A final serious post and then I'll go back to silly puns and pictures of walls that I've painted...
I am so tired of all the built-in division that I see everywhere; the political correctness. "I'm an African-American... I'm a Mexican-American... blah blah blah". No, you aren't. You are an AMERICAN. You may be an American of African or Hispanic or Irish descent but you are an American; first and foremost. Do you hear people say "I'm an African-Italian" or "I'm a Cuban-Canadian" or "I'm a Japanese-German"? No, you don't (at least I can't recall ever hearing that). Can you just imagine the outrage if someone said "I'm an Anglo-American"? They would be labeled a racist (or worse). Can you say double-standard? Everyone is so worried about either offending someone else or being offended. Guess what? Life can be offensive and it can be immensely cruel and probably doesn't really give a rat's ass about you and your easily offended sensibilities. Put on your big pants, grow up, and accept it.
It's almost like being an American is secondary; an "I'm an <insert ethnic heritage of your choice>... Oh yeah. I almost forgot. I'm an American too" kind of thing. Is it any wonder why we are so fragmented? The only time we seem to have any American Pride is when we have the Olympics or we send some robot to Mars. Beyond that? There is no sense of Pride in our country.
I have a good friend just recently became an American citizen and if you ask him, he doesn't say "I'm a Panamanian-American"; he says he's an American and he has waited his entire life to be able to say that and to say it with pride and one of the biggest smiles you've ever seen. He paraded around with his "I voted" sticker like a kid who just got the coolest bike for Christmas. He explained it to me; If you have never been able to do something, you are so grateful to finally have that opportunity. If you've always had it, you can never understand how lucky you are. An analogy might be the rich kid who has always had money versus the kid who worked and struggled to make his own fortune. Maybe the issue is that we take so many things for granted that people who are from other countries have never had. Maybe we really are fat, lazy, ignorant, pretentious, whiny, and spoiled like we seem to be depicted so often.
I really do think that if we were proud of being Americans, America would be the country we all want it to be. We need to stand together or we will definitely fall apart.
I am so tired of all the built-in division that I see everywhere; the political correctness. "I'm an African-American... I'm a Mexican-American... blah blah blah". No, you aren't. You are an AMERICAN. You may be an American of African or Hispanic or Irish descent but you are an American; first and foremost. Do you hear people say "I'm an African-Italian" or "I'm a Cuban-Canadian" or "I'm a Japanese-German"? No, you don't (at least I can't recall ever hearing that). Can you just imagine the outrage if someone said "I'm an Anglo-American"? They would be labeled a racist (or worse). Can you say double-standard? Everyone is so worried about either offending someone else or being offended. Guess what? Life can be offensive and it can be immensely cruel and probably doesn't really give a rat's ass about you and your easily offended sensibilities. Put on your big pants, grow up, and accept it.
It's almost like being an American is secondary; an "I'm an <insert ethnic heritage of your choice>... Oh yeah. I almost forgot. I'm an American too" kind of thing. Is it any wonder why we are so fragmented? The only time we seem to have any American Pride is when we have the Olympics or we send some robot to Mars. Beyond that? There is no sense of Pride in our country.
I have a good friend just recently became an American citizen and if you ask him, he doesn't say "I'm a Panamanian-American"; he says he's an American and he has waited his entire life to be able to say that and to say it with pride and one of the biggest smiles you've ever seen. He paraded around with his "I voted" sticker like a kid who just got the coolest bike for Christmas. He explained it to me; If you have never been able to do something, you are so grateful to finally have that opportunity. If you've always had it, you can never understand how lucky you are. An analogy might be the rich kid who has always had money versus the kid who worked and struggled to make his own fortune. Maybe the issue is that we take so many things for granted that people who are from other countries have never had. Maybe we really are fat, lazy, ignorant, pretentious, whiny, and spoiled like we seem to be depicted so often.
I really do think that if we were proud of being Americans, America would be the country we all want it to be. We need to stand together or we will definitely fall apart.
