One Day at Home Depot

It was a lazy late afternoon on a typically warm Sacramento fall day. Temps hover at highs in the mid-'80's these days, and to my now-acclimated soul, it's quite pleasant. I took some time to mosey over to my local Home Depot for a little shopping.

You meet all kinds at a large store like Home Depot. This one is located at a large shopping near the junction of two major interstate highways, so it's busy. I suppose I found what I was looking for.

My friends in Oakland sneered when I moved here to Sacramento. "You'll miss the -diversity-", they said. Actually, Sacramento is the most diverse city in the US in terms of housing, according to the census and other stats. My particular area of town is known locally for its diverse bourgeoisie. The marvelously liberal inner Bay Area is becoming less and less diverse as the "people of color" with get up and go get up and move inland. The People's Republic of Berkeley has the dubious progressive distinction of now being the whitest city in Alameda County. But the biggest difference is that around here, you actually see poor -white- people. Never find one of those in Oakland.

So I wasn't all that surprised to see a youngish white woman just in from the trailer park wearing a white patterned tee-shirt strolling toward a cash register. What struck me was the particular pattern itself.

It was a Confederate flag surrounded by the phrase "White Power in Black Hell."

As an aside, Confederate flag lovers always go on about how it's not their fault that the Battle Flag has been appropriated by despicable people, but do they every go out of their way to shut 'em up?

Okay, the Constitution protects this sort of silliness and I'd be the first to the barricades to protect it. But what the heck does it -mean-?

Did it mean that whites are forced to live in a Hell created by black people? If so, I'm flattered by the implication of the deep power I and other furry-haired Americans allegedly hold. I feel like the German Jew who responded to the Nazis' pogroms by saying that he just wished he were half as threatening as they said he was.

Did it mean that whites are taking power in a black Hell? If so, why aren't they aiming a little higher? If I were trying to take over an extradimensional plane I'd shoot for Paradise myself. Let someone else rule in Hell.

Given that, are they admitting that figurative black Hell is where they ought to be? If so, I applaud their honesty. I'll even volunteer to light the fire once they reach the blackest level of the Pit they can find.

In short, to all the white power supremacists out there (clearly imagining living in a world without any pro basketball worth watching), please try and be clearer in your rants. Hatred is a simple emotion. It shouldn't be that hard to get it clearly off your chest.

My last question to her is, if you feel that way, what the Hell are you doing in Sacramento, one of the most diverse cities in the country, particular in terms of housing? I mean, why drop right down into your own Hell?

Some people I'll just never understand.