When you live in a small city, you come to recognize the vehicles
around you like you come to recognize faces.
I’ve seen some version of this bumper sticker on vehicles at two places
I frequent: my workplace and my gym. The
sticker features the outline of a rifle and the word “infidel” in both English
and (somewhat stylized) Arabic. Each time
I see it, I can’t help but speculate on the message it’s intended to convey and
the audience it’s intended for. In this post
I want to voice some of that speculation.
I was hesitant about writing this because I don’t want to
presume to speak for the people who put this sticker on their trucks, or to put
words in their mouths, or to assume that I can accurately read their intentions
without speaking to them. But at the
same time, this is public speech; it’s a message pasted to the exterior of a
vehicle that moves in public spaces, and it’s clearly meant to convey a message to any who might read it, including
strangers. To put a cryptic sticker on
your car is to invite people to assign a meaning to it. We teach rhetorical analysis—the interpretation
of a public message and its purpose—in my Comp classes as a skill. With that in mind, and acknowledging that I
may be completely misinterpreting the intentions of the vehicle owners, here is
my speculation.
The sticker, as I noted, has both English and Arabic
text. The Arabic text in particular is
odd if one takes it at face value. The
Arabic-speaking population in this area is microscopic; the number of Arabic
speakers who do not also read English is even smaller. The Muslim population in the Black Hills isn’t
even large enough to support one mosque.
The likelihood that a Muslim person who reads Arabic but not English
will see this vehicle and its sticker is tiny.
So while on its face the intended audience appears to be Arabic-speaking
Muslims, in reality, this is unlikely.
Let’s take a moment to consider this point. Pretending that your message is intended for
one audience when it is actually intended for someone else is a kind of message
in itself. Imagine someone at a party,
loudly commenting on some piece of gossip to a group of listeners while secretly
hoping some different group will overhear.
This is essentially what is happening here. The sticker owner purports to be saying, “I’m not a Muslim—in fact, I’m violently opposed
to Islam [assuming that’s the intended message behind the image of the rifle]—and
I want to make sure every Muslim in these here parts knows it.” The sticker owner is actually saying, “I want my majority white English-speaking non-Muslim
neighbors to think that I would tell any Muslim I meet that I’m violently opposed
to Islam.” The context changes the
message in every way that matters. The same
sticker on a vehicle in New York or London would carry completely different
meanings.
Consider also the image of the rifle. It reminds me of similar stickers with text
like “I’d don’t dial 911” and “Keep honking, I’m reloading.” It indicates that the owner is not only
prepared to defend himself with violence, but eager to do so—that he actually hopes
for the opportunity and justification to shoot someone.
Is it true? Does the
owner truly hope for a home invasion or an assault so they have a reason to kill
the offender? Or is it simply a fine
example of alpha male-style posturing?
In some cases it’s probably the former, and in some cases the latter.
The combination of the rifle and the text on this particular
sticker seems to boast that the owner hopes to be attacked—indeed, invites an attack—by an offended Muslim
on the basis of the owner’s infidelity so the owner then has an excuse to kill
that Muslim. One can imagine the owner
daydreaming about just such a situation.
Why is this worth speculating about? We know there’s plenty of anti-Muslim bigotry
and good old-fashioned male aggression in our ether, so who is concerned about
this particular sticker?
It concerns me because it expresses an eagerness for
confrontation that I sometimes see in myself.
Sometimes I imagine being confronted by some hypothetical
individual over some opinion I’ve expressed or contentious statement I’ve made. In my mind, I rehearse how I would respond—the
arguments and facts I’d muster; the sources I’d reference. I even experience the physiological response
when I’m imagining this: my jaw clenches, my face tightens, the acid of anxiety
fills my stomach.
I worry that when I see the eagerness for confrontation that’s
demonstrated in that sticker, it enables me to justify it in myself. It excuses it.
I’ve been listening to a lot of Sam Harris’s work lately,
and it’s gotten me thinking about cognitive resources. The brain is like a rechargeable battery: you
can replenish its power reserves through things like sleep, meditation, and
other things that relax you, but generally speaking, from day to day you only
have so much mental energy to expend. Do
you want to spend it on anger? On
anxiety? On preparing for conflicts that
will probably never happen, planning for disasters that are spectacularly
unlikely?
I’d rather spend it thinking about my creative work, mulling
over interesting things I’ve read or listened to lately, and remembering the
people, animals, and things that bring me joy.
I think we should be careful that we don’t allow the behavior or
mentality of others to influence us disproportionately; that we don’t become
the anger and the confrontation that we condemn in others.
When I see that sticker again, I will remind myself that I’m
not obligated to spend any cognitive resources worrying about who its owner is or what they’re trying to say.
I invite your commentary on this topic. If you have something to add, or think I’ve
drastically misinterpreted this message, please comment below.
