2008 Woodie Awards
What it means to be a real American
Jessica Larkin
Issue date: 4/23/08 Section: Opinion
"It's [sic] people like you who are a total threat to this country ... you are the idiots who would love to destroy [sic] the very foundation on which this country was founded on. Not [sic] that you would admit to what it was founded on!" - thetoolman
Ever since Sept. 11, the country has been caught up in nationalist fervor. Anyone who critiques the government or has negative opinions about America has been labeled as un-American (maybe Anti-American is a better term.) As a history major, ignorant declarations, like the one above, make me cringe. What has our country been founded upon? I know what most people would say - freedom. Freedom is a big part of the groundwork of America, and it is certainly the fairy tale we are told in grade school. But, in reality, America has less than desirable foundations.
When our founding fathers first wrote up the Constitution, the only people who were going to be able to vote were white men who owned property. The Electoral College was designed as a fail-safe to keep the poor from gaining real power. And do I really have to mention the hypocrisy of language in the Declaration of Independence for women, African-Americans, Native-Americans and other ethnic groups? "All men are created equal," should have read, "All rich white men are created equal."
Women did not gain true citizenship until 1920, and it was not until the '70s and '80s that women gained true equality. For the first hundred years the wealth of the nation was built on the labor of slaves and immigrants. Until the 1960s, blacks were treated as second-class citizens. Even with the progress blacks have made, racism in America is still a real problem. The Native-Americans were continually forced from their land as settlers moved west in an effort to gain more land. The Native-Americans, because of U.S. policy, have now been caught in a gray area, neither complete United States citizens nor independent nations.
I am not anti-American. I love this country and I consider myself a patriot. As a true patriot, I see it as my duty to look at the imperfections and mistakes of America. If we, as Americans, turn a blind eye to the problems with our system, to the problems of the past, then we have become sheep, not participants in a republic. It is every American's duty to try and create a better country than the country of our past and to do that we must look at all of America's past, good or bad, and make amends for America's wrongs and learn from them.
Jessica Larkin can be reached at jlarkin@statehornet.com
Ever since Sept. 11, the country has been caught up in nationalist fervor. Anyone who critiques the government or has negative opinions about America has been labeled as un-American (maybe Anti-American is a better term.) As a history major, ignorant declarations, like the one above, make me cringe. What has our country been founded upon? I know what most people would say - freedom. Freedom is a big part of the groundwork of America, and it is certainly the fairy tale we are told in grade school. But, in reality, America has less than desirable foundations.
When our founding fathers first wrote up the Constitution, the only people who were going to be able to vote were white men who owned property. The Electoral College was designed as a fail-safe to keep the poor from gaining real power. And do I really have to mention the hypocrisy of language in the Declaration of Independence for women, African-Americans, Native-Americans and other ethnic groups? "All men are created equal," should have read, "All rich white men are created equal."
Women did not gain true citizenship until 1920, and it was not until the '70s and '80s that women gained true equality. For the first hundred years the wealth of the nation was built on the labor of slaves and immigrants. Until the 1960s, blacks were treated as second-class citizens. Even with the progress blacks have made, racism in America is still a real problem. The Native-Americans were continually forced from their land as settlers moved west in an effort to gain more land. The Native-Americans, because of U.S. policy, have now been caught in a gray area, neither complete United States citizens nor independent nations.
I am not anti-American. I love this country and I consider myself a patriot. As a true patriot, I see it as my duty to look at the imperfections and mistakes of America. If we, as Americans, turn a blind eye to the problems with our system, to the problems of the past, then we have become sheep, not participants in a republic. It is every American's duty to try and create a better country than the country of our past and to do that we must look at all of America's past, good or bad, and make amends for America's wrongs and learn from them.
Jessica Larkin can be reached at jlarkin@statehornet.com
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