Ashamed to Be American

I've been thinking about why I've often found myself so ashamed to be an American, especially when traveling abroad. In my experience, this shame is something unique to my generation of American youth, those of us who arrived at an age of global awareness in the post-9/11 world. In a Sept. 26 column analyzing America’s reaction to Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Columbia University, the liberal American political blogger Ezra Klein writes:

"I don't know how to prove this, but my sense is that the dawning realization that we're globally unpopular is having profound effects on the American psyche. There's a lot of talk about how we don't care about what other countries think, but like the kid repeating mantras of self-esteem in the corner of the playground, saying it doesn't make it true." (http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/why-we-need-mor.html)

Like me, Klein was born in California in 1984 to liberal, well-educated parents, and like me, he seems to feel a profound sense of unease with America's role on the international stage. The "mantras of self-esteem" that he deems necessary for us to maintain even a fragile sort of self-confidence are something I relate to, as I find myself continually forced to remind myself what is good about America in the face of everything else that I find so much more obviously wrong with it. And like anyone with self-esteem issues, I am often convinced, hopelessly, that the bad outweighs the good.

I'm not sure that anyone who is not of my generation can fully understand this conviction. But keep in mind that as long as I have been politically aware, the United States has been governed by an administration that values displays of bravado over displays of intelligence, that throws nuance and complexity out the window and replaces them with over-simplifications and a black-and-white view of good and evil, that is highly skilled at blindsiding the public with glib answers and rhetoric but completely hapless when it comes to cultural sensitivity or simply admitting its own mistakes. This is the America I know, and it embarrasses me. The gloriously idealistic America of the founding fathers, the militarily and morally victorious America of the post-World War II era--these Americas are lost to a long-ago past. So like a fallen beauty queen, I can only sit in my corner, whisper my mantras, and hope that some day I'll be popular again.