Respects to Joey Ramone, but

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Jan 3 17:12:07 PST 2002


Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>
> That said, when we hear the word "All-American" today, many of us
> still tend to visualize a white face (most likely blond and
> blue-eyed). Wasn't that what the media said about Timothy McVeigh --
> an "All-American" boy who became a terrorist, to the shock of many
> whites? If he had not been white, he wouldn't have likely been
> called "All-American," however clean-cut and clean-shaven.

I think here we touch the deepest level of "American Ideology," the spontaneous image in our mind when we hear the word "American." Take the much simpler word, "worker." I have for 30 years been fighting, in my own mind and in my writing and talking, against the image of the white male with brawny shoulders and grimy fingernails that conjures up, and I can't claim that when I hear "worker" I 'see' a clerk typist or an elementary school teacher or a Walmart greeter (black or white) -- all equally good images of the worker, but they conflict with spontaneous thought -- i.e., ideology.

Carrol


>
> Here's Malcolm X's speech, "Am I an American?":
> <http://members.aol.com/klove01/sound/amiameri.rm>. Does his speech
> still resonate among blacks in the USA?
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Calendar of Events in Columbus:
> <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>



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