Coffee Shop Conversations

February 2017

At a local coffee shop that I like to visit, I heard snippets of a conversation between two elderly white men. It was a few days after Trump issued the immigration ban and about a week after he reinstated the global gag rule. One of the men entered the coffee shop, loudly exclaiming that Trump was “in there cleaning it up.” The elderly patrons continued their conversation, gleeful that the President of the United States in 2017 was allowing his prejudice and bigotry to influence national decisions. No longer feeling comfortable, I promptly exited. 

On another day, after Judge James L. Robart of Seattle issued an order blocking the immigration ban, I caught the conversation of three elderly white men in a Starbucks at Barnes and Noble. At the moment that their political conversation began, I was re-reading Angela Davis’ Are Prisons Obsolete? The contents of the book had already stirred up feelings of disgust with the deeply destructive character of US institutions, so when their conversation began, I was simultaneously distressed and unsurprised at what I was witnessing yet again: old white men overjoyed at the reality of a president whose hateful sentiments and catastrophic politics legitimized their beliefs in white supremacy.

Instead of leaving this time, I stayed to hear the conversation, motivated by my curiosity of what justifies their support of what is so irrational and hateful that I believe myself incapable of embracing Trump’s administration no matter how empathetic, compassionate, or American I try to be. From their conversation, I gleaned that, ultimately, these elderly white men fear for their status. With such fear comes hatred and justification for all that goes against logical behavior and decision-making. Perhaps the present state of suffering exists because they suffer internally for the conditions that their ancestors created, which they sustain.

“I fear what life would be like for people like you and me if she had won,”  said one of the men. I assume he meant white and male, possibly wealthy, when referring to the people “like you and me.” He proceeded to narrate how the night of the election, he got in bed because he was “awfully tired,” but the moment he knew Trump was victorious, he hopped out of bed and started a pot of coffee. They laughed, while I cringed. 

It was in that moment that all I had learned in my undergraduate courses about white male anxiety became a reality sitting adjacent to me in a coffee shop. Cries of “poor white me” and “poor male me” are by no means anomalous. However, that doesn’t make them any less shocking whenever I do encounter them. I sat there in silence trying to process the absurdity of what they expressed. 

Fear and anxiety about no longer being at the top of the US and global hierarchy must cloud their judgment about everything. Building the wall was a primary component of Trump’s campaign rhetoric, underscored by the idea that America was going to make Mexico pay for it. I’m sure supporters’ cheers during the campaign turned to looks of confusion when Trump revealed after the election that his plan was to use taxpayers’ dollars to build the infamous wall and make the Mexican government pay back the “loan.” Despite this inconsistency, the men in the coffee shop as well as other wall advocates have somehow found a way to excuse and justify the failure to deliver on a campaign promise. According to one of the men, “shutting down the drug cartels” will make Mexico cooperate. 

When I heard this, I reflected on the number of attitudes implied by this prescription for Mexican cooperation. One implication is the belief in rightful dominance of the United States over other autonomous nations. Campaign promises of “making Mexico pay” and the coercive measure the elderly man suggested spoke to the disregard for the autonomy of the Mexican government and its people. 

It also demonstrated a misunderstanding of how Mexican drug cartels operate. Considerable evidence suggests that the CIA and the US government have their hands in Mexican drug operations. Even US drug laws are designed to offer impunity to the people at the top, while lowly traffickers rot away in penitentiaries for decades.

Another implication is the belief in stereotypes about Mexican and other Latinx immigrants. Those who support building the wall, curbing Latinx immigration, and deporting immigrnts justify their support based on beliefs that Latinx people are taking their jobs, draining taxpayers’ dollars through welfare, and trafficking narcotics. However, the presence of immigrants stimulates the United States’ economy through labor and purchasing power. Furthermore, the largest recipients of welfare benefits are white Americans. 

Additionally, research has shown that people of color engage in drug markets less than white people. Nonetheless, because of the constant surveillance and targeting of communities of color, the absence of such surveillance in predominantly white spaces, the mass incarceration of people of color, and the framing of drug usage in communities of color as criminality rather than a public health concern, there is a common misconception that people of color are responsible for the drug problem. The dissemination of media images that reinforce stereotypes of the Latinx population as drug criminals compounds the misconception. 

