Hats off to Garrett Baer for his essay "Yes, Mr. Kristof, This Is America." Subtitled "Why Are We Surprised at Our Own Bigotry?", Baer points out with eloquence and clarity the disconnect between this country's founding ideals and our consistent failure to live up to those ideals. As this writer has frequently noted, racism, religious and gender bias and xenophobia are the rule, rather than the exception.
Baer notes, "Unfortunately, contemporary Islamophobia is not a stain against the otherwise spotless canvas of American history. If anything, that canvas is filthy and should be acknowledged as such .... Rather than viewing the shameful interning of Japanese Americans during World War II, or the disgraceful refusal to accept Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe as rare, exceptional tests in American history, we need to view those events as constitutive elements of the American experience. Was America not America prior to the abolishing of slavery? Was America not America prior to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, during the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, the Zoot Suit Riots, or the pursuit of Manifest Destiny? Anti-miscegenation laws were belatedly toppled in the '60s, but today 37% of Americans would not approve of a family member marrying outside of his or her race. Are those people not American? ....
"We have to stop treating American bigotry as a series of exceptions, and finally deal with it as a chronic condition. America, I have a diagnosis, and you do not look good. If it looks like racism, feels like racism, and sounds like racism, then I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Let's stop reacting with disbelief, as if someone pulled the multiculturalist rug out from beneath our feet, only for us to land on our surprised asses in an America we'd never seen before ....
"When this country does manage to get beyond its narrow-minded bigotry, it's not by insisting that racism is a rare aberration and gasping in surprise, but by openly ackowledging the utter depravity of our condition and doing something about it. Our great civil rights movements -- against the majority's delusions about race, gender, and sexual orientation -- have always known this. By pretending as if Islamophobia, anti-immigration, or the Tea Party are odd and temporary, we excuse ourselves from taking them seriously, and from seriously fighting against them."
The above exerpts are only a portion of Baer's thoughtful essay. In response to his query ("Maybe we need to redefine the fringe?"), I'm increasingly persuaded that the answer is yes. In the Declaration of Independence, the signers pledged "our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor" in support of independence and in opposition to tyranny. Sadly, these educated and forward-thinking men would not recognize the distortions visited upon our democratic republic during the past 234 years. They, like those few of us today who insist on rational discourse and tolerance toward all races, religions, and ethnicities, would find themselves among the new fringe. Welcome to America, 2010.
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