Well, go read it!
My favorite part:
It is curious to what extent the passion for hyphenation is fostered more by the liberal elite than the populations it is supposedly meant to serve. How does it serve them? Presumably by enhancing their sense of “self-esteem.” Frederick Douglass saw through this charade some one hundred and fifty years ago. “No one idea,” he wrote, “has given rise to more oppression and persecution toward colored people of this country than that which makes Africa, not America, their home.”
The same can be said about the aboriginals of this land. Instead of confining the aboriginal tribes to certain lands, most of which was selected based on which areas no one wanted, we should have included them in our society. Now, we have the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) rife with a history, extending well before this current presidency, of corruption perpetrated on this nation's Untouchable caste. I agree, that comparison is a little hyperbolic. Just a little.
Sadly, the failings of separating the Native Americans from the US is a concept I and many others realized a long time ago. Yet, no politician has come forth with a plan to invite the aboriginal tribes to dismantle the reservations and become a part of the United States of America.
3 comments:
A few thoughts.
First of all, I'm not American by birth. I was born and raised in the Hawaiian Islands, which makes me a United States citizen but not a native of the North American continent (so someone from Honduras or Brazil is more "American" in that sense than I am).
However, I am also not a Hawaiian, because these days that term is reserved for people whose bloodline goes back pre-contact with the Europeans. I consider myself a Haole, which is a Hawaiian word for white people, sometimes derogatory (and some North Americans I've encountered think I'm bragging by using it and proclaiming that I grew up in what they think of as a tropical resort). In Hawaii, most people are "hapa" which means "half" and is shorthand for saying "Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, native Hawaiian or other Pacific islander and/or other." Either that or they're one of many affectionately derogatory terms. Although Hawaii is not without racism, it does seem like it makes a more sincere effort to stand against it than many other places, and it doesn't get as polarized as it does here. At the same time, ethnic jokes that would be considered hate speech here are commonplace there, EVERYBODY has a stereotype (we haoles are known for being uptight, bland, making sushi out of hamburger and buying everything on credit), and if you spend any amount of time there, you learn to watch out for using stereotypes in a divisive way because the person you're talking to probably has a grandmother, niece, cousin or in-law belonging to whatever group you're disrespecting.
I do think that racism exists. I don't think affirmative action has been very helpful in defeating it. And you know I have as little love for the poststructuralists as this columnist does, because they are indeed divisive, and the putting down America bandwagon doesn't seem as though it's likely to create anything but more division.
Oh yeah, and little pockets of identity-politics promoting hatemongers unwilling to drop their special interests long enough to side with the hatemongers next door long enough to elect someone other than Bush, or whoever landslides Hilary if the democrats are insane enough to run her instead of my hapa-haole homey Obana. I had to laugh when Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or one of those guys dismissed him as "not African-American enough" because he's from Hawaii too, so he's not really all that American. His mom's from here though, and his dad's from Africa, and since he grew up in the islands I daresay he has a pretty good idea of what it's like not to grow up locked into U.S. stereotypes regarding race.
This was meant to be less about racism (though it certainly must touch upon that topic) and more about inclusion.
Maybe I'm affected a bit more by the fact that I tecnically grew up on a reservation. My families home was on reservation land, though I wasn't a member of the tribe. I did go to school with members of the reservation; so maybe this is just something those few of us have noticed.
Yeah the race issue is touchy. I got a little stirred up reading something on Slate about the whole race/IQ thing.
I don't think identity politics and America hating does anything to solve it though. We're big on drawing lines and very small on inclusiveness these days, and that doesn't seem an effective way to stand against the haters.
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