BEg2 ch30 paragraph 4

[Michael Bailey]

“After maybe a day and a half of stunned suspension, the usual ethnic
toxicities, fierce as ever, have resumed. Hey, it’s New York. American
flags appear everywhere. In apartment-building lobbies and up in apartment
windows, on rooftops, in storefronts and corner groceries, in eateries, on
delivery trucks and hot-dog stands, on motorcycles and bikes, on cabs
driven by members of the Muslim faith, who between shifts are taking
courses in Spanish as a Second Language with a view to posing as a slightly
less disrespected minority, though whenever Latino people try putting out
some variation like the Puerto Rican flag, they are reflexively cursed and
denounced as enemies of America.”

That did happen, the flags and the other stuff, as we all probably
remember. I put a flag up in the window myself. I wonder if any
conspiracy-head checked for margin buying of stock in flag companies in
early September?

Interesting that he said, “fierce as ever,” and not “fiercer than ever.”
One of the (brief list of) unobjectionable & even laudable things Bush 43
did was to inveigh against this tendency.

Taking Spanish does seem like a good dodge: although to be convincing would
require either somewhat laboriously developing a Spanish-accented English,
or going full Chicano with extreme brevity of conversation (which many
passengers might appreciate?)