Somebody's Been Drinking Some Haterade
by Adam | Friday 24 August 2007
I am at an artists' enclave in the South of France, where as a community, you'd figure there'd be some love.
(And don't get me wrong there has been some).
Unfortunately, somebody's been drinking some haterade. And anti-American haterade at that.
We will call her "M" because if I type her full name, it might be attributed with a particular saint or virgin that preached benevolence or the turning of cheeks, which isn't what this particular hater is doing.
So "M" hates Americans, an inside source tells me. We wear white t-shirts when we go biking and we talk about identity politics too much. "M" decided that she isn't going to bother to talk to the Americans. She won't talk or even look at them, unless she needs to use our stoves to heat water for her tea. Then she's the most chipper cow in the kingdom.
The Freudian part of this is that the only Americans she actually won't talk to are the two American guys here. Interestingly enough, M lives at motherfucking East Seventh Street and Avenue C in motherfucking Alphabet City, Manhattan Island, New York City, America of God's Great Green Earth. I am the 14th Street bus from this HATER and she throws this flavor effrontery at a sanctuary in France because she thinks I AM too American to be civil to? Who's throwing an American-style judgment tantrum here?
So I am American. What saddens me about this situation is that I am the BEST KIND OF AMERICAN. When I go to foreign countries, I may insult and harass and mock..
but I do it out of a prejudice of knowledge rather than a fanny-packed ignorance. I can discuss the affairs of my country and theirs with an impressive degree of comprehension and eloquence and conviction, I subvert the normal perception of Americans and act as a sparkling ambassador for our PR-stricken huddled masses.
I've been embarrassed by plenty of 'merican tourists. The ones that partake in segway tours down the Champs Elysees, that crowd the LOOOUV-REE and get bored, hit the cafe for their surrogate fourth meal, and leave for the hotel room. I am not that guy. I am an American who airs his grievances on a pretentious blog, rather than confronting a hater with brute force and socks filled with bars of soap. When I found out that I was a target of American self-hate, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't fathom it.
First I ignored her back. But she seemed smug about the decidedly tense rapport between us. So then, I decided to validate her hatred of me by being super-American. In a car to the supermarket, clad in a red, white, and blue striped shirt (colors that don't run, may I add), I watched M put on some suspiciously AMERICAN oversized trendy sunglasses and I said a little too loudly, Hey M, those are some HOT sunglasses! Where did you get them?
She mumbled something about maybe having bought them somewhere in Toulouse, but she was LYING like an American politician. Furthermore, she said NOT ANOTHER WORD out of her crooked BRIGHTON-born, MASSACHUSETTS (state license plate motto: THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA), AMERICAN MOUTH for the rest of the trip.
The question now is what to do with an American hater of Americans now that the cat is out of Guantanamo about it. With only four days left before I go back to traveling and DEFAMING our country's honor with my gauche American culture-seeking mannerisms, do I let the time expire without further escalation? Do I invite her to a barbecue and play some Skynyrd? Do I pelt her with tea bags and cry for Boston?
I open the floor to you, my fellow Americans.
Comments (5)
Socks and teabags. Never second guess.
Posted by Steve | 26 August @ 7:41
How many mailing lists can you get her on to? You know, Young Republicans, Bruce Springsteen fan list, I want to audition for American Idol, Oprah, Reverend Sharpton's Presidential Campaign, Banana Republic, etc. and so forth...
Posted by amelia | 26 August @ 12:32
I think you streak through the courtyard, square, circle whatever public area the group shares wearing just a flag covering your druthers. Walking slow you gain everyone's attention by singing songs like Yankee Doodle Dandy, America the Beautiful and God Bless America at the top of your lungs. Walk right up to her and like a bull fighter you unveil the cape revealing your manhood. You yell, "Ain't nothing more American than this Bitch." You then throw the flag around your neck a la Superman's cape revealing your Purple Mountain's Majesty and do an about face marching home singing the Star Spangled Banner!
Posted by Jason | 27 August @ 1:32
I think in addition to the listservs already suggested, you should add any and all campaign websites you can find.
I was trying to compose some sort of snarky message in addition to the suggestion above, but really, all I can come back to is how intellectually dishonest it is to espouse such an attitude about one's own nation when one is simply on retreat, ultimately planning to return 'home'. It really leaves one to question what kind of art can be created by such a person, as knowing how dishonest they are (if you really hate America, leave it). Can you trust anything this person 'creates' as authentic and not merely a caricature of what that person believes to be "authentic" art?
