Okay.
So you might be wondering, "why Raj, what exactly is it that makes you return to your blog after three odd months of complete literary silence, that you no doubt have several, even if not good, excuses for?"
The answer is because I have to yell at someone as publicly as I can. McCain campaign, you will almost certainly never see any part of this post and will not care a whole lot if you do. But the repeated insinuations you've been making that anybody within a two-state radius of the Atlantic or Pacific shores is NOT a real American is something that I simply have to respond to in some way, shape or form. My response is going to be a little bit detailed, so for the sake of brevity, lemme summarize my point as follows:
Fuck. You.
I started out relatively willing to vote for McCain and was actually torn between him and Obama despite the hellish clusterfuck of irresponsibility that the past administration has been. As far as Republicans go, McCain was the last person I would have expected to kowtow to his constituency as thoroughly as he has, which was why I even considered voting for him. I've been decided on voting Obama for quite a while now, but the sort of lowest-common-denominator trash-compacted garbage the right has been hurling down the throats of the American public is what is about to clinch it.
And I'll be honest, that's not a good reason to vote Obama. If McCain ends up being a good administrator, not dying and not kissing various body parts including but not limited to the feet of the Right, then I could care less that he ran a Machiavellian campaign to get into office. But the fact that I'm as thoroughly decided as I am makes me feel okay about being as stung by the right's appeals to "small town America" and their more bold and insulting and blatantly false assertions that anything that isn't "small town America" is not part of the REAL America. This is a nice position for the McCain campaign to put themselves in, because it ingratiates them with the parts of the country where they actually have a shot, the parts where you won't find much resembling an urban metropolis on the scale of the East or West coasts. In other words, the red states.
Now, there are a lot of practical reasons to be worried about McCain and especially Palin appealing to the red states as much as he has, and spitting in the face of the blue states as much as he also has. Politicians in office shape their policies according to the wishes of the people who put them there. What that means is that if the power of the small-town schpiel is enough to override McCain's month-long sabbatical and Obama's overwhelming charisma, the urban areas of the northeast are going to be filled with a lot more impoverished and understandably angry black and brown people whose neighborhoods aren't getting the attention from the federal government that said federal government owes them, and that they need in order to lift themselves up from the current state of the economy. If McCain finds out he doesn't need the blue states to get himself a second term, the blue states are going to suffer for it.
But on a broader level, the right getting away with selling their small-town rhetoric is going to send the message to politicians across the board that vague, pseudo-moralistic, non-commital stances like "being in favor of small town values" are enough to get elected. If we let people get elected into offices based on rhetoric alone without making them commit to stances on specific social and political issues, we're going to be setting a precedent that's going to affect the next election, and the one after, and the one after. And given the direction No Child Left Behind is taking our collective critical thinking skills, I don't know if our country can ever recover.
But now on to the personal reasons the Republican campaign's pro small-town rhetoric pisses me off. From a completely stereotype-focused point of view, I am the opposite of everything the right claims is the moral foundation of our country.
I'm from the northeast and have spent the vast majority of my life in the northeast. I spent most of my life in cities, and a good chunk of it in honest-to-bob metropoli on the scale of Boston and Philly and New York. I feel most at home in the most urban areas you can find- I love being in crowded areas, being able to look in any direction and see an interesting face. I love being able to find food made with recipes from halfway across the globe made by people from just as far away. I love knowing that I can be strange, as I need to be by nature, and can get away with it without having too many people staring in my general direction. I love having gross wealth and gross poverty both shoved right in my face instead of swept comfortably but uninterestingly under the rug. Hell, I love being able to walk by people without smiling at them. You shouldn't have to smile at people you don't know, it's unnatural. I mean, love your fellow being, look out for them, treat their welfare as no more or less important than your own, but you shouldn't have to smile at them when you don't mean it.
And let me tell you something. People in small towns are not better people. The only reason they're nice to each other (and there's a difference between being nice and being good) is because the population is sparse enough that people can hold each other accountable just by knowing each other. You wanna know how to find a good person? Find them in a city, where they're good and kind even though they can get away with being otherwise.
Next, I am not an all-American in the stereotypical sense when it comes to culture, by any stretch of the imagination. I don't play baseball or watch sports. I've tasted apple pie twice in my life. For all intents and purposes other than the legal, I'm an immigrant. I was born in the U.S. but spent most of my childhood until age 10 in India, so I find myself turning every corner wondering whether or not my behavior seems alien to others, whether or not I truly think like the people I meet even though I know how to sound and look like them. I can't enjoy food without an intense flavor or at least two spices or herbs in it, even if I know it's good. (Mashed potatoes? eh.) I haven't touched McDonalds more than two or three times if that in the past six years, for ethical reasons. I'm vegetarian (barring shellfish) also for ethical reasons. I'm an atheist. I listen to indie music. I eat hippie food. I'm shooting for a PhD. Even if I weren't atheist, I'd still be non-Christian, and more shockingly, I'd be non-Judeo-Christian. And last but certainly not least, I'm brown.
But do NOT tell me that I am not an American. Don't. If you think I'm not an American, than you can go fuck yourself with the largest pipe and/or pipe cleaner you can find. I am an American. I know that because I can say to myself the words "I am an American" and know them to be true with the sort of intuitive certainty you have when you say "I love you" to your lover, child, sibling, friend, when you really and honestly do. You feel it in your soul. You feel the truth of your words, feel it in your throat as the words find their way out. You can't tell yourself it's a lie because it's not.
So fuck you and your small towns. Here's a little secret: the only thing that matters is whether or not you're a good person. That's it. Nothing else. Small town, big city, male, female, red state, blue state, gay, straight, bisexual, transsexual, working class, middle class, upper class, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, tall, short, pretty, ugly, quiet, loud, whatever. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all.
Just be good. That's it. Be good.
That's it.
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7 years ago
