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Don’t tread on me?

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Don’t Tread on MeWhen I see a car drive by with one of those Don’t Tread on Me license plates, I automatically think: asshole.

Sorry, but I do.

Key issue here: who or what is treading on you, exactly?

Seriously, white folks.

You don’t have to worry about the police shooting you if you happen to get pulled over for, oh, pretty much anything, a bad inspection sticker, a taillight that may or may not look broken, whatever.

You can be doing doughnuts in the middle of Main Street like you just won the Daytona 500, and if a cop comes up to your window, you’re as likely to get off with a warning as even get a ticket.

The Trump administration is now going after naturalized citizens. Let me repeat that, for the purposes of emphasis: the Trump administration is going after naturalized friggin’ citizens. American citizens.

They’ve set up a whole unit staffed with people whose job is to pour through citizenship applications to look for any kind of error, clerical or otherwise, to deport folks who are actual American fuckin’ citizens.

You don’t have to worry about being deported. The cops don’t assume you’re running a drug cartel if you’re driving a nice car.

People don’t call 911 when you’re grilling out in the park. Or when you’re waiting to meet an appointment at a Starbucks.

Looking at rental properties. Loading your car after a night at an Airbnb.

Nobody is taking away your guns. Donald Trump is president! The NRA owns slightly less of him than Vladimir Putin does. We’re a few months away from you being able to park a tank in your garage and a nuclear submarine at the lake.

And yet, you still somehow feel trodden upon.

I get it. I mean, all these black folks going around cooking hamburgers in public, Mexicans or whoever taking all the good-paying jobs picking produce and mowing lawns that good white folks used to buy big houses and big cars with.

And we haven’t even said anything about all the homosexuals. You know they can get married now? Two men, two women, next thing you know, they’re going to be marrying farm animals.

Back to reality: you’ve made your point. The world ain’t as white as it used to be, you’re pissed as hell, you’re not going to take it anymore, and you want the world to know.

Thus the license plates.

Don’t tread on me.

Asshole detectors, for the rest of us.

Column by Chris Graham

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