he wanted with no negative consequence was guaranteed. But today, things have changed. We’ve changed. Today one of that man’s coworkers is an advocate for victims’ rights, because progress. The co-worker tells him “hey man, that’s not cool. That’s not an ok thing to say, it hurts people and makes you sound like an idiot”. Today his wife may finally admit to him that she was a victim of sexual assault. She feels emboldened by progress. The Michigan person who is friends with the Nevada man on Facebook (they are second cousins after all) reads this ugly comment and responds with a vitriolic screed on the baseness of victim blaming. The Michigan cousin’s friends pile on. The Nevada man is confused. He has literally made similar statements all of his adult and adolescent life with no repercussions. Now, all of a sudden (since we elected a black president actually, now that he thinks about it) the PC police are knocking at his door. He does not like it one bit. It makes him uncomfortable and alienated and he feels victimized. In fact, without knowing it, he is experiencing just a small fragment of the angst experienced by minorities (racial, religious, and sexual) in this country every damn day since the Plymouth Rock landed on them. The Nevada man doesn’t see the bitter irony that a black man in America has had to go through life being so, so careful about what he says in public lest he wind up swinging from a tree or shot down in the streets. He fails to realize that little gay boys and girls for centuries have tiptoed around expressing their sexuality for fear of being ostracized from their families, humiliated by peers or simply maimed and murdered. He never thinks of the millions of women who have learned to keep a smile on their face and their mouths shut or else. He has never considered the reality of having a close family member imprisoned and deported for no less than driving without a license. Nevada man is not accustomed to hearing the other clap back, even though the other is his wife, his second cousin, his co-worker, his son.

So, ill-equipped for this assault on his privilege, he lashes out. He seeks out others who agree that it’s not fair that he should have to edit his speech to appease the liberal agenda. How dare these people tell him what to say or do? He retreats into a vacuum of others like him, others who do not like hearing the message “your words and deeds have consequences and we, as an evolving society, will no longer stand aside and be silent”. He finds a life-line, a support group, an echo chamber that tells him he is right; that they are the problem. They are trying to take something away from him. They are too sensitive. They are asking too much. They are dangerous. They are calling him names. They are hurting him.

Nevada man is not a monster; he just wants to live in peace. He sees himself as a reasonable man with reasonable views. Is Nevada man a racist? He never was before but they keep changing the definition on him. Nevada man thinks racists are in the KKK and yell nigger or wetback from the car window. He doesn’t do those things, he is not racist. He is a fan on the NBA and voted for Obama. Nevada man has several black and Latino co-workers whose company he enjoys, for Christ’s sake! Nowadays they call him racist because he complimented one of his black coworkers on how well he speaks. When did a compliment become an insult? Nevada man is very confused.

Nevada man does not particularly like the man Trump. But he envies the man Trump because he is seemingly able to do what he himself is no longer allowed to do. The man Trump is not cowed by the demands of the PC police. The man Trump has promised an America he remembers fondly, when he was free to say what was on his mind. A time before so much was asked of him. As such, Nevada man will disregard his own better judgment just to make the noise stop. He thinks that if the man Trump will be president, his freedom of speech will be preserved and he will cease being labeled a racist or a sexist. It will be like it was in the old days, when America was great and everybody got along and acted predictably.

Nevada man has many faces. Nevada man is also Nevada woman, New York woman, New Hampshire man, Texas man, Iowa man, Kansas woman, Florida woman and Florida man. Nevada man in usually white but he is sometimes black. Black Nevada man may say “I’ve got mine, don’t rock the boat”. Latino Nevada man doesn’t trust anybody but at least this Trump man says what he thinks. Nevada woman is stridently pro-life and the Trump man will nominate a judge who might overturn Roe V. Wade. Asian Nevada man does not believe in government hand-outs and has always voted Republican. Black lesbian Nevada woman, well, that one I made up. But you get my point.

Even in his most profound moments of clarity, when Nevada man looks into his heart and knows that the man Trump is a wrong kind of person but he fears the Woman Lady more. He thinks The Woman Lady speaks for the others and the others are what caused all this trouble in the first place. He thinks she will help everybody but his kind. Maybe The Woman Lady reminds him of his mother telling him to take his hands off his dick in public that one time. Or The Woman lady reminds him of the look on his wife’s face and his inability to ease her pain when she told him about the time she doesn’t like to talk about. It was better for him before she said anything; knowing makes him feel uncomfortable and helpless. Nevada woman may think The Woman Lady is punching above her weight, asking for more power than she deserves because she herself feels so powerless. His reasons are personal, they are based on the self and self preservation.

Nevada man cannot abide this changing world, this shade encroaching on his bright, white privilege. I have news for you, Nevada man: It. Is. Too. Late. And what you think of as shade is actually light. Progress is always measured in light. The dark ages were bad. Nobody had a good time then. The age of enlightenment was better! As our country gets darker and more colorful, it gets brighter. Nevada man, in America, there will always be room for you at the table. You have spent the past few hundred years making sure of that but you will no longer be allowed to own the table. You must make room. You must listen. You must consider. You must share. It is only fair and right.