Don’t Attempt to Silence My Voice, so Let’s Talk

Our place of residence expresses many aspects of who we are: our style of architectural and design tastes, our financial level, and even our religious backgrounds and political affiliations.

I live in a financially modest, mostly working-class family neighborhood in a rural area of western Massachusetts. People of all ages from very young to elderly walk on the sidewalks, some using canes, some pushing baby strollers or walking hand-in-hand with young children, many walking dogs of all breeds. A man who rescued a baby squirrel often takes his pet out for a stroll on a leash and allows local children to feed it small nuts.

My neighbor next door placed a reclining garden gnome on a tree stump, while others hang tinkling wind chimes or small windmills that turn gently on breezy days.

Many of my neighbors exhibit statues of various sizes depicting the Virgin Mary on a blue half shell, and residents of one house fly a flag in their front yard of Mary holding the baby Jesus.

“Old Glory” stands proudly on poles or porches on holidays throughout the spring, summer, and fall months. A few of us fly our multicolored flags representing our support for the liberation of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and asexual people. I and others display a “Black Lives Matter” banner.

Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in my continuing hope for peace and a possible two-state solution, I have purchased and posted on my home the Palestinian and Israeli flags hanging side by side. And since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I made a yard sign on which I painted the Ukrainian flag in blue and yellow representing the sky above and fields of grain below.

For the most part, I haven’t received much backlash from my neighbors or from people passing by in their cars or on the sidewalk. Occasionally, someone will honk their horn in solidarity, or I hear an occasional shout of “you faggot” or “where’s your American flag” from a fleeting automobile.

The most consistent and harshest resistance I have received, though, is targeted on my handmade “Harris and Walz” yard sign that I crafted with a razor knife from glistening glitter paper on which I placed small sparkling lights to illuminate after dark. Since I don’t live in one of the seven “toss-up” states, it has been more difficult to order a political yard sign other than for candidates in local elections.

On several occasions, I found my sign horizontal and level with the lawn with telltale small tire tracks on one side. My neighbor across the street informed me that she had seen two boys, which she estimated to be middle school age, ramming into the sign with their bicycles.

And today, three days before the election, as I was looking out my front window, I watched a young man of approximately 17 or 18-years-old wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt lifting his foot to bend and twist the metal stand of the yard sign to a horizontal position. He then walked quite fast down the sidewalk as I called out that “I saw you! I saw you.”

Maybe my memory is failing, but I don’t remember such vilification and scorn toward those we differ with on political issues. Yes, people have probably always destroyed or stolen other people’s yard signs in the past. People have vandalized residences with spray paint or toilet paper to oppose other’s beliefs or simply to be cruel.

But when we attempt to silence other people’s political expressions, we are denying them their First Amendment right to freedom of speech just as when anyone destroys a religious symbol denies them their First Amendment right to freedom of religion.

If I find the boys and young man who damaged my yard sign, I will tell them that I am always open to discuss my political beliefs, or my Jewish religion, or my sexual and gender identity, or anything else they wish to examine.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Civility Index measures the level of civility in the workplace based on a survey of U.S. workers’ experiences. The latest SHRM Civility Index score of 45.6 indicates that “incivility continues to be prevalent in the daily lives of U.S. workers.” I know the same is true on the individual interpersonal level outside of the workplace.

I hope that following the election, we as a nation can at least come to an agreement that our Constitutional rights must be respected regardless of where we stand on issues or social identities. I hope that we as a nation can get past seeing “the other” as an “enemy from within,” as someone to be feared, as someone to be hated, as “garbage.” I hope we can end the bullying by people of all ages.

Let us, as Kamala keeps asking us, “to turn the page.” And yes, Kamala, I agree with you that “we have more that connects us than divides us.”

Let the healing begin.

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This Post is republished on Medium.

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