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Care for your garden -- but care for people, too

Ruben Navarrette Jr. on

SAN DIEGO -- Commencement speeches should pose a challenge. At this moment, it's clear what message graduates -- and the rest of us -- need to hear:

"Instead of aiming for a better job and a bigger house, strive for something that is often more difficult to achieve: being a better person. Don't be self-centered. Make a positive impact on others. And don't ever look down on anyone."

It's fine to work hard, achieve financial success and enjoy the benefits of your labor. But it's not fine to use your elevated position to insult or pick on someone that you see as less than.

Like a gardener. You see, I have a story for you.

First, some context. America is getting meaner. We're closing our doors, retreating to our living rooms and watching news channels that reinforce what we believe. We're angry whether there are jobs or no jobs. We're angry whether the economy is good or bad. We're just angry.

It's easy to make this about President Trump. If you oppose him, you think he made Americans more abusive. If you support him, you think the abuse comes from his critics.

 

Whatever is causing it, the evidence of our deteriorating civility is everywhere.

In one of the latest incidents caught on video, a white man in Riverside, California, viciously insults a Muslim woman who is wearing a black niqab, a headscarf that covers most of her face except her eyes. The man asks the woman, "Is it Halloween or something?" She replies that she is Muslim and asks if he has a problem. "I don't like your religion," he says. "How's that? I don't want to be killed by you."

We can recall the presidential candidate who labeled Mexicans criminals and rapists, or the one who said that anyone who didn't support her belonged in a "basket of deplorables." We can point to coffee shops and college dormitories, where police are now summoned if a white person feels threatened by the presence of a black person. We can look at the White House staffer who jokes that the administration needn't worry that Sen. John McCain opposes its choice to head the CIA since the Arizona Republican is "dying anyway." We can refer to the cringe-worthy video of an arrogant Port Authority commissioner in New Jersey scolding police officers over a traffic stop.

Or, if we want to be here all day, we can talk about the ham-fisted way that many cable television pundits discuss immigration. Fox News contributor Tomi Lahren -- who seems to have flunked history but majored in hysteria -- recently insisted that welcoming immigrants with "low skills" and "low education" who speak foreign languages is "not what this country is based on."

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