Alabama Got You Down?
By: Heather M. Edwards
Tags: Fourth Of July, Politics, Race, Equality, Culture

All rights © Chatom Ford Dealership, 2019.

Alabama car shoppers can no longer get a free Bible, American flag and a gift certificate for a 12-gauge shotgun when they buy their next new or used car from a Ford dealership in Chatom. But general manager Colin Ward still wants customers to know they could have gotten a free Quran or Torah for the now-canceled “God, Guns and Freedom” Fourth of July special if they had wanted.

After a fatal shooting in California, in which a worker fired from a dealership killed two people before killing himself, Ford Motor Co. requested that the Chatom dealership cancel their “inappropriate” promotion.¹

Criticism of the promotion, which was set to last for the entire month of July, disproportionately focused on the fact that the dealership offering it was in Alabama. As in, Well what do you expect, it’s Alabama.

But states are just as diverse as the individuals who call them home. And one man’s white Christian nationalism is another man’s patriotism — neither ideology is created or defined by the state where its believer lives.

For the opponents, this particular triad of free gifts strikes exactly the wrong chord — promoting white Christian nationalism and protecting it with gun violence. They are the Emma Lazarus patriots, the huddled-masses Americans who believe “a mighty woman with a torch, whose flame/Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name/Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand/Glows world-wide welcome.” They believe open borders, separation of church and state, cultural pluralism, multilingualism and representative democracy are what make America great. And too often, they also believe that racism is a uniquely Southern predilection. And they are not the only Americans.

The “Christian values” Americans, however, flooded much of the dealership’s social media with “God Bless America” praise. Fans called the “God, Guns and Freedom” promotion defending and celebrating “real” American values.

And they’re not just from Alabama.

A Cindy Duckworth, (who also likes Ilhan Omar’s page), posted: “I can’t wait to buy our next vehicle from Chatom. I don’t mind driving 16 hours round trip for a business that supports God and America!”

Chatom Ford has refereed with a cheerful — and admirable — open-mindedness as strangers battle each other’s ideologies in the comments sections. This was their response to another comment of Duckworth’s about “hate messages” she’d received in response to her initial post above. “We appreciate your support as well as the others. Yet, we respect everyone’s opinion as it’s their god given right as well. Nice talking to you a couple of times yesterday. Hope you make today a great one!!”

Accused child molester Roy Moore rode into Gallant, Alabama on horseback to vote in the 2018 Senate special election. He lost to Democrat Doug Jones.

Sure, Roy Moore calls Alabama home too. And the internet tripped all over itself, delighting in being able to say, “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on,” but I would’ve rather had the horse for Congress. Not that it’s a radical political stance to prefer a horse to a pedophile. The point is, we don’t need to paint all of Alabama with the same brush.

Alabama is also home to Zach Blenkinsopp, a Navy veteran who went viral after captioning his selfie below with this: “Because of what I do for a living and where I travel often, I interact with many Latinos from all of Latin America. This gentleman, Oscar, is one of the roofing subcontractors out of Georgia we work with and is an exceptional roofer, good guy, and runs a top notch crew. My company couldn’t run without him and people like him. Unfortunately, his only experience of Alabama is a guy in Walmart yelling at him to “Go back to his country”.

Please remember, without many of these first-generation immigrant Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, etc. many, many of the things you enjoy here in America would not be possible anymore. These are the guys who build your roads, build your houses, work the farms for your food, cut your grass, and make some of the best damn food in America.

Instead of shouting “Go back to your country”, perhaps try asking them where they are from, learn a little about Latin culture, or perhaps learn a few lines of Spanish. We are a country of immigrants. Being kind and welcoming will go a lot further than being coarse and rude 🇺🇸 ”

Blenkinsopp with Oscar from Arroyo Roofing Construction. All rights @ Zach Blenkinsopp.

143,000 shares later, Blenkinsopp is internet famous and has mused about running against Roy Moore in the 2020 Republican primary. Moore has already announced he will run against Doug Jones again.

More than 325 million of us call this nation home. Our diversity is too complex to compartmentalize and label 50 simple ways. So on this Fourth of July, rather than pigeonholing each other or blaming each other’s states for the wrong kind of patriotism or not enough patriotism, we can all celebrate the one thing every American has in common — we’re not British. That’s it. (Except for the dual citizens like my friend Megan.)

So light your fireworks responsibly. Be mindful of our combat veterans with PTSD and our poor pets who will never understand what the hell all this noise is about. And for the love of America, please do not light our forests on fire.