The Myth of Common Ground

Just outside one of the city's oldest biker bars, someone has nailed up a wire wastebasket with a hand written sign that reads “Check Your Politics Here”. It starts my night with a smile.

It's a weeknight and while the crowd is light, the music is deafening. Whitney, the blonde, blue eyed bartender, waves to me and a few moments later a diet coke and a red plastic basket of popcorn appear at my elbow. I suspect that the wastebasket and sign might be her idea since last time I was here, a post-election difference of opinion between two bikers got out of hand, a full fledged brawl broke out and Whitney, who stores (and isn't afraid to use) a 357 she keeps behind the bar, was forced to intervene and restore order. In the process, she broke an expensively lacquered fingernail and took it more personally than anyone expected so I didn't imagine she would let it happen again. After that night, the popular opinion became that being petite and pretty didn't mean you didn't know your way around a gun and there'd been no more disputes, political or otherwise.

If you frequent as many bars as I do, there are certain things you get used to. Here in the south, biker bars, in particular, are colorful places and you're almost guaranteed to find at least one prominently displayed confederate flag. The patrons tend to be loud, intimidatingly conservative and opinionated to the point of crude if they're not getting their point across. For someone like myself, this can be hostile territory and while I've never felt threatened or unsafe, I do try and respect the environment.

My friend, Jack, a tree-top tall, blind-in-one-eye old rider with a mane of coarse and untidy grey hair well past his shoulders, slides into a chair facing me and plunks his beer on the table with a dull thud. He grins and gives me a salacious wink.

"Whaddup, girl" he says conversationally, 'Still ridin' that liberal horse?"

"Reckon so, Jack," I say, "Still draggin' your ass in its dust?"

Until recently, if a friend - casual or even close - shared my love of music or devotion to animals but not my politics, it wasn't enough to keep them from being a friend.  I might snipe some here and there, just as they would with me, but I wasn't ready to write someone off over a political difference of opinion.  We could always agree to disagree, so I thought, and concentrate on our common ground.  That, I told myself, was what adults did.  It wasn't ideal but it was practical, reasonably cordial and it worked for years, might still be working today but for the last election.  Much to my dismay, I've come to realize that there are certain things about certain friends that I can't overlook.

It's painful to think that I have friends who are rabidly racist and I didn't know.

It's painful to think that I have friends who think women shouldn't be able to vote and I didn't know.

It's painful to think I have friends who would let the poor starve and I didn't know.

It's painful to think I have friends who would close our borders, take away social safety nets, turn their backs on civil rights, deny science, dismantle consumer protections, deregulate anything that can be deregulated in the name of profit, and embrace a world of exclusivity that isn't even open to most of them.  It's not only painful that I didn't know.  It's shameful.

Except that I did know.  I just chose not to confront it.  I thought I could pretend it wasn't there, that it wasn't significant enough to worry about.  Because here's the thing for my friends like Jack:  even if you aren't a racist or a predator or a woman-hater or a hypocrite, you voted for one.  And it's pretty much the same thing.

So long, Jack.  Gonna miss you.