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From Sea to Shining Sea
Stories, Counterstories, and the Discourse of Patriotism
IN THE DAYS FOLLOWING THE WTC/Pentagon/Pennsylvania catastrophe, I have seen an enormous outpouring of American patriotism, national goodwill, and public spirit from all corners of the globe. As the nation and the world nervously await for survivors to be pulled from the wreckage by heroic and courageous service workers, as we collectively mourn the lives of those lost in this horrible tragedy, and as we try to sort out the many emotions we feel as a result of this incident, the American flag has taken on new and significant meaning in the public discourse. I have seen the flag on everything from buttons, lapel pins, earrings, ribbons, T-shirts, stickers, ties, and vehicle antennas. Indeed, as Americans search for a common symbol of allegiance to bring them together during these troubled times, they have found such a symbol in the American flag as well as in patriotic songs and anthems.
Interestingly, during these times, I’ve also witnessed some very problematic incidents, not only in my hometown of Columbia (MO) but across the nation as well. Acts of hate, racism, rancor, scorn, and admonition—targeted mainly at Muslim citizens, people of Arab descent, and the entire Middle Eastern community (and often, Indian and Southeast Asian communities as wed)—have paralleled this rise in American nationalism. Sadly, the construction of an American “national identity” has been built on the evilization of the Islamic and/or Middle Eastern “Other.”
As the national media delivers images of an America “under attack,” messages are delivered into homes—both overtly and subtly—of “extremist Arabs” and their hatred of everything American. Even the president suggests “they” hate “us” because of what America stands for: “a democratically elected government ... our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other” (Bush, 2001). Although such an explanation may sound appealing to many living in the United States, let us not forget the fact that U.S. international policy has not exactly been laissez-faire. America has many enemies, and common sense should tell us there is more to this story than a mere hatred of American democracy.
The point of this discussion, however, is not to judge American foreign policy. Neither is it to provide a simplistic explanation of why people would ruthlessly murder thousands of innocent people and terrorize a nation. My point is that the messages we receive in the media, the stock stories (Delgado, 1995) about this crime and the people behind it that are universally accepted as truths, are constantly filtered into our daily consciousness. And whereas acts of terrorism are never acceptable under any circumstance, the larger American public (and the world) receives messages that position American values and mores as neutral while Osama Bin Laden—and by extension, fundamentalist Islamic groups—are positioned as “radical extremists.”
While the American public sifts through Congressional renditions of “God Bless America” and Grammy-Award-winning versions of “America the Beautiful,” and as images of fallen towers and fallen heroes crisscross the airways directly from “Ground Zero”—I often wonder what message is sinking in and whether this discourse serves to “bring us together” or to solidify and reinforce subliminal fears of the Muslim and/or Middle Eastern Other:
“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies ... ”
One day after the attack, an Arab American graduate student from our university found a cup of blood in his mailbox. The word “RAGHEAD” was painted in blood on a piece of his mail.
“For amber waves of grain ... ”
Osama’s Coffee Zone, a local coffee house in Columbia, Missouri—owned and operated by a naturalized U.S citizen born in Jordan who happens to share the same first name as the suspected terrorist—found his glass door covered with spit when he opened for business 2 days after the attacks.
“For purple mountains majesty ... ”
Two female students from Turkey were “silently harassed” by a group of White male students outside a university building 6 days after the attack. One of the males made a “gun gesture” with his hand and pretended to shoot the girls. Another male was overheard whispering the words “fucken terrorists” as they walked away.
“Above the fruited plain!”
A flyer was anonymously posted on the door of my department’s copy room the day after President Bush delivered his address to the Joint Session of Congress. The flyer warned that “Arabs are going feel the wrath of America.”
What we’ve observed in the past 10 days is not unusual or aberrant. In fact, critical race theorists such as Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, Patricia Williams, Juan Perea, and Mari Matsuda have consistently stated that racism and ethnocentrism are alive and well in this country and will probably never be eradicated because the law and other juridical apparatuses normalize racism by circulating stock stories and sanitized understandings of events. What are not circulated are the counterstories (Delgado, 1995) that undergird these same incidents: stories that are not told, stories that rub against our most fundamental understanding of reality, stories that reveal the underbelly of American society—the hate crimes, the scapegoating, the vilification and denigration of anything “un-American.”
In short, the national sentiment expressed toward Arabs and Muslims under the guise of “American patriotism” isn’t anything new. In fact, such hatred has reared its ugly head in the past: It happened to the Irish of the 1850s, the Germans during WWI, the Japanese during WWII, the Mexicans during Operation Wetback, and the Russians during the Cold War. In fact, the very definition of what and who is an “American” has shifted as different “outgroups” become “ingroups” when the situation and historical circumstances change.
America is indeed wounded, but our wounds are far deeper and more pervasive than the physical and emotional wounds made by terrorists on September 11. Perhaps in these sad times, it is better for us to do some introspection and ask ourselves what is an American and who is (and who is not) included when we wave the American flag and sing songs of what makes America so beautiful.
References
Bush, G. W (2001). Presidential address to joint session of Congress. Retrieved September 20, 2001, from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920- 8.html
Delgado, R. (1995). Legal storytelling: Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A plea for narrative. In R. Delgado (Ed.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 64-74). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Gerardo R. López is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri—Columbia.