I'm afraid of Americans

I'm afraid of Americans. I'm afraid of the world. I'm afraid I can't help it.

There is a moment in the video where David Bowie has a look of dawning horror as he begins to sing, “God is an American.” It made my spine tingle then, and it does so now. I live in America, true, but I also grew up in an American colony. The anger I’ve encountered when trying to talk about the gap between the way Americans perceive themselves and the way others perceive them has always unsettled me. It’s that same anger that has fuelled the invasions of country after country.

“I’m afraid of Americans” came out in 1997, but I’ve often wondered how it hasn’t come to be the new national anthem. Besides the bombings and invasions, how about the school shootings and the hostage situations and the like? I think of the song now, though, not in response to events abroad, but rather to events on the Mainland.

I’ve been told that my problem is that I will make these criticisms, but that I don’t hold myself accountable for any of it. Foreigners aren’t allowed to criticize, apparently, and citizens have to say the mea culpas on behalf of everyone else. But where do I fit in? I’m both and neither. I may have moved to the mainland, but it can be argued as to whether I really had a choice.

Still, I’m willing to accept responsibility. I accept all of America’s sins as mine. Everyone who has benefited from any injustice is responsible for that injustice. How does that sound?

What consoles me in all this is how rare events like the Virginia Tech killings are. After all, it could happen a lot more, but doesn’t. Somehow we manage not to require a police state to keep things like that from happening every day. Not that more compassion in the world would hurt anything.