By Mike Matejka

Now I’m not very athletic, but I have been in my share of locker rooms and male only conversations.  I’m mystified when I hear Donald Trump negate his comments about women as “locker room talk.”  I’m not sure where this proverbial locker room is at and if I even want to be near it.

Presidential campaigns come and go; the hot election fires are stoked by each party and then, except for those of us who are political junkies, the election fervor dies.

There is a repercussion of this election, however, which I hope dies with the election, but I am afraid, will not.   My fear is that ugly and hateful speech, whether against women, minorities, the disabled or different religions will again be accepted in this country.   Racial, sexual and demeaning speech about others is nothing new.  But since the 1960s, we worked as a country to be more accepting.  Although some would deny it, we really have made great strides.   Demeaning humor and stereotypes against others have not disappeared, but they’ve certainly have lessened.

Many proclaimed that when Barack Obama was elected as our President, that we were entering a post-racial society.   That proclamation was quickly proven wrong.  Some who disagreed with the President’s policies used racial language against him.  Some people just could not accept an American child of an African man as our leader and racial words were again resurrected.  And for those who had had a hard time accepting an African-American as our commander-in-chief, the possibility now of a woman in that position is also frightening.

The face of America is a constant transformation.  When Irish immigrants arrived on our shores in the 1840s, the American Party, better known as the “Know Nothings,” came to political power.  Their fear was that Catholic immigrants would be loyal to Rome and destroy American democracy.   At the time, many felt the essence of America was white Protestantism.   After the Civil War, when we changed again and former slaves became free citizens, the Ku Klux Klan arose to terrorize African-Americans back into second class status.   The Klan reared its head again before and after World War I, not just to attack African-Americans, but also the new immigrants of the early 1900s.   Many nativists feared people like my grand-parents, as they left Eastern Europe for American shores.   Many magazine articles in the early 1900s said that immigrants would mongrelize the nation.

We are in transformation again.   Immigrants come from the Latin America, Africa and Asia.  Most are anxious to fit in and find jobs.  Our diets will be enriched by new foods and eventually their children will be in the school desk next to native born children. What makes this country unique is our flexibility and our diversity.

Let the hate rhetoric die.  No matter our skin color, national origin, gender or sexual orientation, most people simply want to get along.   And when we open our doors and our hearts, we’re continuing the unique traditions that make this country different.

Mike Matejka is the Governmental Affairs director for the Great Plains Laborers District Council, covering 11,000 union Laborers in northern Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He lives in Normal. He served on the Bloomington City Council for 18 years, is a past president of the McLean County Historical Society and Vice-President of the Illinois Labor History Society.

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