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Michelle Obama When she uttered a final sigh, "I'm finally proud to be an American," the pundits were at a loss. O'Reilly on Fox News was so bewildered That he mentioned he'd have to throw A lynching party If she really meant that she was only proud to be an American for the first time. Why wasn't America deserving of patriotic pride? Why as an African American Wasn't she proud of this country's laundry list of achievements: the U.S. Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776; the 1954 Brown versus the Board of Education; the Voting Rights Act; the Thirteenth Amendment; the end of de jure segregation but not de facto segregation; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the failure of Plessy vs. Ferguson; the Montgomery Bus boycott after Dec. 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks was denied a seat on a bus because of her skin color; February 21, 1965, Malcolm X shot in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom; the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968; the Kennedy assassination on November 22, 1963; the first Iraq War; the Vietnam War, raped women, innocent children blown to bits, and handicapped veterans with no health care; 9/11, a new era of constant fear and anxiety, a man plummetting to the earth, entrails on the ground; the second Iraq War; hanging Sadaam Hussein, a head dangling from a noose; bombing the former Yugoslavia; supporting a military dictatorship in Pakistan; scandals in the White House; 1,000,000 Iraqis dying during the U.S. occupation; thousands of U.S. soldiers dead, tens of thousands returning home with post-truamatic stress disorder; 491 billion dollars of US hard-earned tax money wasted in the unnecessary Operation Iraqi Freedom; a 9.3 trillion dollar U.S. public debt. Need I say more? Sure, there are many reasons to be patriotic. Of course, Sometimes I wonder if Americans could be patriotic Not because America represents war, but peace, Not because America represents greed, but generosity Not because America represents cynicism, but hope. But maybe Michelle Obama, and perhaps myself, aren't deserving of being true Americans. Why not be proud to be an American for the first time When people are finally coming together When white people are voting for an African American candidate A little more than a half a century after the end of de jure segregation And for a candidate that seeks to end a wasteful and imprudent war? Can't we see what tremendous strides we've made in racial and gender equality, and in overcoming the stubborn attitude winner-takes-all attitude that has made us blind to our own shortcomings? Or maybe she was just wondering: Can't we finally wash our clothes and put them out to dry on the clothesline on a more sunny day?
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