I’m not a “my country right or wrong” kind of guy. I’m more of a “my country right AND wrong.” There is so much that I love about America that other folks now seem to want to denigrate.
I love the many diverse nationalities and cultures that make up our country that, according to some, only highlight the fact that we stole our land from others and should give it back.
I love the mixing of food and music and language from all over the world, which, according to some folks is assimilation, resulting in “cultural genocide.”
I am reading an excellent book by Adam Kirsch entitled “On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence And Justice.” He defines the term as what happens when a group of individuals not indigenous to a land colonize it and either drive out, kill or assimilate those who were already there. He applies it, in particular to Australia (think of the tune “Beds Are Burning” by the group Midnight Oil), Canada and, of course, the United States.
We were all taught in school the history of our country, how Pilgrims escaped from a tyrannical government in England, either bought land or assimilated Native Americans into the land they settled on, and due to the constant flow of immigrant people into our country, one nation was formed out of the cultures of many other nations.
According to some folks, this is the very heart and soul of settler colonialism and they insist that everybody not Native American return the land to Native American nations and then proceed to return to their homeland.
While Kirsch agrees that the basic premise of settler colonialism is sound, he feels it is being applied too broadly and with no clear path in sight.
For example, my heritage is Italian (my mother), Irish and German (my father). Should I buy three houses and just spend a little bit of time in each during the year?
And here’s a question nobody seems to ask: What if we all returned to our ancestral homes and found that there was no room for us and that nobody wanted us there?
Native Americans now comprise only 3% of the population of America. There are many reasons for that, including those offered by the TV series “True Detective: Night Country,” “Alaska Daily” and the excellent Martin Scorsese movie “Killers Of The Flower Moon,” which is based on documented facts. In Minnesota, 27 to 54 Indigenous women and girls went missing every month from 2012 to 2020, a higher rate than any other ethnic group.
Ira Hayes, one of the soldiers who raised an American flag on Iwo Jima, was crushed due to racism and alcoholism, as depicted in the film “Flags Of Our Fathers” by Clint Eastwood.
The list goes on and on and doesn’t end with Native Americans. For years people of color and of different ethnicities were on the receiving end of various forms of racism that including harassment, bullying, and even murder. We’re seeing examples of that in Springfield.
The thing is, nobody here thinks that any of that is right, do they? None of us would want someone to confront us in a local supermarket or a parking lot and call us a “dirty [fill in the racial epithet].” And none of us would dare dream of using denigrating terms for another human being in public.
Well…most of us. Those other folks are paranoid nationalists.
And that’s my point: We have come a long way in this country towards recognizing the contributions that other cultures have made to the beautiful mosaic that is America. But, that’s not good enough for some folks. No, they want us to return everything we stole from others to those we stole from and then get out of Dodge and head…uh…they’re not exactly sure where.
Recently, museums have been asked to return certain artifacts to the people that they “borrowed” them from. Joan and I overheard such a conversation on a recent trip to the National Museum of the American Indian in Manhattan. As part of a pro-Palestinian protest, participants broke into the Brooklyn Museum, demanding the museum cut ties with Israel. In the process, they damaged pieces of art and hurled insults.
I wonder what you would think of me if I walked into your house and started destroying it? Would you think whatever I was protesting against was valid or was I behaving just as badly as the people I was protesting against?
Is our country perfect? By no means. That’s why the Constitution states that we are striving to create “a more perfect union.” We’re not there yet. But we have come further than somebody my age thought we ever could. Women have access to jobs they didn’t in the 1950’s, people of color are treated with dignity and respect in many places and the rights of folks to live their lives and love who they want to love is seen as a positive thing. But we lose sight of all this if we constantly demean and denigrate the efforts of our country to grow and change.
It’s okay to feel joy and hope. It’s okay not to bend to the pressures of social media and the news. It’s okay to be grateful. Because gratitude is sustainable, but hatred and fear are not.
Hold those magnificent grey heads high. Comments may be submitted to “Talk To The Old Guy” on Facebook.
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Publish date : 2024-09-28 02:05:00
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