I love Garrison Keillor. I really do.
However, his piece in The Tribune on Aug. 2, “Taking stock of the ordinary goodness of life” is rife with the white privilege that many of us very well-meaning people take for granted. Keillor speaks of his Midwestern life, with steady old friends and the pleasure of summer tomatoes. He says of the Trump presidency, “it’s cheap entertainment for us and in the end it simply doesn’t matter; what matters are tomatoes.” I’m in with Keillor’s musings because I’m a white, middle class, cisgender person.
I have no fear of being deported, detained, denied entry to the country I’ve called my home for decades, or separated from my small children and deported to a country I barely remember. I am not the Latina student at the University of Utah who worries that every time her undocumented truck-driver father leaves on his route she may never see him again.
I am not the grandmother who was arrested by ICE officers while shopping at Walmart. The “cheap entertainment” does matter and is causing massive harm.
I want everybody to enjoy old friends and summer tomatoes. Let’s make that happen.
Mary Jane Taylor
Salt Lake City
