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Thursday, August 12, 2010

This is America!

As usual, thanks again for your constructive feedbacks. Some of you have suggested that I should post shorter articles. I appreciate your suggestion and think it is a good idea.

There is one thing that I am struggling with. I don't know if I should call it politeness or hypocrisy. One day at work, I had a misunderstanding with a female colleague and she went to complain to our supervisor. A male colleague came to warn me about that female colleague and said that she was a bad person. He told me that the female colleague had been telling lies about me behind my back. He informed me that he and the female colleague have been smoking weed at work in front of the clients (we work with developmentally delayed kids). He suggested that if the supervisor ever called me to ask about what was happening at work with the clients, I should not hesitate to mention what he had told me.

A couple of days later, the supervisor summoned me and the female colleague to settle our issues. When I was asked to say what was going on, I said exactly what my male colleague had told me. The situation got worse and my male colleague got furious and very mad at me. He blamed me for having mentioned his name while he had asked me to do just that in the first place. I reminded him that he was the one who suggested that I should mention his name. He said: "this is America!" When I asked him to tell me what that meant, he retorted that I still had a lot to learn. He said: "In America, they raise us to be polite. They ask us to never be rude even if you have to lie. If you hate somebody, or you don't like something, or you are mad at someone, you should not show that. You must laugh and pretend that everything is fine, in that case you don't hurt their feelings." I was really surprised and shocked, because that was against my nature, besides, it possessed all the features of hypocrisy. When I protested that I was raised to be honest and tell the truth about my feelings, another friend told me to collect all my African values and dump them in the garbage, because "this is America!" and those values don't work here. I began to learn more about that phrase: somebody is shot: "this is America!" A child is kidnapped: "this is America!" Everything that is stunning or that looks a little weird: "this is America!" Now I think I am beginning to understand what that means.

2 comments:

  1. In response to post “This is America!”

    Hello, and welcome to America! This is the land of the free and opportunity is abound, but you must watch your step at every turn. Traversing through the American landscape of expression and living is like playing chess. You have to watch you front, back, left side and right side at all times. This is a country where the attitudes of public and private institutions are largely perpetuated by the masses. Let me offer an example. When you get a loan at a bank, somewhere in the loan documents you might see the words, “Thank you. We appreciate your business. We value you as a customer”. In translation, what this really means is “thank you for giving us the opportunity to fatten our pockets from your interest payments and should you ever miss a payment or two, you will be harshly dealt with.” People generally treat each other this way in America. True compassion for human beings is hard to find in the midst of gain and profit. By “profit” I don’t just mean monetarily but psychologically and materially as well. Your colleague may be right in what he said regarding never being rude to people even to the point of lying to hide true feelings. Our presidents of the past, particularly Ronald Reagan, best exemplify this mode of behavior. They often tell us one thing to earn our trust and then do the exact opposite.

    This deceptive method of communication has a long standing tradition in both American and English societies. It fact, it is deeply rooted in every facet of law, political discourse, and diplomacy. A very good illustration, that which is largely followed by American politicians, can be found in the The Prince, written by the Italian political theorist Nicolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli instructs that in order for a virtuous prince to obtain or secure a principality or state, he must use any means necessary to achieve his ends. He concludes that actions to protect the state are justified even if the means are deemed cruel. He advises such a prince to placate the masses through colorful speech and intentions, but do otherwise behind the scenes so as to not to invite hatred. It has been rumored that this text was Adolf Hitlers bedside companion. If true, one can only imagine how literal he took the doctrine. While taking a philosophy class in college, my professor defined diplomacy to mean learning to mask meaning. I raised my hand at once and asked, “do you mean learning how to lie?” He said, “it’s not quite that simple, but ‘yes’, you could look at it that way.” In America, it is not possible to know the true intentions of people. Do not be fooled by their smile, eye contact, gifts and firm handshake. Honesty and trust become transitional traits, to be used to gain an advantage. I believe that when people say this is America, they are rationalizing the Machiavellian method of discourse; which is: do anything to get what you want, even by use of force, so long as you do so in a way that doesn’t invite animosity from an antagonist who thinks of you as a friend and has no knowledge of your true, or likely cruel, intentions.

    Sam
    California

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  2. Sam, what you said is so deep with meaning! I tried to walk through walls so many times. I took people's smiles and apparent kindness as genuine signs that they liked me. I naively open myself and gave them my heart, you know, just like how we do in Africa, but I was heartlessly taken advantage of. That changed my life in America for ever. I hardly trusted people again, hardly wanted to make friends and hardly wanted to even hang out. I supposed I learned to know America the hard way. I don't want to generalize though, there are some good folks out there, but it is a strict minority, like a needle in a haystack.

    It is really hard to summarize America in a few words. But, a friend of mine tried to do that colossal task. He asked me "do you know the American symbol?" I said "no", then he said "it is an Eagle (Hawk?)" He continued saying "do you know what the eagle has to do to feed itself? It raids onto chicken, rodents and other animals. Is that okay? No, but the eagle has to eat to survive. That is America," he said. "You must have the piercing eyes of an eagle and the accuracy of its raids if you want to succeed in America." He concluded. I guess that image is why some people love and hate America all at the same time.

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