Waves of change wash over our planet daily. Even here in Orlando the backwash of those waves are beginning to
lap up on our shores as can be seen in these events from the past three days.
Scene 1: Sonny’s Barbeque.
As I sit awaiting my lunch, a young
female server brings two plates heaped to the brim with pulled pork,
beans and French fries to the table in front of me. She is about to set them
down on the table in front of the two young Muslim men, students at the nearby
Full Sail technological college.
Their expression quickly indicates
that this would be a big mistake.
“Did I get your order wrong?”
she asks cheerfully. “We ordered chicken,” the one curtly replied.
The waitress walks away,
plates still in hand, looking puzzled. These guys acted like I had insulted
them just because I got their order wrong.
She generally doesn’t get that
reaction from the fire fighters and police officers who frequent this place.
She has no idea what halal and
haram means. But they do. And if she is going to remain in this business in a country where Muslims now outnumber Episcopalians, she will need to learn.
Our world is changing.
Scene 2: Lake Underhill Drive
I’m returning from the Home
Depot with newly purchased plants and pots. I want to get home to get my gardening done before the rain begins.
There is a black SUV with
tinted windows ahead of me. It comes to a stop at the point where Lake
Underhill Drive dead ends into Palmer Street. One has to go either right or
left on Palmer. It is free of traffic.
I wait.
After 30 seconds or so, I
figure the driver is distracted and touch my horn. No response. I beep again,
this time a bit more emphatically.
No response.
I back up and begin to drive
around the car, half irritated, half concerned that I might encounter a driver having
some kind of medical emergency.
There in the front seat sits a
woman my age, texting away, completely oblivious to where she is or the fact
she is holding up other drivers.
She never looks up.
She is busy feeding her addiction.
Indeed, the addiction to communications
technology in our culture by far exceeds the opioid crisis our pharmaceutical
industry has fostered in its pervasiveness and its potential seriousness.
Texting while driving is only
a secondary offense in Florida and cannot be the primary reason an officer
stops a driver even as the insurance industry now reports that texting while
driving is much more likely to result in accidents than driving under the
influence of alcohol.
Thus far, there is no pressure group equivalent to Mothers Against Drunk Driving crying out to regulate driving
distracted by technology. And the communications industry lobbyists have paid
our state legislature and governor quite handsomely to turn a blind eye to the
dangers of this addiction. As Upton
Sinclair noted a century ago, “It is difficult to get a man to understand
something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
But how many drivers will continue
to patiently wait while the oblivious texter carries on their conversation
without erupting into angry violence? And at what point will we admit we’ve made a
serious error in judgment in acquiescing to this culture of addiction? Will it be too
late?
Our world is changing.
But is it for the better?
Scene 3: Miller’s Ale House
The elevated tables next to
our booth in the outdoor seating section are full of middle aged Latino men
talking and drinking from pitchers of beer. There are empty seats awaiting
arriving guests.
Within minutes, a group of men
and women enter and the energy level in the room leaps several notches. Amidst
joyful greetings complete with kisses and hugs, the group sits down together
and begins an animated conversation. From my best Spanish (which is hardly
fluent on a good day) I am able to overhear snippets of conversation: lots of trees down everywhere; no power;
everyone is OK but they have no water.
These friends and family are
among the thousands who have arrived from Puerto Rico this week, fleeing the
wrath of Hurricane Maria and the ongoing misery of its aftermath, bearing news
of loved ones left behind. The local Boricuas are delighted to see them,
relieved to know they are OK. And the new arrivals are clearly happy to be out
of the suffering they have endured on this isle of enchantment in which three quarters of its residents languish without power a month after a killer hurricane.
My guess is that a good number of
these visitors will remain. Many have left destroyed homes. Most have no jobs
to return to at businesses that no longer exist. They have come to begin new
lives on the mainland.
Florida and the US will never
be the same.
This is the vanguard of the
waves of climate change refugees who will eventually land on our shores. They follow those
who have preceded them in smaller numbers fleeing US wars and economic
dislocation through treaties like NAFTA. They arrive in a cultural climate in
which immigrants are widely demonized. They will be caricaturized by politicians
eager to stoke and manipulate public fear for political gain even as the reasons for their
emigration remain largely unexamined.
The coming of the Boricuas, as
they call themselves, has been relatively easy. Puerto Rico is an American commonwealth. And
their numbers are comparatively small.
But climate change is no
respecter of the imaginary lines on the earth’s surface called borders. And as superstorms
are charged up by heated oceans and droughts, heat waves and firestorms ravage inland
locations, desperate people will do whatever they can to save their families. That includes fleeing their homelands and crossing hostile borders. And it includes enduring vilification in the countries in which they seek refuge.
Our world is changing.
How will we respond?
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Harry Scott Coverston
Orlando, Florida
If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined
belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding.
Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.
For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d? (Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures)
© Harry Coverston 2017
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1 comment:
I agree that as American society becomes more ethnically complex, increased cultural sensitivity is a must for those who interact with the public. That being said, inadvertently and accidentally bringing plates of pork to a pair of Muslims is no justification whatsoever for them to become offensive by word or grimace. They missed a teachable moment.
In New York, the segment of the population that is involved in the largest number of auto accidents, mishaps, and tickets related to cell phone usage are not Millennials or high school kids but middle-aged upper middle class women. I told you, I think, about two Baldwin Park matrons, one in a black Cadillac Escalade the other in a black Hummer, who were so oblivious to the outside world that they rolled head-on into each other in the Baldwin Park Publix parking lot. One had a cell phone in her hand and a cigarette in her mouth, the other had a cell phone in one hand and a coffee in the other hand. I suppose she was driving with her knee.
Postman didn't get it quite right but he wasn't far off, either.
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