“Take that necklace off. It’s un-American”, was the greeting a woman gave me while working as a door-to-door salesman in Indianapolis after my sophomore year in college. I knocked on thousands of doors that summer. I was always unannounced, and unexpected. Many welcomed me. Some shunned me. A few had their aggressive dogs express their resentment for them. I was bitten twice. It was hard work. But I learned a lot, especially about the diversity of opinion of what it means to be an American, and the wide range of hospitality we bring to one another.
For this one particular woman, I did not fit the image of an American, and therefore didn’t warrant her hospitality. To her, I must have looked like a hippie: I had hair over my ears, I wore no socks with my sneakers, and I wore a small, beaded necklace that had been made for me. She seemed to equate me with the anti-war movement that was in full throttle that summer of 1971, and which for her was un-American. She sent me on my way.
As we approach the Presidential election, the choice we have, at least on the surface, is between two nominees. But the swirl of messages, opinions and threats that bombard us daily suggest that the candidacies of former President Trump and Vice President Harris present us with a more profound choice: what is American and what is un-American. The boundaries between them can sometimes be rather stark, and can seem to be as arbitrary as to whether or not one wears a beaded necklace around their neck.
For many on the political right, tight boundaries are drawn around the salient issues of abortion, immigration and voting rights. Increasingly, those whose opinions fall outside those boundaries are regarded by some angry pundits to be un-American. There are some on the right who say that Kamala Harris is un-American, but most of the harsh critique is focused on her previous and current policies and proposals, which are deemed to be un-American. For many on the political left, Donald Trump is seen – as a person, to be un-American, given that he is a convicted felon and has been found liable for sexual assault.
When the boundaries are challenged, as they inevitably are during election cycles, the defenders of the boundaries tend to double down and make them even tighter. And inconsistencies are ignored. Much energy on the political right is spent sharpening and maintaining the boundaries around the aforementioned issues of abortion, immigration and voting, but when regulations are proposed around free speech or gun ownership, the response is immediate and hostile: that the government, or its surrogate, is denying people their civil liberties and interfering with their freedom.
On the political left, which tends to live with more fluid boundaries, there is the temptation to think that Trump voters are as un-American as they regard Trump himself. That Trump – and his supporters, be they fierce or tenuous, should be painted with the same brush.
Many, if not most, of these assessments are unfair, and ultimately destructive to America. Donald Trump is not un-American. Throughout US history leaders have emerged who have broken the rules, demeaned others, and aspired to be autocratic. Donald Trump may be unfit for the Presidential office, as many are contending. Many on the other side of the political spectrum maintain that Kamala Harris is unfit for the Presidential office, for very different reasons.
Fitness for office is different from being un-American. I think the slur “un-American” is a reaction to the paradigm shifts we have experienced as a country. In the past century American has given women the right to vote, allowed same sex marriage, ended Jim Crow laws, expanded civil rights to further prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, age, ability or gender, enabled people to explore their gender, and on and on. These shifts have not always come easily. Hospitality – which is the demonstrated commitment to extend a welcome to those who have arrived at a “foreign land” of thought – by assuring communication, a willingness to listen, and a respect of choices, has not always been offered. At the extreme edges of the political spectrum, there are forces and voices which insist that people who don’t fit the model of what it means to be American should be sent on their way.
Being an American is hard work. America is an ongoing experiment that has built a country and reshaped the world. We deal with difference – and diversity. Our boundaries – be they literal or figurative, continue to shift. Hospitality has been, and continues to be, essential.
