there are some things going through my head that i need to write down, at some point...like i'm still working on this what kind of american am i anyway? thing. the thing is. i've always considered myself an outsider. i'm an american, by birth. but i never felt like much of one. stopped saying the pledge of alleigence around 15, because i somehow understood that what i was saying wasn't what was out there on the streets. liberty and justice for all. one nation, and under god, no less. with whom i was already having serious issues by the time the end of highschool rolled around.
it's true that people are suffering and dying all over the world. i feel for them, too, and i worry about them. earthquakes, genocides, political uprisings. i lose sleep over them. but in some ways i feel rather more connected to the people who were killed here. for several reasons that i can think of at the moment. one, because it very easily could have been me, or someone that i know. two, because new york is an hour away from here, and one of those planes flew over my town. three, because in some way i feel that everyone here has gone through the same things, and that has a lot to do with the fact thatwe were so naive in the first place.
there are a lot of people, in a lot of different places, who are angry at the people of the us. i think what they feel angry about is less that americans are waking up and going what the hell happened here/this is horrible/we're hurting, and more that they are still blind to what is happening in the rest of the world, just like they always were. and they are rightfully angry at that.
so what kind of an american am i? the kind who still feels horribly about september 11's tragedy, and angry about what the cia did to chile, all in the same breath. the kind who refuses to watch the stupid news coverage, and who has only to close her eyes to see those towers fall again, and again. so what kind of american is that?
i'll let you know. --beatpoetgrrl
 |
 |