Just Call Me Average Joe American

By Richard Woitowitz, editor of the Blue Collar Conservative

Allow me to preface this commentary with a quote from President Theodore Roosevelt, "It is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man's becoming in every fact an American, and nothing but an American,"

Many times in my life I have had the following kind of conversation:

“What kind of American are you?”

To which I replied, “Why I am native born in this country, I am just your average Joe American”

“No but I mean what KIND of American are you? Italian, Jewish, Spanish, you know like that?”

“I am just an American, period, that’s it nothing more nothing less”

Usually that leaves my inquisitor walking away and shaking his head in non-understanding. Or what is even worse they walk away, with this look of bewilderment as to why I just don’t get it, as EVERYONE is some KIND of American.

Too often in this politically correct environment we constantly hear or read about this type of American or that type of American. We never hear about any person unless it includes him or her as some type of American. That person is usually describe as African-American, Italian American, Arab-American, and so on until one is pretty much sick of hearing it. The advent of multi-culturalism has made this a fact of reality. And it is one that is causing the fracturing of the original concept of the “Melting Pot” To often in this time that we live in we are constantly witnessing the non-assimilation of immigrants that are coming to our shores. It is now more natural to still identify with one’s point of origin instead of one’s choice of exit. (BTW, I would add here that this is not just a national problem here in the states, but it is fast becoming a European one as well, probably even faster that it is this country)

Why is this so?

Well for starters it is the opinion of this writer that the liberal left has made it a mainstay of their powerbase to constantly “define and pigeon-hole” all types of people into groups as to portray themselves as a diverse and excepting party, and to promote the concept of multi-culturalism to continually divide this nation into factions thereby always pitting one against the other. This divide and conquer strategy in turn yields a much more manageable way to create a dependency on government, which in the end is their goal.

In addition there seems to be no loyalty in today’s new naturalized American. Too often many come here for the blessings of this nation, but their alliances still lie with the mother country. Witness the immigrants from predominantly Spanish speaking nations and you will find that they are the most vocal opponents to any form of immigration legislation. Why is that? Again partly it is the left, that steers them in that direction, but to me it appears more of a mindset as why are you picking on my country? I work for the USPS, as some of you may know and many are the times that I have spoken to a naturalized American citizen that have referred to their original country as “my country”

The people that came to this country during the mass immigration period of the late 1880’s into the early 1900’s were of a different mindset. Their whole reason for being here was to; “become an American!” My grandmother once was asked the same question that I was asked, and her response was, and I remember this clearly (in her accented English), “I am an American! I come from Russia to BECOME American, and now I AM American!”

Such were the sentiments of many others that came over during that period.

Now fast forward a few years to the great World Wars of the twentieth century and we find that in BOTH instances the children of these “New” Americans were called Americans. In WWI they were nicknamed the “Yanks”, in WWII they were referred to as “GI JOE” but in all cases they were AMERICANS! There were no distinctions. All Americans of all colors, religions, ancestries, (or as the saying goes, race, creed and religion), all bleed the same, died the same and fought the same. [1] Even our enemies made little distinction. [2] If you were to ask them, the US service personal that is, who they were they would first and foremost classify themselves as Americans.

So here is what I suggest. Let us do away with the Hyphenated American. Let us all go back to being just plain Americans. Let us encourage those that now come to our shores, that THIS is what is expected of them. That while they can look back to their homeland of origin it is only to do so with knowledge that there are those back there that are related to them. Certainly there is nothing that would say, they cannot dress in more traditional clothes of the land of their birth, but do so with the distinct knowledge that you are first and foremost and AMERICAN now.

Secondly, let us do away with terms such as; African-American, Jewish-American, and Spanish-American.

There is no need to say or use these terms for any good reason as it only serves to divide us as a nation. How about if you truly wish to describe yourself as some sort of American, you might say I am American, of Russian decent, which is what I am; native born, of Russian decent, no more no less but first AMERICAN

Rich, Editor The BCC

[1] Yes I know the US military did have segregated units, but let us save that for another time. [2] History however does record the separation of US POW’s when it came to Jews and Blacks. This was very true with the Germans. The Japanese treated all POW’s equally. That is to say that their worse treatment was not necessarily limited to one specific type of people as all were treated very inhumanely.