I wonder what David Greenberg might have to say about Obama's relationship to the legacy of the civil rights movement and statements about patriotism, particularly Frederick Douglass's powerful speech of 1852, "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro." Why is it so hard for the Republicans to admit that a black American--and any thinking progressive American of any race or ethnicity--may legitimately have a more vexed relationship to patriotism than the privileged white veteran, who has not lacked basic civil rights himself or experienced the consequences of that lack in his own family history, and apparently doesn't see fit to think about others' experiences much?

Maritjmac: I seriously doubt that McCain enjoyed his civil rights very much while he was a Prisoner of War. Just exactly what makes you think that a black American has been derived of his civil rights any more than a Native American or a Japanese American in WWII?

Feel free to respond if and when you have something intelligent to say! Some Black/African Americans think that simply because of the color of their skin they have it tougher than other races. It is time to wake up an join reality. Life is what you make out of it and should not be served up on a silver platter simply because you are a member of a wannabe privileged minority. If Obama becomes our next POTUS I hope it will be because he is the best person for the job, not because of the color of his skin. I don't know about you but I would not be proud to have a job that I was not qualified for or did not earn and got simply because of the color of my skin.

@ nyecop:

Maritjmac's point is a lot more nuanced than your "rebuttal". What individuals mean by "patriotism" depends a lot on their perspective on America. This is axiomatic.

Furthermore, there are more than the two perspectives on America labeled left and right. Or black and white. Or male and female. Indeed, taken to its logical extreme, it can be said that there are 300 million or so different perspectives on America and what exactly it means to be patriotic.

That's one end of the spectrum. The other end of the spectrum maintains that there is one legitimate perspective on America and one corresponding definition of patriotism. This end of the spectrum has been firmly staked out by (some) conservatives and it is, in a word, absurd and displays a lack of understanding of the nature of America itself.

The strength of America has always been in the creative tension between unity and diversity built into the very fabric of the nation. The motto "E Pluribus Unum" on the Great Seal of the United States predates the Constitution. Patriotism has always played a critical role in unifying this diverse nation. But patriotism used as a cudgel to enforce or legitimize one perspective on America is a deeply ironic betrayal of America.

An intelligent response would be to direct you to examine history, African-Americans were not temporarily interned for 4 years, they were brutalized and deemed inhuman for 400 years! Please understand that I have no patience for fellow African-Americans who play the victim card as excuse for not getting their lives together. This world has always been unfair to groups and individuals, and for the last 400-500 years there IS justification for saying we have been the most unfairly treated. Still, we humans are each given one play here on earth, so it seems to me that we each need to work to make life better from wherever we start. At the same time, I have little patience for a type of narrow-minded thinking that refuses to acknowledge that given our particular experiences with the "American experience" , many African-Americans and Native Americans, in particular, are going to have ambivalent feelings about unadulterated nationalism. It's called being human.

I wonder if you were alive during the civil rights actions of the 50's and 60's. Your comments indicate that you weren't. It wasn't just some arguments in congress.

People were killed for trying to sit in the white section of the restaurant and for trying to drink from the white water fountain. People were killed for trying to register to vote. Not just people of color either. Many of those "outside agitators from up nawth who came down heah to stir up owah nigras" were killed as well.

One of the greatest positive things about the USA is its ability to recognize and correct injustices. Sometimes (gay rights) this process takes only a few decades, and sometimes (former slaves) this process takes several hundred years. Meanwhile, we are still wrestling with our treatment of Native Americans. They were like trees in a new subdivision. We killed them off and then named geographical features after them.