Count me out if being an American perpetuates the racist traditions of exterminating and displacing Native Americans; interning Japanese-Americans; enslaving, lynching, and murdering African Americans; and deporting Mexican, Central American, and South American asylum-seekers

Spike turned off the gravel township road east of Lamberton, MN, on a warm Saturday night and steered his ’69 Chevelle up a single dirt lane. Jill sat in the middle, the in-dash cassette player in front of her, and I sat next to her, my right arm dangling out the window and against the outside of the bronze-colored door. In the backseat Robin, Debbie, and Julie, like us, sipped from Schlitz longnecks and, while David Bowie’s voice swelled from the speakers, they sang along to “Suffragette City” and then the chorus to “Young Americans”:

“All night
She wants a young American
Young American, young American, she wants the young American.”

Which is what we were. We’d avoided Vietnam, flipped Tricky Dick off to California, and reveled when Minnesota made eighteen-year-olds legal adults. We grew up with The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Aerosmith, and Led Zeppelin. And that summer, when there was still a glow in the western sky at 10:00 and tomorrow was too far off to think about, we slowly cruised Main Street, drove a mile north of town to Kuhar Park and watched the Cottonwood River trickle over the small dam, and raised a cloud of dust on gravel roads running between corn fields and past dark farm houses outside of Lamberton.

Or, as we did that Saturday night, roll between the box elders, under the graffitied steel trestle, and into the cemetery, the night quiet now except for the Chevelle’s slow growl, one of the backseat girls uncapping another beer, and Bowie’s voice fading as Spike lowered the volume. We moved past headstones, but because we were young, the names and dates accounting for lives spent a century ago were as inconceivable to us as the distance to those stars winking in the deepening darkness.

Of course, in youth it was easy to dismiss the past when we had so little of our own, to feel morally superior when we never had to make consequential choices for others, and to declare politics beneath us when we’d seen powerful politicians brought low by their own arrogance.

But those days are long gone, and now—

Convicted felons stroll in and out of the White House, and Americans still believe dt hires only “the best people.”

Now the current administration spews barefaced lies, “alternative facts,” and propaganda to distort reality and push a political agenda, and Americans swallow it all.

Now campaign signs proclaim, “No more bullshit,” but Americans continue to eat up the same “bullshit” they’ve been fed for the past four years.       

Now the U.S. debt has ballooned to nearly $27,000,000,000,000, but Americans rave about how great America is again.        

Now dt not only consorts with foreign dictators and tyrants and envies their power but also snubs and insults both our democratic allies and our own servicemen and women, and Americans deny the danger.

Now police use military-grade equipment, tactics, and force against U.S. citizens, and Americans cheer the violence and injuries they inflict.

Now millions of U.S. workers are unemployed—the most in 75 years—but Americans crow about jobs, jobs, jobs.

Now the richest 1% of Americans hold more than 50% of the country’s wealth, and the bottom 90% have more than 75% of the country’s debt, but Americans boast about the booming economy and rising stock market.

So far this year the U.S. has suffered over 200,000 covid-related deaths, but Americans insist that this pandemic is a liberal hoax intended to damage dt.

Now when journalists ask difficult questions and report on events that show the administration and/or law enforcement in an unflattering light, they’re blasted as “enemies of the people,” targeted by riot police, and verbally and physically assaulted by Americans.

Now America’s racist tradition, which includes exterminating and displacing Native Americans, interning Japanese-Americans, and enslaving, lynching, ghettoizing, imprisoning, and murdering African Americans is continued as ICE and BP separate, cage, and deport Mexican, Central American, and South American asylum-seekers while Americans chant, “Law and order!” “Build the wall!” and “Go back where you came from!”

And all this time, dt proclaims that he loves the uneducated, and Americans, unable to recognize an insult when they hear one, revel in his and their own ignorance.

But I’m old enough now to know better. And though it happened more than forty years ago, I still hear David Bowie’s voice swelling from Spike’s speakers:

“Do you remember, your President Nixon?
Do you remember, the bills you have to pay?
Or even yesterday?”

And obviously Americans don’t. Or can’t. Or simply won’t.

Which is why, if this is what being American means, you can count me out. Because now I have no choice—not logically or morally or ethically or economically—to be anything but an Un-American.