This, of course, breaks down if the individual in question does not plan to return state-side, or to do so for a predetermined amount of time before leaving permanently. If that is the case, good riddance.
Alternatively, to go the escalation route, you could just start pouring massive amounts of salt in her tea, or placing crickets in her bed, or piss on her toilet seat, leave a stinky surprise in her bathroom, soak her toothbrush in salt water, or find a souvenir shop and locate a card that blares out an American song in Midi and be sure she reads it in public. (Assuming of course that none of this would cause her any permanent physical harm, as that would be wrong and unjust.)
Posted by Otter425 | 27 August @ 6:55
M is part of a breed of American that can be likened to the "Fairweather Johnsons" of sports fandom. The great likelihood is that if Americans were, as a nation, in the now-enviable position that we had been before the current administration took office, when people around the world - no matter where - were proud to say that they knew, or even met an American, M would be exactly the kind of person who would lap up such attention. There a name for her. She is bona fide Eurotrash.
(Well, almost bona fide. Have you seen those hipster clothes. You wouldn't be caught dead in Paris in those. However, you might be FOUND dead in the wrong district in those get ups.)
In my opinion Eurotrash is among the worst kind of American. Because as you've pointed out, the problems which plague the heart of America they somehow see themselves as privileged above (you pointed out Anti-black racism and t-shirts, specifically - I must say that I DO believe in shirt collars :). Eurotrash add nothing to the conversation about what how the things that are wrong with America might be righted, just needless, repetitive and uninformed criticism. i.e. France is great, yeah, except their institutional racism is even more deeply ingrained than America's. High school teachers can decide if a straight-A student is to become a doctor, or a plumber. I can imagine that there are a lot of plumbers in France who are surprisingly erudite with the last name "Ali," or "Ademola."
We should point out that M went to MassArt, the only state institution devoted exclusively to the arts in our country. A generation ago, she likely would not have made it. Affirmative Action did way more for the white woman that anyone else in America. This is why her bitching has rubbed me completely the wrong way.
Why I've come to abhor American Eurotrash so? Generally, I have found that in my dealings with them that they are the product of the privilege and class transcendence granted by just a generation of education - their own, or their parents. People who can take Daddy's jet to the Aspens, or France willy-nilly aren't, in my experience, wont to make such ignorant comments - at least in mixed company (but sadly, the silent condescension of the vieux riches is giving way to a culture of those who worship airhead heiresses). A world like that is not one that M has carte blanche to enter, so she worships at the alter of the TRULY ignorant American. She has been endoctrinated into, but has no respect for the culture of entitlement that stamped her pass, but not those of so many others, without ever bothering to question why.
Also, Eurotrash leaves the room when just the sort of consideration that their privileged educations ought to have taught them to offer is most needed. (Like now.) They do the ultimate disservice to the Republic. They do not love it enough to criticize with a heart that seeks to make the Republic a better place for all its citizens. They criticize the Republic to curry the favor another that they find more glamorous. This all without seeing that America, for all its flaws has furthered and made more perfect the experiment that is the ultimate social and ideological legacy of Europe's fortbearers. However, I think that Scheherazade (I could be wrong, here), said that: "He who sojourns in other countries mistakes his enemy for his friend."
And, somehow, recently we have solved most of the problems of actually letting the "barbarian" be part of the process. States are opening civil rights files, apologizing for slavery, making overtures to acknowledge and sincerely apologize for the Amerindian genocide. I don't see that kind of thing happening in Europe, because I've never seen a European official (or many Europeans, for that matter - and I know plenty) admit that they could ever make a mistake, much less seek forgiveness and to atone. The thing about atonement is that you never reallycan. Perhaps that's why the (especially Continental) European seldom, if ever tries. And perhaps, Maria is most comfortable living in a place where she doesn't have to look around and one day get blindsided by a thought about the idea she might have been born into a set of unconsidered ideas and obligations. That she is not the individual that she thinks she is and may be just as predisposed as, say, her middle-westerner countrymen to unconsciously and quite racistly dismiss any conversation about Anti-black racism in America. Also, maybe she really, really just wants to wear a white t-shirt ;) they way they I want Matzoh and Watermelon with my fried chicken on a hot day.
America rocks.
Posted by Kevin | 27 August @ 23:45