I entered, I think, in 2006, a Vanity Fair essay contest, trying to best define, describe, the American Character. As I re-read this, I guess I was a little angry back in those days. I titled it…
I am just one mother
The American Character is as large as the number of people, legal or not, living here. The food we eat, the cars we drive, the movies we watch; they all represent who we are. The world sees us driving big cars, eating fattening fast food, and allowing our children to watch and then recreate death and destruction. We laugh at boys that are too sensitive and we mock those who show individualism. The American Character strives for sameness and those who differ frighten and therefore must be changed to something we are familiar with. In that familiarity comes the deception of safety.
People are afraid of living a life that they can call their own therefore scared is how the rest of the world should view the American Character. We have let fear back us into an imaginary corner, and given control over to the schoolyard bully; who compensates by swinging blindly. We run in fear with every colored alert they sound, and we hand over most moral choices because they have boomed damnation. We sit back as our corporate run government bulldozes over what makes the world unique, and then wonder why they hate us.
Our fear creeps out over land and water and interferes with the lives of people we don’t even care to get to know, and then we allow our government to thrust their beliefs and traditions on them, as they denounce beliefs and traditions established long before theirs was even a revelation.
Our government shakes the very hand that they later slap as we let our fear fill the pockets of those who were “elected” to protect us. The ill will the rest of the world feels for the American Character isn’t because our women wear short skirts or our prowess is represented by how tall the building with your name on it is.
There is an underbelly of the American Character no one wants to admit it has. We witness cultures drinking and bathing in the very water they shit in and we shout out uncivilized, forgetting to take off the blinders we wear hiding our uncivilized. We see the unfed and malnourished children of the world but forget about our children who go hungry every night. We are shown images of charred bodies hanging from a bridge and shout out barbaric, yet we conveniently forget about our barbaric past. We bombard our families with images of war nightly yet wonder why there is so much violence. The sons and daughters of our fellow Americans come home in body bags and the heads of fathers are being cut off on video yet we still try and force our way of life onto these cultures believing that they want it.
No matter what you believe this war is about; the American Character’s safety, or the safety of the oil needed for that American Character’s big SUV, the underlying fear is one of death. We are scared of dying because we are worried where we might go. Our morality is always going to hell therefore we have given control of it over to whom we consider holy, and when they betray us over and over we turn the blind eye because they have hoodwinked us into the belief of forgiveness. Morality through forgiveness is one big lie, because when you falter all you have to do is ask and move on. We work so hard on becoming a good believer in forgiveness we don’t practice the golden rules. Thou shall not kill is the one I always remember. They spout out the teachings of their God from one podium, while they try and convince the population to let them drop bombs from another. Yet we don’t seem to notice they are the same. The American Character is so scared of the boogieman taking away its way of thinking that we allow another boogieman to kill in order to keep it. We believe all the rhetoric of what a perfect life should be we no longer see its ugliness. The strive for perfection is the hamster running it’s wheel; we run and we run, but we don’t get anywhere. We have created a culture that demands it yet made it impossible to achieve for most of our citizens, and now we are thrusting it upon the rest of the world by every means necessary, yet when they fight back we call them evil-doers and cheer on the man riding the white horse.
I was having dinner in our local brewpub when to my horror my son started to throw-up. I dashed him to the restroom as fast as I could, hoping not to ruin everyone’s meal. When I returned a gentleman at the nearest table commented on the rough time I was having. My son had spilled his drink prior to his puking. I smiled and said while shrugging, “At least I’m not in Iraq being bombed.” He nodded his agreement. As a white upper middle class American woman I have a relatively easy existence. My days are free to do what I choose, and my kids sleep soundly in the safety of our home. I know as an American Character I have privileges others do not possess and I try to stay hopeful in thinking that my children will grow up with the same, yet I do feel a fear creeping in when I let the outside world in and hear what our government is doing in my name.
The interaction and reaction to the activities that surround us create the world we live in. We are now living in the chaos we have let others create. I am one mother living in one family trying to keep that chaos at bay. I do not let the images of war into my home in hope that my children will remain young at heart. As a society we fight death every step of the way, yet we allow it into the souls of our children by sitting them in front of a video game that simulates killing in mass quantities, and then wonder why our youth is overweight and violent. We have taken death out of life, and can no longer feel for our fellow man. We bomb targets, not people, and when they do die we call it the casualties of war, and move on. When our sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers die as a result of war we shout out retaliation, and then the killing continues.
I am one mother living in one family trying to keep that chaos at bay by interacting and reacting in a positive way. As I drive my kids to school I point out the beauty of the natural world in hopes that they will respect it enough to try and better it, not only for themselves but for everyone, because underneath it all there is hope and diversity, and the embracing of the weird and the imperfect.
All one has to do is take themselves out of their everyday and go down to Venice Beach California and there they will witness the underneath of the America Character. My kids dodged waves with every walk of life, the young and the old, the rich and the poor, and every color of skin imaginable. Venice Beach is a haven for the weird and the imperfect, and amoungst all that diversity I saw hope.
Hope was in the eyes of strangers I connected with and had a brief, but memorable conversation. Hope was in the smiles my children received as they ran down the boardwalk, leaving a trail of sand. Hope was in the touch of goodbye, with the chance of meeting again. Hope was in the realization that people could differ in their opinion of the President and still be friends. Hope was in the air as the police helicopter buzzed the drum circle, yet not breaking it up. And hope was sealed in me as I picked up the not broken sand dollar. Before my week in Venice, I had lost hope in humanity and was scared for my children’s future.
How could one watch or listen to the news of the day with out that sick feeling of fear in the pit of their stomachs? My instinct was to run out and help try to save the world, but I am just one mother in just one family trying to keep that scared American Character at bay, so I focus on trying to save the world of my family. If the rest of the families could do the same then the American Character could shred that fear and become fearless, and maybe, just maybe we could all be free.