The New American Patriotism: Proud Uniformity in Scattered Peoples


      Modern America has gone under incredible stress and change in the past 40 years, undergoing social, political, and religious upheaval in that historically short time period, and having suffered for it. Today, patriotism is a dirty word; nationalism is worse. The leftist revolution and the gross radicalism of certain extreme right-wing groups has combined with the emergence of feminism and black pride to leave many Americans, of many genders and races, wondering who they are. Diversity has been shoved down our throats as the new sort of pride in America: pride in having no identity. But I believe we still have an identity, despite our apparent best efforts to destroy it. We are not a nation of one race or culture, but we still are a nation, and we have a common ground.
      Today we have all sorts of groups proposing racial war, racial segregation, and racial genocide, to remove the "inferior" race or to strengthen the "better" one. Be they black or white-or any other race-these groups are a scourge on our land, as are the groups who wish to eliminate racial identities. Both extremes-basing ones life entirely on racial identities, or trying to eliminate those identities entirely-are, as extremes usually are, harmful. There is nothing wrong with pride in one's background. This is true not only if you hail from Africa, but from Europe or America or Asia as well. Pride on one's past is a common and necessary feeling for any society to have. But I worry when we only look back to one continent for our heritage. We are, to use a once offensive but no, as far as I am considered, a mulatto nation. There is no escaping that, and I personally do not wish to escape that. I am not only proud of my German heritage, but of my African, my Asian, and my American heritage. Although I have no genealogical connection to any of these places, I am nonetheless descended from them in culture. I am not proud of our diversity-I feel our diversity is a weakness. I am proud of our diverse origins, but not of any difference we now have. I am proud of the unique culture we have, one of no set language or ethnicity or customs. It is not that we are all different, but that we all combine one another's culture into our own. My ideal society is one in which the customs of all are incorporated into all, not that each group gets its own little section to act how it wants to.
      Take the banjo, for example. It is a traditional African instrument, yet it is now associated with the white farmers of the South, a historically un-African group of people. Actually, the influence of blacks on the whites of the South has been massive-and the influence of whites on blacks has been equally large. I dream of a day where we are in fact all similar in our customs-those customs not being those of Europe or Africa or Asia or America, but rather a mix of all. I would like to see everyone incorporate each other's culture in his or her own. We, as a nation, have already done much of this. The influence on one another has already led to a nation strengthened-again, not in our diversity but in the diversity of our unity. Yet many wish to tear that apart, to take their culture and separate it from everyone else's. We, if we wish to progress towards peace and love in this nation, cannot allow this to occur. Be they radical racists or diversity-proponents, they threaten our diverse unity. It is our responsibility to tell them we want no such radicalism, no such division of our nation. Patriotism in our culture, all of it, I strive for us to have.