If you’re reading this, you may not be an American. If you’re an Obama supporter, you most certainly–at least by some people’s reckoning–are not. And the top man on the Democratic presidential ticket? Nope, not an American either.
Ignoring the television (and with it, the noise coming from both campaigns at the moment), I’m still hearing plenty of the aforementioned crap. I’ve been informed by someone, in all earnestness and without a trace of irony, that Barack Obama is a Muslim, not a Christian; that he’s a Socialist; and that he’s a very, very dangerous individual who will set the United States down a sure road to ruin. Another friend sends an email that calls Obama “the enemy from within,” and asserts that Obama’s record-breaking election fundraising is coming not from American citizens, but from the Middle East (and no, they don’t mean Ohio).
The commentariat hasn’t helped matters any, asserting repeatedly that Obama is not an American citizen, having been born on foreign soil; he wasn’t, and besides, by that logic, John McCain would not be either. Rush Limbaugh went so far as to suggest that Obama’s visit last week to his grandmother was part of a larger conspiracy to cover up the facts surrounding his birth, and hinted darkly that Obama would silence her, or have her silenced. The bullshit, needless to say, doesn’t stop there.
Let’s turn to the Republican ticket, who’ve taken to calling whatever small town they happen to be in the “real” America. They’ve praised the virtues of small-town America, as opposed to (or, just as often, at the expense of) its urban centers, its “elites” (and when’s the last time, by the way, you’ve seen any word so overused to such banal effect?), and, let’s face it, its people who aren’t the same lily-white crowds to whom this pablum is being spoonfed.
Our cities are no more a homogeneous mass than is the rest of the country; they are aggregations of neighborhoods and people, each with their own character. They’re the “unum” in E Pluribus Unum, and it’s as ridiculous to say that they’re somehow less American or less representative of America, than a smallish town in, say, Kansas where the post office is located in the back of the bait and tackle shop. Certainly, when we were attacked on 9/11, nobody–not the cowards that hijacked the planes, not their victims in the air or on the ground, and not even folks in Butte, Montana, stopped to sort out who the “real” Americans were. We didn’t need to be reminded then, Senator, much less sorted. So what’s happened between then and now?
Eighty years ago, Robert Benchley wrote a piece for the Yale Review called The Typical New Yorker. It’s one of those rare instances (aside from his drama criticism and Wayward Press columns) where he lays aside his usual wit, and writes an insightful, straightfaced paean to New York City. Its opening deserves to be quoted at length:*
One of the most persistent convictions reported by foreign commentators on the United States [...] is that the real America is represented by the Middle West. Aside from the not entirely adventitious question of who is to decide just what “the real America” is, there arises a fascinating speculation for breeders and students of climactic influence as to why a man living in Muncie, Indiana, should partake of a more essential integrity in being what he is than a man living in New York City. Why is the Middle Westerner the real American, which renders him a sport (in the biological sense) and a man without a country?
Senator McCain, Governor Palin: Welcome to America. All of it. If you should win on November 4, you would do well to remember that your constituency consists not only of those who have voted for you, not just of those with whom you agree, or whom you find agreeable. We’re all Americans. Not just the cowpokes, the Joe the Plumbers and Bob the Builders (sorry, couldn’t resist). Also the bike messengers, baristas, limousine liberals, your favorite “elitists.” And it’s Sy the Accountant, Mahmood-the-guy-on-the-corner with the good falafel and dirty water dogs, Silvio-the-guy-on-the-other-corner who grills his and whose burgers are dodgy, the dude on the ten-speed with a milk crate full of flowers perched perilously on the handlebars, the lady outside the bus terminal that talks back to the voices in her head, a few million with names that don’t roll off the tongue, with professions the Puritans never could have imagined (the ones lucky enough to have professions, that is; they don’t all have ‘em these days)… getting the picture yet, Senator? We’re America too, and we’re not going to let you off easy.
*The rest of the essay, and of The Benchley Roundup, in which it appears, also deserve to be read. Immediately. I’m serious (for once).