Finding the optimism amid all the cynicism

If you know me in person, then you know that I am definitely one to roll my eyes and attempt to bite my tongue when someone mentions "patriotism" or "American pride."  I am often cynical, but not all the time.  My complaints re: those phrasings have more to do with understanding their historical evolutions.  I am really livid, like, ready to throw books at people's heads, when political candidates throw the whole "founding fathers" thing around.  Define deism for me and I will then hear you out, I say.  Anyway.  As a historian, I always feel a pretty big weight on my brain about our country's violent wrongs against huge groups of people.  It's harder for me to celebrate the small steps when I spend much of my time writing about and teaching the missteps.

The very last book I read was a study of slave spirituals by a South Georgia folklorist.  Reading it, I realized I've been thinking about the parameters of "America" in this context basically all wrong.  Instead of placing the tragedy of slavery only in the column of "things we did that were terrible," historians and journalists and countless other types of scholars have been working tirelessly for the last couple of decades to make the slaves into America.  I spent years studying this historiographical process, but just now I am re-working the parameters of it in myself.

And so if the Fourth of July becomes about not just the white, whiskey-sucking men who wrote documents and disenfranchised people, if it really becomes about celebrating the diversity and the struggle of everyone's story, then I'm on board.  And despite a dismal economy and disheartening news daily, I think there are some victories for civil rights and the "American dream" that we should be tipping our hats to today.  Little things that are actually big--like the opening of the first Daughters of the American Revolution chapter in Queens today (the DAR used to actively forbid black members).  And huge things--like the trend of the winning of gay and lesbian marriage rights (hopefully only the beginning in an even bigger story).

In other news: check out this great piece by Nathan Heller in Slate about the very un-American origins of apple pie:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2011/06/pie.html

And in even further news: while I was writing this blog in a coffee shop I had a very awkward encounter with an ex-boyfriend.  Nothing more patriotic than faking a smile over a latte and silently thanking the universe that you put on makeup and cute shoes today...right?