What am I, chopped liver?

[pecunium]

I keep hearing the McCain campaign, in the voice of Sarah Palin, and her sympathisers and supporters, saying that she has some secret insight to, "real America" by virtue of being from someplace not contaminated by urbanity.

I, it seems (and those like me), somehow don't count as a real american. Never mind the summer I spent digging ditches, and stripping paint and shingling roofs. Nope, manual labor doesn't cut it.

Ignore sixteen years in the National Guard (and a tour in Iraq, and duty overseas in Germany, Korea and Ukraine). Ignore my father the Marine (1964-68 active, and another eight years in the reserves). Forget my grandfather who was in WW1.

Nope, not good enough.

Helping my folks start a small business (still going strong 24 years later). Nope, not good enough.

I, you see, like most americans, live in a city. I, therefore, am somehow not quite the real thing when it comes to being an American.

About a year ago someone at Obidian Wings saw the same thing, and wondered the same sort of thing I'm asking about now,
"When do I get to be one of the "American people?"

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

This shit bugs me, too, and has for years. Forget my father who spent 36 years as a federal civil servant. Forget my grandfather who served in WWII. Forget my great-grandfather who helped build the Brooklyn Bridge. Forget my great-great-something ancestor who sewed uniforms for the Union Army in the Civil War. I live in liberal New England, in the queer-lovin' state of Massachusetts, within walking distance of such bastions of elitism as Harvard and MIT, so I must not be a Real American [tm].

If it's any consolation, this kind of idiocy isn't confined to the US. When I lived in Australia, I frequently spied bumper stickers proclaiming, "Real Australians don't live in cities." I'll bet that comes as a shock to the 87.2% of Australians who live in urban areas.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

In the film set of their imagination, I've no doubt, even city-dwelling Aussies are all Ned Kelly.