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Cindy McCain’s America is not Michelle Obama’s, and it’s Probably not Yours |
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An essential component of effective leadership is the ability to step outside of your own viewpoint, if only momentarily, to better understand the position of another. This is what is referred to as being “open-minded.” Of course, being open-minded doesn’t mean that you have to adopt the view of the other, but you need to be able to understand the roots of that other party’s actions and views.
An anti-example of this open-mindedness is found in the reaction of many U.S. citizens’ to suicide bombers. Rather than try to understand the life circumstances of these desperate individuals — exploring the role poverty, political repression and foreign intervention played in their decisions– closed-minded individuals attribute it to a religion and culture which they do not understand, and do not attempt to understand. Dismissive terms like “satanic,” “barbaric” and “bloodthirsty” are attached to Islam and that, for many people, is explanation enough; suicide bombers = evil believers in an evil ideology.
That sort of thinking, most often displayed by the right in U.S. politics, extends beyond the “War on Terror,” and pervades issues both domestic and international. In its zeal to defend America against its “enemies,” both internal and external, it latches onto the quickest, easiest interpretation. A recent comment made by Harvard Law alumnus and model U.S. citizen Michelle Obama, and the subsequent reaction to it, offers a domestic example of this closed-minded approach, substituting political opportunism and jingoism for rational thinking.
The comment from Michelle: “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change.”
The reaction was hostile, with many right-wing pundits denouncing Michelle, and by extension her husband, as unpatriotic. The implication is that no true America-loving, God-fearing individual could ever be anything less than proud of America.
Cindy McCain affirmed that when she stood before the cameras and said “I have, and always will be, proud of my country.”
Cindy McCain, born into affluence, helped finance her husband’s first successful bid for congress, in 1982, with money from her trust fund. In other words, she was born into the (white) world of power and has rested comfortably within it since her birth.
Michelle Obama is an African American female, and based on that alone her relationship to her country is a more complex one. Without a doubt, the roots of Michelle’s comment went far beyond the government’s treatment of African Americans, but that alone would be grounds for righteous indignation. Should she be incessantly and automatically proud of a government that only in the last 40 years has begun to move towards the self-evident truth that all men are created equal?
The obvious answer is “absolutely not,” and that extends to any individual, regardless of their heritage. Those who unquestioningly accept that “U.S. government = Good” not only show an inability to open their minds beyond a narrow world view, they reveal the incompetence of their mental processes.
If Cindy McCain has always been proud of the country, it’s because she doesn’t know the country. She knows the U.S. that George Bush knows, or that Ted Kennedy knows. The difference between her and Ted, however, is that she is unable, or unwilling, to put herself in the position of others who may not have enjoyed the same privileges. Her life’s trajectory has presented her with one side of America, the sunny side, and she either A) hasn’t thought to look around the corner, or B) looked around the corner and processed nothing of what she saw.
Anyone who deals in absolutes is either naive, or lying. With Cindy’s recent statement “I have always been proud of my country,” , and John’s promise “I will never, ever let you down,” we know that they both fall into one, or both, of those categories.
What I want in a leader, a first lady, and in each and every citizen, is a critical mind, one that does not accept party lines and national mythologies. I want someone who is able to transcend their race, their religion, their political ideologies, if only briefly, in order to get a better understanding of the situation at hand. Our misguided foreign policy over the last 8 (last 150?) years shows the need for exactly that.
I think there’s a difference between pride and appreciation. I think everyone can appreciate the advantages America as a country gives to its citizens. Infrastructure, eduction, culture, etc… All of these things put Americans ahead of so many others in the world simply by virtue of birthright.
Pride is something else. Pride is something that is earned. Michelle Obama is right, that you can be proud of your country one day, and disgusted the nest (see: Guantanamo). Pride and respect are earned.
how sad that there are people in America who choose to take advantage of all the freedoms and then put qualifications on their patriotism let them try CUBA
One sure way to render your argument useless is to “disinvite” freedom loving Americans to “try CUBA”…or one of the variants of this theme. Michelle Obama is innocent of the viscious charges that get tossed her way. One must first realize that there is a difference between love and appreciation.
There is no unfair “taking advantage of….” There are some rights and privileges that must be earned. There are others that…just come with the turf. There are no PATRIOTISM tests and standards. A piece of isht wearing a flagpin is still gonna smell like isht.
It is so phony and disingenuous to for some to be in such command and control of all the “acceptable” pomp and circumstance while carrying around a heart full of disdain and loathe for their fellow citizens. Telling a message board how much you love America means absolutely nothing to me. You need to SHOW, not just state your “patriotism” at wartime.
