(NNPA)—On July 4 Rush Limbaugh appeared in Joplin, Mo., and gave a rousing Independence Day speech on American Exceptionalism saying: “America is blessed by God” and that we are the planet’s exceptional human beings.
God has lavished Limbaugh with high rewards of fame and prosperity; but the question is: “How does that tune play in uptown Harlem and on MLK Avenues across America?” The “American Exceptionalism” Limbaugh espouses is the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other countries and uniquely “blessed by God.”
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But, in contrast, there’s a thread in American history that runs through the processes of Indian genocide, to American adventures in the Mexican-American and the Spanish-American and Wars, into the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that constitute patterns of racism and imperialism. In the 19th century, Manifest Destiny was an American belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. America’s Manifest Destiny mission grew to a posture to promote and defend democracy throughout the world.
Historically, whenever Americans wanted something another nation had—land, oil or other resources—we’ve been able to justify taking it. The usual plot involves theories that the world’s non-Whites are unable to govern themselves, so America must heed it’s “divine mission” to liberate them from their own ignorance and corruption by our bringing gifts of freedom, democracy and Christianity—whether they want them or not.
Now, during Barack Obama’s presidency, the reigns of people like Limbaugh are being questioned. The very engines of “America’s Exceptionalism” carry a stigma of hypocrisy; and throughout the centuries America’s prevailing ethic and electorate made sure that no government policy initiatives would ever be used to actually improve minorities’ quality of life.
How large is the segment of African-Americans that go along with “American Exceptionalism’s” racist and religious tenets? Blacks need to note that from the beginning America’s majority population has garnered enormous wealth from Blacks’ captivity, but has never embraced an egalitarian economic philosophy. “American Exceptionalists” ridicule Black Reparations, but, if you trace the fortunes of the Rockefellers, Mellon’s, Carnegies, Biltmore’s, and others, you’ll find the source as being “slavery.” Without the underpinnings of slavery, American enterprise would never have achieved its zenith and world standing.
The swagger of “American Exceptionalism” assuages Americans’ guilt of the violence we’ve used abroad, and at home, and hides the fundamental racism ingrained in American history. It’s a shame that American-American voters are willing to allow President Obama to cater to the “Manifest Destiny” crowd before dealing with Blacks and our needs that have gone unmet for all this time, because he is President of all of the country.” Even the most fervent among us craving for Obama’s re-election would have to admit that he doesn’t fit America’s bedrock exceptionalism of military, economic and cultural preeminence. What upsets Limbaugh and his crowd is that Obama appears to be egalitarian and motivated by a vision of America as it being just one more unremarkable country among the many. Therefore, demanding Obama target public policy to Black voters, who accounted for 13 percent of the electorate in ‘08, and who are now experiencing the culmination of centuries of economic crises, is needed policy as well as good politics.
(Contact William Reed at BaileyGroup.org.)