On the American community I wish we could recognize and include more fully.
If there’s one way in which I have occasionally been made to
feel like an American minority, left out of many of our national
narratives—don’t worry, I’m not going to go into one of those routines about
how tough it’s getting for a white male these days; I have long since
instructed friends and family that if I ever come within a million miles of
that utterly nonsensical perspective, they should have me euthanized
immediately—it’s as an atheist. In my Intro to American Studies class on the
1980s we watch a portion of Ronald
Reagan’s 1983 “evil empire” speech, and as part of that speech’s intro he
approvingly quotes an anonymous entertainer who had said that he would rather
his two young girls die as children, believing in God, then grow old and die
non-believers in the USSR. Despite the Cold War-specific context, Reagan
absolutely and unequivocally endorses the broader themes of the anecdote,
making clear, at least to this atheist, that the man who was president for
eight of my first eleven years of life feels I would have been better off dying
as a child then living a full life with my particular spiritual point of view. (And
yes, the speech was delivered to an evangelical organization, but the president
is still the American president, regardless of where or to whom he’s speaking,
so I still take that sentiment pretty personally.)
That was more than twenty-five years ago, of course, and I
suppose there have been signs that this particular limit of our national
definitions is broadening slightly. Certainly I was deeply gratified when Barack Obama, in his
2009 Inaugural address, argued (and the Reagan speech proves just how much
it is an argument, not a given) that “we are a nation of Christians and
Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers”; moreover, while that line and
various other meaningless moments and details have contributed to the
deeply sleazy line of right-wing attacks on Obama as a closet atheist
(and/or Muslim) who only professes a Christian faith, for the most part Obama’s
inclusion of non-believers in the national community went unremarked upon. Yet no
one can listen to the president end every speech with “God Bless America,” or
listen to both my
son’s preschool class and my university’s honors convocation still
including “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, or witness the number of
ballparks at which “God Bless America” has permanently replaced “Take Me Out to
the Ballgame” for the 7th inning stretch, among many other daily and
constant reminders, and argue that we do not still define ourselves as a
religious people in ways that implicitly but unquestionably render us atheist
Americans slightly less fully part of the national community. Again, I hasten
to add that this kind of exclusion is far, far less weighty than others on
which I have focused in this space—but nonetheless, until we can imagine an
avowed atheist successfully winning the presidency, exclusion it very much is.
With it being just after Christmas and all, this post might
seem unnecessarily provocative or argumentative. But AmericanStudies Elves, I’m
not wishing for anyone to lose their own personal faith, for anyone to feel the
slightest bit mocked in what they believe or obligated to believe as I do (or
don’t), for any American community not to feel that its identity is part of who
we are. Quite the opposite, I’m wishing that every such community, including
one that does not believe in God, be recognized as just as definingly and
meaningfully American. In his keynote speech
at this year’s Republican National Convention, Marco Rubio argued that “faith
in our Creator is the most important American value of all.” So Elves, we’ve
got a ways to go yet, and I’m hoping that we can make some progress in the year
to come.
Next wish tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Responses to this wish? Wishes
of your own you’d share with the Elves?
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