During the almost 4 days while my mom was here helping me move she wore at least three different t-shirts with American flags emblazoned across her chest. I hate it when people think the American flag is somehow fashion, but also this low-rent Kmart pride in your country sort of pisses me off. Flag fashion should never be worn outside of international sporting events, and even then you're only really justified wearing it when your an athlete. Anyone that takes stock of what our country is, has more to be ashamed of than proud of. This does not mean I don't love my country, but I recognize that it's got a lot of work to do before I would go around wearing it on my body. In the end it's like animal print, always a bad idea, and never classy.
It's said that the unexamined life is not worth living, but I believe it's important to apply that further, like the unexamined country is not worth being proud of, or unexamined dogmatic faith for example.
I say this because coming back "home" has felt great, and so no matter how critical I am of my country, I am, after all, American, and there are many aspects of American life that charm the pants off of me. Paris, London and Valparaiso may have been experiences of a lifetime, but I'll always be American. It's one of the things I worry about most with my boyfriend. I don't want him to lose his identity as a Frenchman, any more than I want to lose my Americaness. I don't know how international couples manage this.
In other news I got another forward today from my grandmother, that called Obama a muslim, and a traitor and had on average every third word spelled wrong. I think everyone with their head screwed on straight knows Obama is not a muslim, but honestly, why is being a muslim so offensive, most muslims are nice people just going about their business no different than their atheist and Christian counterparts.
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