http://www.theroot.com/views/no-room-romneys-anglo-saxon-politics?page=0,1
(The Root) -- So much for the melting pot.
When an anonymous foreign policy adviser to presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney criticized President Obama in the United Kingdom's Daily Telegraph for slighting Britain and ignoring America's "Anglo-Saxon heritage," it was a political shot heard 'round the world -- or at least on both sides of the pond. Romney, who denied that anyone associated with his campaign had made the comment, also got into hot waterlast week for criticizing London's handling of the Olympic Games. He got verbally spanked by both the British prime minister and the mayor of London, as well as by the British press, for his gaffe. (To wit, the Sun called him "Mitt the Twit.")
But the controversial Telegraph quote about heritage might have been more meaningful because it flirted with the sin of omission. Of course, the Founding Fathers were all of English ancestry. What we now call America was not a desolate land when Europeans arrived but one populated by thousands of Native American tribes. As for African Americans, well, the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619. Some blacks were indentured servants or even free in the early colonial years, and many intermarried, particularly with white indentured servants. What makes America unique is precisely the grand intermixture of cultures from every populated continent that began before the nation itself was founded.Does this all feel very "America 101" to you? Well, it does to me, too. And yet Romney's chosen rhetoric makes it imperative to restate the basics. While I'd like to think that the 2012 election will be less racially heated than the one in 2008, underlying tensions remain.Some incidents are easier to write off as crackpot, like the Obama effigy hung by the Quran-burning Florida minister. Some are inept, like the race-baiting "Plan to Defeat Barack Hussein Obama," backed by a wealthy conservative but quickly leaked to the press.Then there is Seth Stephens-Davidowitz's thoughtful analysis using Google Insights. He estimates that in 2008, "racial animus cost Mr. Obama three to five percentage points of the popular vote ... [R]ace could very well prove decisive against Mr. Obama in 2012." As the election season intensifies, racial attacks likely will as well. The now-retracted statement of Romney supporter John Sununu that "I wish this president would learn to be an American" seems like a test balloon for how rough the wordplay can get.
Black people, Hispanics and all those oppressed by right wing politics, are we going to allow 1 day longer the predictions of those who's interest lie in their efforts to thwart our efforts to come together for a better America and get out our vote.
But whether we are talking about ethnicity, race or religion, America exists because different world cultures made one powerful nation. Some of Romney's ancestors came to the United States in order to seek opportunity. Others subsequently left for Mexico when they could no longer practice the historical, polygamous form of Mormonism in the United States.
Mitt Romney's own family history points out the dynamic complexities of national identity. Is it too much to expect that he reflect, in his campaigning, an understanding of what this nation really is -- who all of us, from all our parentages and religious backgrounds, really are? That is to say: Americans.
does he or doesn't he and his party turn a blind eye and ear to the reality that "they did not create these united states" yes i said it. it was a common effort some forced other's sitting in their easy chair smokin' on a fat cigar without a care, (stylistics) now those same one's want to as they have always done to take credit for the whole ball of wax.
