My 2 centavos
You know in between manufacturing and spreading the AIDS virus, orchestrating September 11, and just plain old Dr. Evil-like world domination, you think we’d have our hands full…
Since I’ve been here I’ve tried - for better or for worse - to stay relatively neutral, or even passive, concerning the interminable barrage of anti-Bush rhetoric that gets thrown in my path. But recently it’s been taken up a notch to include just plain, simple, anti-Americanism as well. I.e., instead of the President being accused of doing something malicious, now I get lumped into the culpable party. I’m an easygoing guy and the last thing I want to do, as a guest in another land, put somebody in their place or make a situation awkward. But perhaps I’ve gone about this all wrong.
I suppose this has been building recently but as of late it’s been particularly annoying. For example, just a few hours ago a tiresomely long-winded South African girl nonchalantly asserted to me Americans are very arrogant. I added I don’t believe this to be so, that 300 million people can all be characterized identically, and she tried to “reassure” me that I don’t have to worry - all of the Americans living outside of the country are the good ones, the exceptions. I could have asked her if she was joking, and mentioned that of all people you’d really hope a white South African would be the last person to make bigoted over-generalizations, being as that they’ve been doing it with impunity until 1990 (it’s called apartheid), but I refrained.
Yesterday I was at an asado with some Argentine friends when one of their girlfriend’s asked, quite somberly, if there is discrimination towards Latinos in the U.S. This sudden “grave concern” struck me as interesting, considering 5 minutes earlier the same girl proudly touted her last trip to Europe, as she toured the great lands of her descendants, Italy and Spain. Like many Argentines of European descent (the majority), she wished to make it abundantly clear she was in no part Chilean or Peruvian, who are, in large part, descended from local, indigenous inhabitants. And yet here she was grilling me on the treatment of these same people in the U.S. I mentioned there is some discrimination, but where is there not? In Buenos Aires just last week 6 illegal Bolivian immigrants died when a fire started in a sweatshop; the workers were living in virtual slavery. Not to mention it’s far from uncommon to hear disturbingly racist remarks directed towards Bolivians, Paraguayans, and even Chileans throughout the city. At any rate I also told her the mayor of Los Angeles - the 2nd largest and most important city in the US - has a mayor who is Mexican-American, the son of a Mexican immigrant father and Mexican-American mother, so ostensibly not everyone’s life and opportunities here are so intolerable.
I could go on and reciting what else this girl, who is an actress (which couldn’t be more fitting - or unsurprising - as we are all quite familiar with the virulent combination of actors and politics) asserted to be true, but if not so ridiculous it’d be a total bore. This type of argument is particularly frustrating for me because I can’t express what I really need to. My spanish is good, but I still don’t have the complex vocabulary sufficient to mount a challenge to ignorance and rash over-generalizations. Though as, the famous quote goes, “never argue with a fool - from a distance you can’t tell whose who.”
I know it’s just so easy to hate Americans now, even fashionable in many places. I concede, we have problems. But who doesn’t? Argentina certainly does. And South Africa sure as hell does. But I don’t go around with a thick head dispensing my opinions that I just know to be right to somebody I’ve known for just 5 minutes. I really think as opposed to giving the illusion of being well-read and informed, it shows nothing more than pathetic ignorance, to automatically judge someone before you’ve even spoken with them. At the very least, it shows a disturbing level of self-importance, because really, I hate to bring you down Einstein, but if I wanted your opinion I’d ask for it.
At any rate I’m getting fed up with being politically correct and minding everyone’s feelings while standing at the receiving end of every half wit’s overused, unoriginal idea that 1) he either read in the news this morning or 2) got from a Hugo Chavez speech. I shouldn’t have to apologize where I’m from as much as somebody from Germany, for example, should have to apologize where he or she’s from. I think from now on I may just stop trying to play diplomat and just get a laugh from the whole thing. It’ll be a lot easier and lot less frustrating. Perhaps taking on the role of card-carrying NRA member with a photo of Ronald Reagan on my desk, lovingly adorned next to a photo of my family, could make life a lot more fun. I have a feeling anyone who has the cheek to unload on me all of their generalizations after knowing me for 5 minutes probably already has their mind made up, and there’s little I can do to change it. Though, at least if I turn into a one-man government propaganda machine, spewing the glories of the American Empire like Pat Robertson at a tent revival, maybe I can finally do some of the agitating. Obviously I don’t agree with a lot of what Bush does, and a lot of US government policies, but I’d be willing to pretend I do just to give back a little of the unmerited BS that I constantly take.
How Articulate
Because I don’t want to end this on a totally negative note, I’ll invoke these wise words:
“Can’t we all just get along?”
Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Bush, Travel, U.S.
