I’m reflecting on some of the bumper sticker wisdom that gets passed around a lot in this country, but particularly this time of year. People like to say that they are proud to be Americans. I however am not. I am neither proud nor ashamed to be an American for the simple fact that I did nothing to earn it. Being proud of being American would be like being proud of my good looks; both conditions have more to do with luck, chance and my parents than me. While it’s possible that I may have earned the right to be American retroactively with some of the things I’ve done since birth, the fact remains, there are those who have done exponentially more and those who’ve done exponentially less and so long as we were all born on this nation’s soil, legally none of us is any more or less American than the other.
A few years ago, I got to hear Mel Deng speak. He is one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. He talked about starving, having to eat mud and drink his own urine not to die of dehydration and about witnessing his friends being attacked and eaten by animals. I look around the world and I see women getting their lips cut off, their genitals mutilated and being systematically gang raped at the behest of their governments. I see men whose arms and legs are hacked off due to vague accusations of theft or opposition to corrupt regimes. Little girls are sold in to sexual slavery and little boys are forced to become soldiers because their government’s cause is so morally bankrupt, no grown man will enlist in the military of his own free will. Some people compare America to places like this and feel pride. I feel intense humility. After all, it’s nothing that I’ve done that separates me from these people; only the grace of God and the accident of my birth.
People like to say that America is the greatest country in the world. Of course, none of these people has been to every country in the world, and I’m willing to bet that a surprising number of them have never been outside the United States. Suffice it to say, America is a great country. I’d probably want to live here more than anywhere else. But it’s a problematic country. Case in point, for the first time in my life, I’m in a romantic relationship with someone that I could not legally marry if I wanted to (I know, I know, way to bury the lead). Now, on the one hand, given my life up to this point, this might not change my worldview all that much. On the other hand, how could it not? This time it’s personal. And, it’s something to wrap ones head around at 36, born and raised in the freest, most awesomest country in the world. So yeah, America is a great country. Maybe even the greatest in the world. But that kind of absolutism isn’t very useful when we get down to the real issues of making it better.
There are memes that are written for us before we walk in the room, before we open our mouths to say a word. It’s assumed that black people are less patriotic that white people. That liberals are less patriotic than conservatives. That the urban are less patriotic than the rural. So, as a black liberal who was raised in the ghetto, I assume my patriotism will be called into question from the jump off. But, I’m gonna hit you with something. I think as minorities who love our country, we experience a patriotism that straight white men will never touch. It’s easy for straight white men to love America. It’s like loving a suit that was tailor made and meticulously altered to fit. As minorities, we buy America off the rack. It was not designed for us or by us (to paraphrase Sarah Silverman, it’s the opposite of FUBU). This is something I realized when I was canvassing for Barack Obama in some dicey neighborhoods in small town Indiana: I uncut, to the bone, raw-dog, love America. I love drug dealers and rednecks, atheists and fundamentalist, even some people who I could safely call racists, who aside from be racists are pretty good people. Therein lies the difference, I love America, even when America doesn’t love me.
That is one hell of a profound last line.
Thanks, Draga.