Besides, the GIs don’t give a flip how you feel. They are trying to stay alive. I know. I was one.
Phenomenal piece, lgs. Thank you for pointing this out. I think loyalty to anything — a country, a person, a cause — is only really meaningful when it has been tested. Barack and Michelle Obama seem to have no problem acknowledging where America has made mistakes. They don’t place the country on a pedestal, but they are nevertheless fiercely loyal to it; to its potential more than to its past. These are the kinds of leaders I want. Indeed, for Cindy McCain or any Republican to suggest critical and forward-looking thinking is “unpatriotic,” just shows how little change we can expect from their candidate.
I feel as though people are never willing to look forward and finally stop pointing fingers at one another. You make stepments about Cindy McCain (white) and Michelle being an african american, basically saying that there is the division, she is black so there-fore she went through much harder times.. is there no such thing as equality? is skin color always going to come into affect? First of all I highly doubt that she had a horrible childhood. I think that you need to stop useing your skin color as a skeptgoat. People like you are the reason we have no equality. Right away bring color into the picture as her excuse for her statement is a cop out, and shows your true character and how you view others… ask yourself this, do you see and jewish older people complaining about there lives, after the holocaust? or is it because they are white that what the jews went through isn’t as significant? But since slavery happend (mind you, where not millions of blacks had there lives taken) we have to live every waking day hearing about how blacks have such a hard time… but let them not account for there actions, and explain why you black teenagers feel the need to steel and vandalize property, or do they do this because we “white america” don’t understand what they go though. I think you need to take a step back, and realize we are in the 21st century, and slavery isn’t around anymore, and we are responsible for ourselves and our actions. Stop being so racist, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. The reason you don’t have money, and not a good job is because you didn’t put the time or effort in, not because of your skin color. and just a reminder, minorities get financial aid for being a minority, if your white you get nothing, so basically that means, whites had to pay their way through there lives, they didn’t get scholorships because of race, but because they had to work at it. So it is a sorry excuse to use your color as to why you are un patriotic. and also this is such this a being rich and being black. don’t assume right away that because a person is black, they come from poverty. Thats far from the truth. Its so sad to think people like you are still around spewing your undeveloped thoughts
I want you to go buy and read this book called “Divided By Faith” by Michael Emerson, a white professor at Rice University. The book is less than $20 and you will be truly enlightened. You can get it on Amazon.com or Barnesandnoble.com.
Blacks were not simply slaves and then freeman. Blacks were stripped of their culture–prevented from learning how to read and write; disenfranchised and treated as though that were less than human beings–this was even taught in the public schools for years. No other race or religious group in the entire world was stripped of their culture, religion and prevented from learning how to read. Can you imagine being killed for wanting to read the Bible? This type of systematic brutality cannot be undone in less than a half century after centuries of abuse whether you would like to believe it or not.
Note to KiminLA:
Slavery’s official sanction by a country didn’t begin with the black man–it ended with him. The word “slave” comes from the root word “slav,” referring to the slavic people of what is now eastern europe. These first western slaves were CAUCASIANS regularly taken into slavery during the 1300’s–dating back thousands of years before the first Africans were taken as slaves. As for brutality toward slaves–a cursory historical investigation of slave brutality from the beginning of slavery would hardly place the sufferings of African American slaves anywhere near the top of the list. As for the stripping of identity and culture: you may want to look up the definition of a “slave ant”–eesentially a species of ant into which another species invades and steals the pupae–training them to be slave-minded before they even become fully ants.
The point of all this being that all races of man and many species of animals have been and continue to be slaves at one time or another.
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Thanks for your eloquent lecture on the importance of education and on being totally honest and responsible with “ourselves”. I was also mesmerized by your total command of historical facts as they pertain to the black experience in America. And you are so right about those Jewish people. There is almost no complaining coming from those who went through the Holocaust. It got to be the “white”. I’m sure that that is what made the Holocaust “insignificant” to those people.
Well, thanks to you, I can now see what my eyes missed. And I’m going to stop taking all of that financial aid just for being a minority and get me a job. It might not be a good job like yours, I’m sure, but it will take away all of my sorry excuses and racism. I have truly stepped back into it…because of your wisdom and concern for us. I am already starting to love America. Thank you!
Cindy McCain is an elegant and beautiful woman whose tireless charity work around the world speaks for itself. Michelle Obama is a vicious affirmative action shrew who looks like an angry gorilla. (no offenses to gorillas or other simians. In fact I’m a vegetarian and animal lover.) Barack and Michelle Obama are disgusting Communists and should move to Cuba.