Wear a hat emblazoned with Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, and you may have a beverage you paid for thrown in your face and your hat stolen. Fly a “Make America Great Again” flag from your truck, and you may have shots fired at you. But wear a hat that reads “America was never great” … and listen to the crickets chirping.
That was pretty much the experience of 22-year-old Krystal Lake, who wore a hat with that message to her job at a Home Depot on Staten Island. She claims nasty things were said to her on social media, including threats on her life. However, no customer in this heavily conservative oasis in deep-blue New York City approached her and spit on her shoes, which is what happened to a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat in Central Park.
According to the Staten Island Advance:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Lake said she awoke Wednesday morning to a barrage of text messages, tweets and phone calls from friends and co-workers asking her if she had been checking her social media accounts.
“Everyone kept asking me if I was on Facebook or Twitter, which I hadn’t been,” she said, “and then I saw how many people were sharing [the picture] and that it was going viral.
Stephan Holmes, a spokesman for Home Depot was also interviewed and states that Lake’s message does not reflect the opinions of the company.
We appreciate and understand the concerns of our loyal customers. In terms of the message, our associates are not permitted to wear items that reflect political statements.
Unfortunately, no one on our management team saw her wearing the hat — otherwise, they would have had her remove it immediately.
So now that Lake has been put on notice, she won’t be wearing the offending hat again, right? Wrong.
When asked whether she intends to wear the hat again, Lake said, “Definitely.”
It’s easy to stand up for your beliefs when no one is physically assaulting you for them, as happened to a female Trump supporter in downtown Washington.
As for those “beliefs,” I would submit that, unlike “Make America Great Again,” the slogan “America was never great” is meant to be antagonistic and confrontational. That idea appears not to have occurred to Lake, who clearly sees herself as the victim in this standoff.
