TV commentators and print journalists moderate endless discussions about every conceivable niche position, no matter how silly or ill-conceived, like the famous example of fairness run amok: ‘A majority of the scientific community believes the world is round...but opinions differ.' And, as pundits ponder ‘news' from the campaign trail, they rarely explore the subject of, say, national pride in depth, often turning instead to trivia.
Thus the dress Michelle Obama wore on The View is suddenly on point. Was it significant that her outfit was black and white, interesting that it is flying off the racks at $148? And since Michelle is known to be an accomplished business woman, the McCain camp, in an effort to dispel Cindy's Barbie Doll image, informs us she too has business credentials by dint of the fact that she is president of the brewery she inherited from her father. And Cindy can be forgiven for trying to pass off recipes from The Food Network as family favorites, because, in her words, she has always been proud of her country.
Cindy's "pride" plays out against Michelle's remark about being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life when she appeared at a campaign rally for her husband. But examining more closely this business of pride in one's country, some of the harsh realities that are part of our heritage come to mind. At a wedding I attended in Atlanta, the bride's aunt rather gleefully exclaimed that no-one was ever going to find civil rights workers, Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney. They floated them down a river somewhere she chuckled. I still feel a sense of shame that I stood silent, perhaps not wanting to be rude in her home but maybe just afraid to speak out. Not a proud moment on either side.
Back in the 1940s black men, who had served their country in uniform, came home to racial attitudes that ignored their service and returned them to underclass status. Even if African-Americans performed well they could be victimized by a white backlash of unrestrained violence. In Detroit in 1943 whites vandalized federally financed housing when blacks moved in and police did nothing to stop them. And when three black men were promoted at a Packard plant whites staged a wildcat strike and attacked blacks in the streets at random over the course of three days, a white police force often joining in.
And without being there in the ‘60s ample photographic evidence of police in the south beating black protestors, attacking them with dogs and bowling them over with the force of water from fire hoses must elicit something other than pride. Indeed at the time, those scenes began to prick the conscience of an otherwise complacent nation as did the church bombing that killed five little girls. If we are to be honest with ourselves we must acknowledge that ‘the good old days' weren't always good for everyone and that while love of country may be a constant, pride doesn't necessarily follow. Anyone who claims to have always been proud of our country just hasn't been paying attention.
Why is it then that Republicans have been allowed to berate Michelle Obama and to use her remarks in relentless partisan diatribes, as if there were never a time when a collective shame should have driven us all to respond long before it did? And why can Senator McCain say "I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company" without extraordinary repercussions? And, while he and others point with pride to the fact that a woman almost became a presidential nominee, it goes un-remarked that Israel, India, Pakistan, England, Canada and Argentina, have all been led by women. The question really is what took us so long?
Much has been made of Barack Obama's decision to forgo public financing in the fall. ‘It's a question of keeping his word, of character', says McCain. Yet, McCain admits he is unable to control local Republican committees or 527s that act as surrogates for him. Right-wing talk show hosts take up his cause, as in one case, to insert "more" into his love-of-country remark so as to alter its meaning altogether, and white supremacist websites have become active since Barack's nomination.
If McCain is unable to control the nature of his campaign or the use of funds generated by outside groups why would anyone agree to public funding only to be swamped by extra-curricular, swift-boat-style attacks? Obama's fund-raising advantage is enormous and, although he would like to retain his good-guy image, he's not stupid. It may not be politics as usual, but it's still politics.
