“So, for all your reasoning, and us talking about moderate and peaceful Muslims, I’m glad you’re here. But where are the others? Why aren’t they speaking out? You seem to be the only Muslim representative.
“Since you’re the only Muslim representative here, you took the limelight. Yet you didn’t speak about why the young girl died, or about the tragedy in California, or about what our government is doing to address these problems. Instead, you chose to make a point about peaceful, moderate Muslims. You make a good point about ideology; I wish you’d brought ten others with you so they could help us figure this out.
“It’s time we take political correctness and throw it in the garbage where it belongs. As far as I’m concerned, the peaceful Muslims are irrelevant to this discussion,” Brook concluded.
My first thought was, ‘Oh, shit.’ It took a moment for what she said to sink in, and then a smattering of applause started. Then it grew. I was sure I would look back at this moment and be able to point to the time Brook Davis entered politics. What she said wasn’t intended to be politically correct. Rather, she intended to tell some truths. What’s the old saying, ‘out of the mouths of babes’?
Most Muslims weren’t radical. We needed to focus on the ones that were, the ones that wanted to destroy our way of life. While I could see her point, I might not have said peaceful Muslims were irrelevant. I would bet that if we ever wanted to solve this problem, we would need their help. I felt we needed to be more inclusive instead of an ‘us against them’ type of mentality. But that wasn’t her point. Her point was we spent too much time focused on not hurting anyone’s feelings. How many more had to die before we woke up?
◊◊◊
After the Town Hall meeting, I noticed that Governor Higgins avoided Brook and her family. I pointed it out to my grandmother.
“That’s politics, my boy. He doesn’t know how her comments will be received. You know that it doesn’t matter if she’s right or not. Our political climate is such that people just take sides and they’re ready to fight to the death over it. It saddens me to see that a well-reasoned comment is ignored. No, I take that back. It’s sad to see a well-reasoned comment vilified just because of who said it.
“Your grandfather predicted that partisanship would be our downfall. He said that too often all the infighting and political gridlock resulted in nothing getting done. Davey projected that voters would eventually become disgusted with it all. He expected that if it continued, people would leave the parties. They would seek alternatives. Davey said you’d see it first in local and then state elections. You’d see independent candidates beginning to win. But he felt it would be years before an independent could win a national election. That’s even though a third of the electorate identifies themselves as independent. The two-party system simply has too much money, and the parties have stacked the deck in their favor.
“He said that if the level of hostility continued to escalate, people would start to clamor for an alternative. They would be so disgusted with the choices offered that they would revolt,” Grandma Dawson said.
I could just see my grandpa ranting about the need for everyone to work together instead of bickering with each other. Something I will say was he was known to be a man of the people. He’d built himself into the power broker he was by knowing how to broker fair deals. If I ever went into politics, I wanted to be like Davey Dawson. My fear was I didn’t have the temperament for it. If they started to tell lies about me, I’d just track them down and kick their asses. I had a feeling that would be a bad idea.
◊◊◊
When we got in the car to go home, it was awful quiet. I finally had had enough. It was unnatural for Brook not to be her usual bubbly self.
“Those were some impressive stats,” I ventured.
“Dad’s a history buff and got me interested when I was young. I also heard a YouTube video where Brigitte Gabriel talked about this issue,” she admitted.
“You did a good thing,” I said and reached over and squeezed her hand.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
I smiled.
“You wouldn’t be Brook Davis if you didn’t say what you felt.”
She gave me half a smile.
“Max didn’t seem happy with me,” Brook said as her smile left her face.
“Max didn’t know what to think,” I said and then pulled her chin up so she looked me in the eyes. “What you said, what you believed, people heard that. As long as you’re true to yourself, you can wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and have a clear conscience.”
“David’s right. I was really proud of you,” Ian said.
Brook leaned close to me so only I could hear.
“I didn’t think guys like you really existed. Sweet, sincere, and HOT … you’re like a unicorn.”
