Meet Some Kick-Ass Americans

Rubber bands look nice, round, and relaxed until you stretch them. Grab a piece of the arc and pull it; you’ll make an oval, then an ellipse, then the outline of a hotdog. What’s more, let it go, and the hotdog will fly.

For most of my life, I’ve longed for flying hot dogs. By that I mean I’ve aspired to meet and understand many types of people. Especially people who appear to be one way, but who have many, often-surprising qualities that become known over time.

I lived in Japan when I was seventeen, and had the eye-opening experience of being a minority for the first time. With my Casper-white skin, curly hair and killer fork skills, I stuck out like a sore thumb in my host family’s rural town. Even though people meant me no ill-will, they stared, and sometimes trailed me. When I returned to America, I was drawn to the Autobiography of Malcom X and books about Japanese internment camps during World War II. I knew my brush with “otherness” was the tip of the iceberg. It was temporary–blunt and frozen—and nothing like the magma of racism that simmers in society, then erupts and destroys lives.

Over the years, friends of different religions, races and sexual orientations have tutored me in Lesser Cluelessness. Thanks to their tutelage and the awards they’ve bestowed, my epitaph will one day read:

Devoted Mother

Coconut Girl

Honorary Jew

Honorary Lesbian

What it won’t read, until I evolve a little more, is: Honorary Republican. Now hold up. If you’re a Republican, don’t rebuke me just yet–I might say something more offensive later, and I’ll need you to gently set me straight.  And if you’re a Democrat, hang tight, because this is for real.

An article I read today about the government shutdown pointed out that conservatives and liberals have their own cable TV channels, radio shows, think tanks, and publications. Most Americans identify primarily with one of the two main political parties, so they eddy into its pool of talking points. From there, many people get sucked into a vortex of political vitriol where they lack exposure to other, reasoned viewpoints. They can and do come to think of their counterparts as wrong/evil, and proceed to elect officials with extreme views.

Meanwhile, parallel to this political phenomenon is regular, untelevised life. The retiree with the Romney sign in his yard tells his neighbor with the Obama sign that he spied the critter that’s been upending everyone’s trash cans at night: a skunk!

Which brings me back to the flying hot dogs.  I want to hang out with that retiree with the Romney sign. First of all, I noticed he took down his political posters on the first Wednesday in November, just like I did. In addition, he has a cool Southwest Virgina accent and shares my penchant for early bird buffets. I can tell he’d look slick squatting in a crisp, white gi doing knife-hand blocks with me in karate class. But in case that doesn’t happen, I’d be willing to try a ceramics course with him or hell, even skeet shooting. Any endeavor where we’re both hacks, along with our fellow Christian/Jewish/Muslim/athiest/gay/straight/old/young/biracial/African-American/white/Asian/Democratic/Republican Americans.  Why, just today in the Krav Maga class I’m taking, a Marine platoon sergeant let me wail on him with my lame hammer fists. Next, I got groin-kicked by a quiet computer programmer. Do I know or mind what these students’ political affiliations are? No. But I do know that we’ll all be back on the mats next week, working hard and looking ridiculous.

As a frustrated and despairing nation, we can’t expect to fix overnight the political dysfunction that afflicts Washington. It’s taken us decades to become divided, and it may take us just as long to find our way back to decency—and to each other. Ideological reconciliation, just like losing weight and gaining wisdom, is both worthwhile and irritatingly slow. It will involve all the usual suspects: caucuses, primaries, debates, journalists, and elections. But perhaps more than anything, it will require us, the American people, to take a class in something we truly suck at. Together we can re-learn that we really don’t know it all, and that democracy is a balm for this universal, human condition.