A sign affirming lives Peanut butter and politics

I am a 62-year-old white woman. I have a homemade “Black Lives Matter TOO” sign in my car’s back window. Within two weeks, I have been screamed at by two white men. The first time, I was pulling out of my parking spot when a man started jumping, waving his arms and yelling. A minute later, he pulled up to my car at the stoplight, rolled down his window and started screaming at me. I flashed him the peace sign, and he responded with a middle finger.

Two weeks ago, as I pulled into a parking spot, a man waiting nearby with his family for a pizza pickup honked at me, lowered his window and put his thumb down, yelling, “All lives matter! Don’t you get it?” This continued for several minutes.

After exiting my car, he pulled in front, rolled down his other window and continued to yell at me. I was quite unnerved.

If I, as a white woman, in a world of white privilege, can be threatened and intimidated for supporting equality, I can only imagine what my brothers and sisters of color have had to deal with all of their lives.

If I had not been so terrified, I would have told them that I agree that “all lives matter.” Just like “all houses matter.” But it’s the black houses that are on fire.

— Kay Lewis, Deer Park

Political parties are like peanut butter. Peanut butter is as American as baseball, apple pie and a 1962 Bel Air.

You’ve been eating peanut butter your whole life. Then you realize that palm oil is bad, and that it’s in a lot of peanut butter. Do you stop eating peanut butter? No! You get an alternative — without the palm oil.

How does this parallel politics? Maybe you feel “antifa” is the palm oil of the Democratic Party or QAnon the palm oil of the Republican Party.

We all have our own reasons as to why we vote the way we do. We won’t let a little palm oil mess up what we love the most: this great democracy of ours!

— Kurt Seehofer, Oak Lawn