When I consider the multiple factors— that is, the lack of respect for Mexican autonomy, misguided beliefs about Latinx people, the proliferation of stereotypical images and notions, and white male anxiety— I am led to believe that the perceived criminality and incompetence of Latinx immigrants is nothing more than a mask for the desire to maintain white supremacy in the United States. Is there truly a concern for the American economy or the public health of the nation, or has the influx of brown people and changing demographics touched a nerve on the deeply entrenched anxiety of white men?

When one is in denial about the reality of one’s own inner issues, the result is often projection. “I just love to see the Democrats going crazy,” exclaimed one man. “Yea, he keeps them in fits,” replied another. Since these men’s anxiety about their own positions in the sociopolitical hierarchy renders their lives difficult, they are delighted at the notion of Democrats suffering for legitimate reasons, like threats to liberty, justice, and every other ideal on which the nation claims to stands. 

The men seem to have forgotten their own party’s visceral reactions to the election of Barack Obama and their utter refusal to compromise on the policies put forth by the Obama Administration. They seem to have forgotten that the Democratic Party used to be the party of southern white men, a forgetfulness that leaves me perplexed, since one also suggested sending troops into California “to shut them down just like they did in 1865,” referring to California’s secession threat. It is a forgetfulness that helps them disregard the fact that white men were the greatest beneficiaries of Democratic New Deal programs during the Roosevelt Administration. 

One of the men boldly claimed that the law means nothing to Democrats, who will do anything to get their way. Trump, his campaign team, and his cabinet are the personification of the law meaning nothing, of facts meaning nothing, of doing anything to get one’s way, including spreading misinformation and threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of United States citizens. And it is all in the name of white supremacy and some mythological notion of America. But that is what white male anxiety reaps– cognitive dissonance so prevalent that any attempts to correct misinformation are met with derision. I can only imagine how an encounter would have gone had I interjected to offer facts.

One man thought that Trump’s immigration order “was right;” he hoped that the judge’s order would get overturned. None of the men ever mentioned the global gag rule or the halt on government hiring. Why would they? Their white and male privilege render them unaffected by patriarchal attempts to limit women’s access to resources that help women control their own bodies, and their retirement age disqualifies them from concern about employment opportunities. Both the topics they chose to discuss and the topics they did not discuss revealed much about how their collective identities fuel their support for another white man whose “logic” is illogical and whose “facts” are, indeed, lies. 

I’ve discussed the coffee shop conversation, not to place blame on the men for their ways of being, and not even to excuse myself for making generalizations and assuming the worst about people simply because I live in predominantly white and Republican spaces, but rather to note the interconnectedness of our anxieties. I walk around suspicious, fearful, and anxious because there is real fear and anxiety emanating from the people with whom I have to share space. Sensing my anger and fear probably propels their anxiety even further, and it becomes a neverending race further into the abyss. 

What I find most bothersome about the whole thing is that it appears inescapable. I see Trump stickers on every few cars as I drive around my city and state. Newspaper headlines and news coverage convey how far into the Twilight Zone we have gone. Dinner conversations always center around Trump’s latest move. And white people who believe in their whiteness are everywhere, especially in coffee shops.

My aunt, cousin, and I were awakened around 4 am this morning by the sound of five gunshots. My aunt woke up my uncle, who is a heavy sleeper and didn’t hear a thing. He considered our concern unwarranted. I considered his nonchalance dangerous. My immediate thought and retort to his apparent lack of concern was that we live in this predominantly white neighborhood in a red county and state. White people are emboldened by Trump’s presidency. Therefore, we should be alert when we hear gunshots, especially when we haven’t ever heard gunshots in the neighborhood and so close to our house before. 

Was my 4 am rationalization unwarranted? Am I thinking too deeply into the implications of a Trump presidency? Have I, too, succumbed to fear and hate-mongering? I’m aware that I heard the conversations of only elderly white men, so to generalize all white people of the United States, or even all white men, based off of these snippets would not only be wrong, but it would also go against the liberation that I wish to see for all humans. 

The fact still remains, however, that 53% of white women and 63% of white men voted for Trump, so if I’m sitting in a room full of people who are white, chances are that at least half of them voted against my humanity. At least half of them cling to notions of white supremacy, patriarchy, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism, and other systems of oppression. And that is just too high of a percentage for me to be comfortable.

As I continue doing my inner work, trying to relieve myself of the shackles of this human existence in a world where my systematic oppression seems to be the norm, I keep in mind that we are all connected. Even the whiteness and the maleness of the coffee shop patrons are secondary to their humanity and spiritual essences. I do wish that they would recognize the same.