Safety Pins

The Left has entered the final throws of their denial-outrage-anger-protesting-moralizing-contempt-bitterness-snarkiness-fingerpointing-hysteria-fear precipitated by the recent election of Donald Trump. At the same time, an interesting symbol has been adopted by young, left-leaning people—the safety pin. I'm not sure young leftists understand the irony of the symbol. John Kass comments:

The safety pins are becoming symbols of solidarity for the young on the left who oppose Trump. And they're quite the fashion accessory ...

A safety pin on your clothing demonstrates solidarity with the anti-Trumpsters, and a shield from shaming. But there's a problem with the pins. The irony of it all.

I thought irony died decades ago, but it insists on reanimating itself.

They're safety pins! S-a-f-e-t-y Pins.

Safe space, safe pins, get it? Safety pins were once used to secure cloth diapers so baby bottoms wouldn't get pricked.

I had hoped they'd wear something a bit tougher, like a needle, or a bloody "Game of Thrones" spike. Can't they find some symbolism just a tad less baby-bottomish?

"These pins — not the wearing of them or the pictures posted of folks wearing them — are not about safe spaces," wrote Trump critic Demetria Lucas D'Oyley in an article headlined "Come On, White People: We Need More Than Safety Pins to Make Us Feel Safe" that appeared in The Root.

"They're about not wanting to be perceived as a racist. Like, 'I might be white, but I'm not like them, over there. I'm enlightened.' No, you're not. You're trendy."

The Left has achieved something quite remarkable. By overusing and misusing the epithet "racist", they have deadened it's meaning. And that's an insult to those who fought so hard against actual racists back in the day. But back to "safety."

A hypothetical: Let's assume that a college age American woman wearing a small necklace with a Star of David is joined by her friends— a young gay male wearing a rainbow coalition tee shirt, a young Mexican immigrant wearing a small gold cross celebrating his Catholic heritage, and a young African American female wearing tight-fitting but certainly not inappropriate workout clothes. They're interacting, laughing, and enjoying a walk together. All of them are anti-Trump, and all are wearing safety pins, of course.

I wonder whether this group of friends would be safer on the mean streets of any city in Florida (one of many states that voted for Trump) OR on the streets of, say, Gaza City or Kabul, Afghanistan or Qom, Iran or Mecca, Saudi Arabia? Recall that in those places religious police sometimes brutally attack women for not wearing Sharia-proscribed clothing, gay people are murdered for being gay, and Christians and Jews are eradicated because they are non-believers.

Of course, just asking that question makes me "Islamophobic," doesn't it? Or maybe "racist" or is it "xenophobic" or maybe I'm guilty of "white privilege"?

You know what? The Left hurls those words around so they don't have to answer the questions associated with my hypothetical. The implication makes them uncomfortable and that takes them out of their narrative. Not to mention that it highlights their own hypocrisy in suggesting that citizens in Florida (and elsewhere) who voted for Trump are less evolved than they, but somehow, citizens in the other cities in my hypothetical are ... what? So they rely on name calling.

There are many of us among the "deplorables" and the 'unenlightened" who are no longer intimidated by the Left's empty accusations of racism or Islamophobia or bigotry or white privilege. After all, consider the source.