While continuing to google my way through this topic, I came across a particulary interesting article throwing shade at those nice little bumper stickers you stumble upon in a “Trader Joe’s parking lot.” Judging by the title alone, COEXIST’s Bonehead Bumper-Sticker Politics, you can probably tell what direction the writer, Michael Schulson, is going to take this.
He starts off the article by addressing that the COEXIST bumper sticker is no different than than likes of “NRA decals, cartoon families, and (the) blatant ‘26.2’ ovals” in the sense that it is one of the most popular (and most obnoxious) ways for “Americans to broadcast their worldviews in one word or less.” He suggests that the people that post these stickers up for tailgaters to see are naive to the issues stopping the parties from coexisting. Schulson points to the unrest stemming from religious organization across the globe including ISIS, China’s cultural control over Tibet, Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Islamophobics, and the civil war-esq fighting between Christians and Muslims in Africa. He then goes on to wag a critisizing finger at “Americans asking these people to just get along.”
The main point that he works up to is that, while it may seem like a nice and harmless gesture, the coexist bumper sticker is a little counter productive in that it takes more to promote peace than simply slapping a sticer on your car and calling it a day; just like the cure for cancer isn’t hid inside a ribbon. It takes work, education, and a look back through history. “After all, there is only one sure-fire message that I can send by putting a Coexist sticker on the back of my car. Namely, that I am the type of person who puts a Coexist bumper sticker on my car.”