Talk Me Down

I am going to seriously start a gang war if one more South African decides to tell me that "America is not ready for a black president." Fuckers. The amount of remaining racism in South Africa couldn't even be contained by a US population filled with Rush Limbaughs. Here, every single race has an issue with every single other one. I can't even count the number of times I have gotten shat on by one of my family members just for mentioning that in the US they would be considered black because we don't differentiate between colored and black. You would think I was saying that they would be considered a member of the "nigger" race or something equally un-PC. So, I don't know how South Africans can get their panties in a huge knot about being at all connected to The Blacks, and then in the very next breath say that they can have a black president but the US is just not ready for one.

Similarly infuriating is when I open my mouth to talk about South African politics and get told, "you don't deserve to have an opinion because you haven't grown up here and you don't know what its like." So? I don't get all up in your grill when you assault me with your even more uninformed opinions on US politics. I have lived here for almost a year now, my dad grew up here, and I am about to be a citizen. Plus I follow the news here here waaaaaaay more than the people who are telling me that I don't deserve to have an opinion on it. I am not saying that my opinion is better than theirs or even equal to theirs, but if I feel like saying that I agree with the Human Rights Commission's ruling that the Black Journalist Association can't bar whites from joining, then argue with me and tell me why I'm wrong instead of telling me that I just can't talk about politics. Fascists.

Being here has really made me defensive about being an American. It's very odd because back in Seattle I am the very first person to give a Howard Zinn version of US history...one filled with corruption, selfish decisions, and egregious mistakes. But after encountering a country full of people who want to tell me that simply being born in the US makes me responsible for invading Iraq, allowing the Khmer Rouge to massacre millions, ignoring the Rwandan genocide, and hundreds of other things, all I want to say is step the fuck off. Its not like South Africa or even Britain or France did anything helpful either in any of those situations....and the French were practically complicit in both the Rwandan genocide and the education of Pot Pot.

Yes, with great power comes great responsibility, but if your president is in the midst of supporting Mugabe and you don't want to be told that you are personally responsible for the condoning of corruption, then shut your trap about how awful Americans are.