Does It Take Courage to Wear a Hat?

Wearing a MAGA hat can cause harassment

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John LaRossa

Make America Great Again hat is worn by many Trump supporters.

John LaRosa, Contributor

There has been a lot of controversy around people wearing “Make America Great Again” hats. Make America Great Again, a slogan originally used in Ronald Reagan’s campaign, was picked up by current president Donald Trump as an election campaign in 2016. It was later viewed by many as a racist symbol, and there has been a lot of uprise against people who wear hats sporting the slogan.

People are being confronted over the internet or in person for wearing these hats, such as a proud Trump supporter and writer Ryan Moore. Moore claims not to have received any negative feedback in person except some dirty looks, but on the internet it is a whole different story.

In an article for The Tennessean, Moore said “Many people have wished me dead, made threats and often call me racist simply because I support the wall and the President of the United States. My great-grandparents legally immigrated to America as children. I am completely in favor of legal immigration but I am totally against illegal immigration (it’s illegal you know).”

Although the feedback Moore received is far less hateful than most, some people have had face-to-face confrontations with radical haters of Trump. Although this isn’t the usual case, it still happens. It’s more than often reported incidents are just verbal confrontations. Many of the attackers see everyone that is wearing a hat with the slogan “Make America Great Again” as representing a racist symbol, but that is not the case in many instances. Yes, there are some radicals that sport this hat for racist purposes, but many innocent people who are simply supporting our country are being verbally violated.

A case came up on February 15 in a bar located in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Bryton Turner was relaxing in a bar minding his own business when a woman, Rosiane Santos, proceeded to verbally assault Turner for wearing a MAGA hat. He reported that when he didn’t comply to her verbal attack to remove the hat, she came up behind him and tried to forcefully remove his hat. “I couldn’t imagine somebody just coming up and hitting them when there’s cops right here,” the bartender Geo Macarao said in an interview with Fox 25 News. “She just tried to grab my hat in front of four officers, not smart,” Turner added.

There is a video that Turner took live of the incident, supporting the claim that he was attacked for wearing a hat. Yes, his hat may set off the temper of many who feel they are being suppressed by Trump, but that does not mean people who support Trump and/or the Wall should be attacked and hated.

Another case from January 18, involves Nick Sandmann. A video arose of Sandmann and some other Covington High School students standing around Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist, exchanging words with each other. This video portrays Sandmann and the other students as acting like privileged racist white kids attacking a native protester. But that was not at all the case. Sandmann and his classmates were simply in the area as Phillips was during the protest. They came across Philips who was beating a drum and singing. While it may look like Sandmann is confronting Philips, he simply is just standing his ground for his views, as was Philips. It may look like a racist dispute because the video that went viral was taken out of context. It only showed portion of the whole incident and did not show what preceded it.

These are just some cases of people being attacked simply for the fact of the sporting a MAGA hat. Although people will continue to disagree on their views, some will be more radical about it than others. That’s all just part of humans being humans.