Mike Norman
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

Wow, Abby. I am a 50 year resident of Lebanon. I have eaten at this very diner more times over the years than I can count. I live just 5 minutes from there. My wife and I have had a lot of the same feelings as you when we have been sitting there eating our country breakfast on a Saturday morning, and listening to the conversations going on around us. I know many of these regulars who show up on weekends to drink coffee and shoot the shit. Many of them I have known since childhood. I have to say, I am maybe not as surprised as you at some of what you have seen and overheard there. There is little doubt, as you have gleaned from your experiences there, that this county still is a “white man’s” county, particularly in the view of many of the “old timers”. There has always been a strong undercurrent of bigotry and racism here. I think that played a fairly large part in Trump’s popularity in this area with a not insignificant number of the people. The county has been so overwhelmingly white, for so long, that with the emergence of Trump, a certain comfort level has now been reached for many which allows them to loosen the restraints of what they have long viewed as “political correctness” and they can now let their flags proudly fly. The presence of Barack Obama, a black man, in the White House was almost more than many people here could stand. The pent up rage at watching that reality for 8 years made the Trump catharsis that much more satisfying for many of them.

Just a couple of mile up the interstate from this diner, still visible from the highway, stand the remnants of an old burned cross. This cross is left from a Ku Klux Klan rally which took place at a farm there, back in May 1965, in an effort to revive the local Klan, in response to the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement at the time. Whether or not one believes that this symbol still standing in Warren County has any relevance to the nascent rise of white supremacy as just another valid point of view is open for debate. But one doesn’t have to scratch very far below the surface here to find that the seeds which regerminated this movement are still there, and likely do not need much nurturing for them to sprout and break the surface, and reach the daylight.

Perhaps sometime we might cross paths with you and your spouse at the diner on another beautiful Saturday morning, like we both enjoyed here yesterday. And we can at least take some solace in the fact that we know we are not alone in our uncomfortable silence as we take in all that is going on around us.

)

    Mike Norman

    Written by