Acting White: Proud Americans

I was more of a spectator to the presidential inaugural than most. Sure, everyone was watching in a technical sense, but you could see and feel their emotional participation as well. Celebrating the election in November was enough emotion for me. My candidate won, I shook his figurative hand, now I want him to get in there and pay some bills.

This is not the way it is for most Americans. In their minds life sucks, and has for as long as they can remember. They feel overworked and underpaid. In a starving world, they are ill-housed, overfed and overweight, yet they see and feel their deteriorating economic and physical wellness each day. They are desperate for something good to rub-off on them, mostly by osmosis – his name is Obama. Obama, who made good on a meager start in life. Obama, who played by the man’s rules, and won. Voting for him, for many, felt like buying a lottery ticket on a huge jackpot and actually winning. Where's that check?

People hear what they want to hear, and what I fear Americans are not hearing in Obama’s words are that they have been living as consumers, not producers, for roughly the same amount of time that they have been miserable. They have been working hard and staying up late to consume a flat-screened sugary-caloried better life, rather than building skills and economies that lead their communities and world. Obama says it isn’t their fault, while he also says it is indeed their fault - he’s a skilled politician, and knows they will choose what they want to hear.

Long before Obama, I heard that America’s problems start and end with what I control, me. My parents trained my ears this way. In response, I am over-educated, under-housed, under auto'd, and right-sized. My life is no panacea and I am, like many, out of a steady paycheck in this economy. Nevertheless, I am not looking for a savior, just a president who cares about the whole of this country, more than the other candidates (in my estimation) and who will work with us to be proud to be Americans in the mirror, even as we struggle in difficult times.

We start with a clean slate, Mr. President. Godspeed and wear your helmet.

James C. Collier

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