rebel yells

This guy saved my ass last year when I was putting my house back together after the flood. He replumbed, re-electrified, put in windows and doors and a new bathroom and a new kitchen. It was quick and dirty and cheap. I did not focus on his tattoos, except to wonder if he had administered them to himself in prison. And then I saw the swastika.
   Would he have saved my ass if he'd known I was married to a Jew?
   Was it a relic of a heavy metal past rather than a statement of belief?
   And how could I open a discussion about it?
   I thought of many opening lines.
   "Do you know how that symbol hurts my heart?"
   "Why do you have a swastika on your arm?" (and don't give me that bullshit about a mystical Indian symbol)
   "Are you a white supremacist?"
   "Have you ever met a Jew?"

    I could have fired him, risking insult to the neighbor who introduced us.
   And risking more, since dude had my key, and my house is open and often empty anyway. In the middle of a ghost town. Miles from the nearest actual town. He knows where I live.

   And PS, groundskeepers just had to remove a giant swastika  burned in the grass of an Omaha park where World War II vets who fought against the Nazis are honored.

   And now I have the kid with a decal that's a cross between the Gadsen flag ("Don't Tread on Me," lately adopted by the Tea Party and guns rights people) and the confederate battle flag of Virginia. It reads "American by Birth; Rebel by Choice." Without the semicolon.
   "Do you understand the history of those flags?"
   "Are you a racist?"
   "Have you ever even seen a black person except on TV?" (The Ozarks are very white.)
    "What do you think of treason?"
    Etc.

    These guys are not dumb, but they are ignorant—maybe didn't finish high school. Poor and clinging to the next payday to fix the truck. I don't show their faces, but they have nice smiles. They love their daughters. I am very prejudiced against them. As a group. As individuals, it's tough to hate. I daresay they feel the same about me.

I don't know what I can do about it.
It hurts my heart.