The other morning a terrifying thing happened. I looked into my mirror and saw Sarah Palin....!
No, not another cheap poke at our Alaskan phenomenon. It's just that I suddenly realized the America she sees as "the real America" is kinda what I do too. At least when I see it with my heart rather than my head. You know, that lyrical America of Tom Sawyers & Becky Sharps, small towns, toothless kids, wise old grandpas, white framed homes in green leafy lanes, and very white moms and dads and puppies always at the ready.
Exactly the same America seen by Norman Rockwell, Hallmarks Cards, and Thomas Kincaid. What's not to like...? Well, if you're White and Christian and Straight, that is. There's where Sarah's gut and my brain mis-connect. Living so far up there on our last frontier, Sarah may not have read the figures about what's inexorably happening to her America.
Small towns, family farms, White majorities and repressed Gays are no longer the future. Or even the present. Look, Sarah, I appreciate your nostalgia for the "real America," because unlike you I actually lived there. But once all the facts and figures reach Alaska, you'll able to see for yourself that's gone with the wind. Scary...? Well, yeah. Change is forever scary. Right down to the ideological marrow of our national bones. But facts are like the tide. Neither you nor I can stand on the seashore of history and push it back with our little Tom and Becky pail and shovel.
So here's what I think, Sarah. Better to do what I'm trying to do. Literally -- go with the flow! The more Blacks and Gays and Latinos and impoverished I've met, the more I've learned that they and we are damn well made out of the very same stardust. Oh we may look different and feel different and live different. But when it comes to our dreams and fears, our wins and losses, we're very much the same creatures God (or Darwin?) made us.
So, Sarah, my humble advice is drop the pail and shovel right now. Look out to the sea change taking place with much more curiosity than consternation. I've found it works. Why do you know, those "other" Americans actually like me...?
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I must admit your first sentence scared me! If you were seeing Palin in your mirror, you may be suffering the first signs of dimentia :-)
ReplyDeleteHowever to my relief, as I read on I see you are telling Sarah, and a lot of other very uninformed Americans to catch a clue. There is more to America than just the white American male!
Facts are facts...even Barracuda Sarah can't ignore them...something's blowin' in the wind!
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