A Moose Jaw resident said he was verbally harassed by another resident on Thursday morning for displaying an American flag licence plate on his vehicle, as a reaction to the pro-Trump protest-turned-riot at Capitol Hill in Washington yesterday.
The alleged incident took place early in the morning on Jan. 7 in the McDonald’s parking lot, said Dennis Schick, as he was on his way into the building for his usual coffee.
Another individual parked at an unusual angle in front of Schick’s vehicle and began an angry rant directed at him when he exited his vehicle, criticizing his licence plate and saying if he supports Trump he’d “better get out of this country and go back down there.”
“When I came around to the front of the car, he said, ‘What do you think you’re doing with that thing on the front of your car?’” said Schick, in an interview with the Moose Jaw Express. “He said, ‘If you think you’re going to have a thing like that on your car, you better get back down there.’”
The licence plate that provoked the encounter depicts the American flag and was given to him as a gift from a family member who is an American citizen, while Schick himself is not, although he has lived in the States before.
The individual’s aggression seemed to partially be a response to a mob of Donald Trump supporters who broke into the Capitol building yesterday and disrupted the congressional certification of President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory.
“I didn’t know what he was talking about at first. I thought he was just talking about the U.S. and thought I was American, but then he started talking about Trump and not needing any of that trouble here,” said Schick. “I didn’t know what he wanted, at first, and then it was kind of surprising that he started yelling like that, in a really nasty way.”
What made the incident so confusing, said Schick, is that he couldn’t tell if the individual was viewing the American flag as a symbol of support for outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump, or if their anger was simply anti-American as a whole.
If so, it is not the first time he’s experienced animosity from a Canadian citizen who mistook him for an American. Schick said he has experienced this many times over the years, from regular citizens, co-workers and even border officials and members of law enforcement.
This particular incident, he said, just served to highlight what he said is a prejudice many Canadians don’t like to admit exists.
He also said that the experience has not made him consider removing the licence plate from his vehicle, as it has personal importance to him as a gift and is not an offensive image.
Schick has since filed a report with the Moose Jaw Police Service about the Thursday morning encounter, saying he does not feel personally threatened but was still concerned.
